290347 SE Seminar: Geomorphology and Global Environment Change (2010S)

The purpose of the seminar is to introduce the students to that section
of the 4th Assessment of the IPCC (2007) which deals with the causes of
sea level rise under global warming. The individual components of sea
level rise are thermal expansion of sea water, Antarctic ice sheet melt,
Greenland ice sheet melt and melt of valley glaciers and small ice caps
in the temperate and tropical mountains. The problem is of interest,
because intuitively it would seem that the most important cause of sea
level rise would come from changes in the volume of the polar ice sheet.
Recent evidence suggests that over the past few decades mountain valley
glaciers and ice caps have contributed significantly more than the ice
sheets. By examining the IPCC data, students will learn about error
analysis and the analysis of primary data.