Science Cafe: High-tech in Greenland - glimpse the future of the Greenland ice sheet

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The Swansea Science Cafe offers opportunities for anyone to find out more about new, exciting and topical areas of science in an informal and entertaining way.

Title: High-tech in Greenland: glimpse the future of the Greenland ice sheet

Speaker: Professor Tavi Murray of Swansea University’s Glaciology Group.

Date: Wednesday 26th March 2014

Time: 7:30pm

Venue: The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea

Admission: Free, all welcome

Mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is mainly controlled by iceberg calving, where the ice sheet is in contact with ocean waters. In this talk, Professor Murray will talk about recent changes in Greenland, as well as some of the results from a major Swansea project that aims to understand the processes of iceberg calving.

During the project a wireless network of GPS sensors was installed at the margin of a tidewater glacier: the sensors provided data every few second right up to the point of iceberg calving. The data were transmitted back to base stations positioned on rock at each side of the glacier.

Some 20 sensors covered an area about of ~16 square kilometres of Helheim Glacier in south-east Greenland. The network provided high quality velocity and elevation data of unprecedented detail for the key marginal area of the glacier, and show new information about how icebergs calve. In this lecture Professor Murray also will show some of the inspirational beauty of Greenland's landscapes.

Contact details: http://swansea.ac.uk/science/swanseasciencecafe/

About Science Cafe Wales

Each month, a leading expert in their field will give a brief introductory talk followed by a friendly informal chat. You can sit back, relax with a drink and listen or get involved in the discussion and debate. The Science Café organisers are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable.

Science Café Wales are held in casual settings in Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor. They are informal and accessible and entrance is entirely free. They usually start with a short talk from the speaker, usually a scientist or writer, followed by a quick break and then an hour or so of discussion afterwards.

Previous topics have included dark matter, the common cold, Dr Who, the Big Bang and alternative therapies.

The first Cafes Scientifiques in the UK were held in Leeds in 1998. From there cafés gradually spread across the country.

Currently, some 40 or so cafés meet regularly to hear scientists or writers on science talk about their work and discuss it with diverse audiences.