Speaker:
Amy East
Research Geologist, USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA
Talk title:
Understanding physical landscape effects of climate change: how much do we know, and what are we doing about it?
Burned hillslope after a wildfire in California. Photo: Amy East.
Talk Abstract:
Today, climate change is affecting virtually all terrestrial and nearshore settings. How well do we understand the physical landscape effects, and how have planning and economic sectors responded so far? This presentation will discuss the challenges of identifying and measuring climate-driven physical landscape responses to modern warming and its associated hydrologic shifts. Despite the challenges, the scientific community has important opportunities to learn from historical and paleo data, to select especially informative study sites, and to learn also from studies producing null results. Fortunately, our knowledge base in these subjects is growing rapidly, leading to substantial progress in protecting communities physically and financially. Knowing that climate-driven sedimentary and geomorphic changes influence human health and safety, infrastructure, water–food–energy security, and economies, we will examine examples of how those effects are being incorporated into planning and design today.
Glacier in south-central Alaska. Photo: Amy East.
Speaker Bio:
Amy East is Research Geologist with the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, CA. She studies how landscapes change over time, focusing on response to hydroclimatic and anthropogenic disturbances. These studies inform resource management as well as fundamental understanding of earth-surface processes. She is also interested in how sediment moves from source to sink, and how the sedimentary record reflects changes in sediment supply and transport.
This is hybrid event hosted in Geog 229 and on zoom.
