CCPO Lecture Today on Melt of Polar Ice Shelves

Pierre St-Laurent, a post doctoral researcher with Old Dominion University's Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography, will deliver a lecture Monday, Sept. 19, about the melt of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The talk is in the Fall Seminar Series of CCPO, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

The talk, "On the Role of Coastal Troughs in the Transport of Ocean Heat to Ice Shelves," will begin at 3:30 p.m. at the CCPO's Room 3200 in Innovation Research Park Building 1. The seminar and a reception beginning at 3 p.m. are free and open to the public.

The melt of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is expected to be the main contributor to sea level rise this century if current trends continue. Numerous studies have associated accelerated melting with warm oceanic waters, but how warmer waters are transported to ice shelves is unclear. St-Laurent's talk will focus on how troughs modify the local ocean circulation to become an effective mechanism for heat transport to ice shelves.