Peter Wadhams

Peter Wadhams
Born (1939-12-22) 22 December 1939 (age 85)
Known for
AwardsItalgas Prize for Environmental Sciences (1990)
Polar Medal (1987)
W S Bruce Medal (Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1977)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge

Peter Wadhams ScD (born 14 May 1948) is emeritus[1] professor of Ocean Physics, and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. He is best known for his work on sea ice.

Career

Wadhams has been the leader of 40 polar field expeditions.[2]

Wadhams advocates for the use of climate engineering to mitigate climate change.[3]

Attempting to estimate when the Arctic Ocean will be "ice-free", Wadhams in 2014 predicted that by 2020 "summer sea ice to disappear,"[4][5] Wadhams and several others have noted that climate model predictions have been overly conservative regarding sea ice decline.[6]

In 2021, Wadhams is the Chairman of Science Committee for Extreme E.[7]

Honours and awards

  • 1977 W. S. Bruce Medal for his oceanographic investigations, especially in studying the behaviour of pack ice near Spitsbergen, the North Pole and off east Greenland[8]
  • 1987 Polar Medal
  • 1990 Italgas Prize for Environmental Sciences

See also

References

  1. ^ "Research | Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics".
  2. ^ "Professor Peter Wadhams". Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge). Archived from the original on 8 December 2017. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
  3. ^ "Geoengineering May Be Our Best Chance to Save Sea Ice". Scientific American. Nature America. 13 November 2012. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1212-12. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
  4. ^ Craig Medred (2 November 2014). "Expert predicts ice-free Arctic by 2020 as UN releases climate report". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved 9 January 2021. "By 2020, one would expect the summer sea ice to disappear. By summer, we mean September. ... (but) not many years after, the neighboring months would also become ice-free." Wadhams later clarified that by "ice-free" he did not exactly mean the Arctic was going to look like the Baltic Sea in summer.
  5. ^ Sarah Knapton (8 October 2016). "Experts said Arctic sea ice would melt entirely by September 2016 - they were wrong". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 January 2021. Prof Wadhams, a leading expert on Arctic sea ice loss, has recently published a book entitled A Farewell To Ice in which he repeats the assertion that the polar region would free of ice in the middle of this decade..
  6. ^ Overland, J. E.; Wang, M. (2013). "When will the summer Arctic be nearly sea ice free?". Geophysical Research Letters. 40 (10): 2097. Bibcode:2013GeoRL..40.2097O. doi:10.1002/grl.50316. S2CID 129474241.
  7. ^ "Extreme e - the Electric Odyssey".
  8. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)