KU News Release

NASA researcher to talk at KU about global warming

James E. Hansen

LAWRENCE — NASA administrator and researcher James E. Hansen will visit the University of Kansas to talk about global warming. Hansen will present “Threat to the Planet: Dark and Bright Sides of Global Warming” at 3 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22, at the Spahr Engineering Classroom in Eaton Hall.

His speech at KU, which is free and open to the public, will focus on Earth’s energy balance and what must be done — including the prompt phase-out coal emissions — to stabilize the climate.

Hansen heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center, Earth Sciences Division. He also is an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. Hansen is best known for his climatology research and his testimony on climate change before congressional committees in the 1980s. He is one of the leading scientists who maintain that global warming is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels and the increase of greenhouse gases. His efforts helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and in 2006 was listed as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.

The event is sponsored by the National Science Foundation Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, headquartered at KU. The multi-institutional center is charged with developing new technologies and computer models to measure and predict the changes in polar ice sheets and their role in global climate change.

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