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Two of the world's leading experts on melting polar ice will speak at a symposium on the impacts of sea-level rise on the New Hampshire seacoast. Commissioner Thomas Burack of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services will also be speaking at the event.
Clean Air-Cool Planet and the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve co-host the event at Ashworth by the Sea, Thursday, Oct. 29.The presentations are part of the "Hip-Boot Tour" of East Coast cities organized by Clean Air-Cool Planet. This NH-based nonprofit is dedicated to solving the global warming problem, to explain why ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is melting and how one meter or more of sea level rise will affect the cities. Hip boots will be employed to help demonstrate where the new water level would be from a meter of sea-level rise.The presentation will include animations, available on broadcast-ready B-rolls, reflecting the newest, most detailed current research on the potential effects of sea level rise. High-resolution inundation maps will be available for media. Hip boots will be available for reporters on Hampton Beach, which will be affected by higher sea level.
WHAT: Presentation from leading climate scientists on polar ice melt and what one meter or more of sea level rise would mean to Portland, with the most detailed maps and projections available.
The scientists, Dr. Gordon Hamilton, a research professor at The University of Maine, and Dr. Mark Fahnestock of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire, are active in current research on the rapid decline of the Greenland ice sheet.
Rafe Pomerance, president of Clean Air - Cool Planet, will discuss the available public policy solutions to global warming and the need to begin employing adaptive strategies to deal with the climate change from warming already underway.
Visual demonstrations - using a simple Hula Hoop festooned with blue Mylar and marking 1 meter SLR on hip-boots – will be offered for the camera – offering a graphic illustration of the difference between previous forecasts for sea level rise by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (below the knees) and the new estimates for this century (chest to chin).