Open lecture on global climate change of the Nobel Laureate Terry Callaghan was held in Chemal

12 July 2019 Department of Information and Media Communications
On July 10, a unique event uniting the participants of three international scientific schools took place on the territory of Chemal Training Base of Altai State University – an open lecture by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2007, Honored Research Professor and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Professor at the University of Sheffield (UK) Terry Callaghan.

In 2007, Terry Callaghan, as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for studying the effects of global climate change caused by human activity, and developing measures for their possible prevention. The main part of his open lecture was devoted to the topic of global climate change.

“Providing specific examples and using the results of scientific observations, Terry Callaghan spoke about the serious climate changes occurring on our planet. These processes occur much faster in the Northern Hemisphere, in Siberia and the Arctic than in other parts of the world. All this will soon lead to significant changes. At the same time, he spoke more about the consequences that these climate changes will bring with respect to biodiversity, geopolitics, etc., than about climatology. The topic of increasing frequency of dangerous hydrometeorological phenomena throughout the world, such as hurricanes and floods, was also discussed. The subject of a significant change in the conditions of economic management in the Arctic, associated with global warming, was also touched upon. This applies to mining, the opening of new transport corridors and, in particular, the shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. As a whole, this will have a great impact on all processes in the world, including the political ones,” Roman I. Raikin, Vice-Rector for International Affairs Development of ASU, said.

“Terry showed that the main attribute of climate warming is not so much a rise in air temperature, although this is also a steady trend, as a sharp increase in the number of extreme events – weather and nature activity, which causes enormous damage to a person,” Director of the Center for Research of Biota, Climate and Landscapes “BioClimLand” at Tomsk State University, Doctor of Biology, Professor Sergey N. Kirpotin. “During the lecture, Professor Callaghan first drew attention to the fact that in the future we can literally expect a wave of climate refugees. Now Europe cannot cope with the influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. But this is only a small stream compared to the millions of refugees that will arise due to climate change, due to the water shortage. Nobody thinks about it yet, but if we want well-being in our life, we need to prepare for it.”

In the course of the open lecture, Terry Callaghan was asked many questions concerning the behavior of the scientific community in changing conditions, its consolidation, response options, etc.

Participants of three international summer schools attended the joint scientific session: Altai Flora and Aktru 2019, dedicated to various areas of life and Earth science, as well as the II Russian-Chinese Archaeological School with the participation of lecturers, students and applicants of Nanjing University (China).

It is to be recalled that the organizers of AKTRU-2019 International Symposium are Tomsk State University, Altai State University, Gorno-Altaisk State University and Arizona State University (USA).

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