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Celebrating the 75^th Anniversary of a New Hampshire Legend

The Mount Washington Symposium for Air & Climate reaches its peak with a gala dinner celebration commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Mount Washington Observatory.

Saturday evening's festivities start with a cocktail reception in the Mount Washington Resort's stunning Conservatory, with sweeping views of the Presidential Range from the verandah.

The dinner takes place in the Hotel's famous Grand Ballroom, an elegant and appropriate venue for such a special evening. After dinner, there will be short presentations by a number of speakers, culminating with a presentation by acclaimed climber and author Mark Bowen, followed by live music and dancing with the group "The Attractions".

Bowen's presentation is entitled "Climate Change from the Mountains to the Sea" and looks at the high-altitude ice-core work of climatologist Lonnie Thompson and the startling evidence of climate change and ice sheet collapse in the mountain environment.

Dinner Speaker: Mark Bowen

In a career that has spanned more than three decades, climatologist Lonnie Thompson has pioneered the science and the art of ice core drilling on high mountain glaciers. His techniques have always been public knowledge, yet he remains essentially the only practitioner of this unusual art.

In reporting for his first book, Thin Ice, author Mark Bowen joined Thompson on three expeditions to the high mountains of South America and Africa. He will tell some stories from those expeditions and others from the more than forty major expeditions that Thompson has undertaken over the decades. He will also present vivid evidence of the dramatic changes Thompson and others have observed in the mountain environment as a result of anthropogenic, that is, human-induced, global warming. The physics of glacial melting bears directly on the question of "dangerous anthropogenic interference," the amount of warming that would lead to dangerous consequences for society; for sea level would rise many tens of meters if the polar ice sheets were to collapse.

According to Bowen, NASA climatologist James Hansen, whom the Bush administration attempted to censor at the beginning of 2006, has contributed as much as anyone to the current thinking about dangerous anthropogenic interference and what we can do to avoid it. Bowen is about to publish a book that he has written with the cooperation of Dr. Hansen. He will discuss the latest thinking on ice sheet collapse and touch briefly upon the politics of climate and the latest news, as well as Hansen's surprisingly optimistic view of the chances for solving the global warming problem.

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Don't miss this event, the largest in the Observatory's rich 75-year history!

Tickets: (800) 706-0432, ext. 206     |     Lodging: (800) 258-0330

Registration closes August 31st – Please Register NOW!

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