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Environment Institute
The University of Adelaide
SA 5005 Australia

environment@adelaide.edu.au
Phone: +61 8 8313 0543
Phone: +61 8 8303 3670

Climate Futures Seminar Series 1

Australia's climate history and the carbon cycle

4 March, 5.00-7.00pm, Horace Lamb Lecture Theatre
Convened by Doctor Ronald Smernik

Professor Bob Hill
Executive Dean
Faculty of Sciences, University of Adelaide

During the past 60 million years the Australian continent has moved through more than 30 degrees of latitude undergoing massive environmental change. While Australia was once covered in a form of diverse rainforest this has given way to the current arid-dominated landscape we see today. This climate change is recorded in the plant fossil record, and Bob discusses how reconstructing this history can teach us many valuable lessons about the future of global climate change.

Doctor Ronald Smernik
Research Fellow
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide

Human activity, especially the use of fossil fuels, has increased CO2 levels by 35 per cent since 1750, with over half of this increase occurring in the past 50 years. Global warming has been the result. In this session, Ron discusses the main carbon pools and the links between them. In doing so, he identifies potential climate change 'feedbacks' that either buffer or amplify change, and also some potential mitigation strategies for decreasing atmospheric CO2.