Climate Change Lecture & Panel Discussion
April 16 and 17, 2008
City Campus Union

Dr. David Easterling

Global warming, one of the defining issues of our day, is the focus of the University Libraries 2008 Visiting Scholar Program. Dr. David Easterling, an internationally recognized expert on climate change, will participate in two events designed to shed light on this complex and divisive topic. A researcher and Chief of Scientific Services at the National Climatic Data Center, Easterling was a Lead Author for Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared with Al Gore the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Dr. Easterling will present a lecture on "Evidence of Climate Change" based on both observation and modeling Wednesday, April 16 at 2:00 PM in the City Campus Union.

Dr Easterling will also participate in a panel discussion of "Climate Change and the Great Plains" on Thursday, April 17 at 2:00 PM in the City Campus Union, along with three UNL climate experts: Dr. Sherilyn Fritz, Dr. Michael Hayes and Dr.Kenneth Hubbard. It will moderated by Bob Bolin, University Libraries, and will be followed by a reception.

These events are free and open to the public. They are co-sponsored by the the Department of Geosciences, the High Plains Regional Climate Center, and the National Drought Mitigation Center, with support from the Convocations Committee.

Dr. Sherilyn Fritz

Sheri Fritz
Cather Professor in the Depts of Geosciences & Biosciences.

Interests: Paleoclimatology, Quaternary environments, Limnology, Climate change and variability, Micropaleontology.

36 of her articles are freely available online on the UNL Libraries Digital Commons.

The following articles articles are available online for current UNL students, faculty & staff only.
Evaluating climatic and non-climatic influences on ion chemistry in natural and man-made lakes of Nebraska, USA.

Using Direct-push Methods for Aquifer Characterization in Dune-lake Environments of The Nebraska Sand Hills

The Great American Desert - A long-term perspective on drought history in the Great Plains.

Dr. Michael Hayes

Michael Hayes
Director of the National Drought Mitigation Center

Dr. Hayes research at the NDMC has centered on drought monitoring, impact assesment, and planning methodologies. He has assisted local, state, tribal, and federal officials with drought planning and mitigation. Dr. Hayes's CV

Sample articles that are available online for current UNL students, faculty & staff:
Discovering associations between climatic and oceanic parameters to monitor drought in Nebraska using data-mining techniques

Understanding Farmers Forecast Use from Their Beliefs, Values, Social Norms, and Perceived Obstacles.
(Fellow panelist Kenneth Hubbard also participated in this.)

Dr. Kenneth Hubbard

Kenneth Hubbard
Professor at the School of Natural Resources and Director of the High Plains Regional Climate Center (HPRCC).

Dr. Hubbard is currently working on research projects that deal with comparing the performance of relative-humidity sensors; the quality control of climate data; distributed computing for climate services; the density of stations for long-term climate monitoring; the impact of land use on climate; and the effect of soil-water balance on climate.

One of his articles is freely available online on the UNL Libraries Digital Commons.

The following articles articles are available online for current UNL students, faculty & staff only.
Relationship between soil moisture of near surface and multiple depths of the root zone under heterogeneous land uses and varying hydroclimatic conditions

Performance of Quality Assurance Procedures on Daily Precipitation