Lecture Details
Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 17:00
Durham University Teaching and Learning Centre, Room TLC033
South Rd, Durham DH1 3LS, United Kingdom
Refreshments served following the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Terry V Callaghan CMG, Sheffield University
Register here (free event)
Lecture Summary
"The Arctic is currently experiencing huge international attention because of geopolitics, valuable resources, threats to biodiversity and climate change that affects all these issues. When I started my career 58 years ago, the Arctic was obscure and exotic with few interested in it. However, the International Biological Program (IBP) Tundra Biome Project was established to analyse vegetation and measure productivity and production processes of Arctic ecosystems.
Bill Heal played a major role in the IBP and supported my novel research into plant population dynamics. He became my boss and we worked together for more than two decades. My talk is a tribute to Bill Heal, and focuses on a currently under-studied area that could potentially have global consequences as it changes.
The talk takes you on a journey throughout Siberia from the Arctic Ocean’s coast and islands in the north, to the Altai mountains and desert on the borders of Mongolia in the south. This vast area is extremely diverse geographically and biologically and also supports a wealth of Indigenous cultures. In the talk, I will explore the changes that are taking place in the various landscapes and their impacts on Indigenous and local people. Some of the ecological responses to climate change and the increasing exploitability of Arctic resources are likely to impact the global population through feedbacks to the earth system.
Sadly, I am not equipped to offer solutions to the numerous challenges, but I will explain how I work with science diplomacy to ensure that we have the best available data to understand how the whole of the Arctic will change this century." -- Professor Terry V Callaghan CMG
Enquiries: Please contact Bob Baxter: robert.baxter@durham.ac.uk