2024
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
University of Manitoba researcher discovers climate change warnings in polar ice
2024
University of Manitoba researcher discovers climate change warnings in polar ice
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Arctic Ice, Freshwater-Marine Coupling and Climate Change at the University of Manitoba, has won the prestigious BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the climate change category. Dr. Dahl-Jensen is one of five winners of the 2024award, recognized for their discovery of the link between greenhouse gases (GHG) and rising global temperatures through their analysis of ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica.
The scientists examined concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) trapped within layers of polar ice over time. Dr. Dahl-Jensen says the research is “fundamentally significant to the sustainability of our global climate.”
“I found that, even though we had warm periods over the last 800,000 years, CO2 concentrations were never as high as they are today,” she says. “These findings signify the potential impacts of escalating temperatures and rising sea levels if measures are not taken to further reduce GHG emissions.”
The award committee says their work “required scientific, technical and logical breakthroughs in many areas to measure greenhouse gas concentrations,” and “has built upon sustained international collaborative efforts by generations of researchers.”
Bjorn Stevens, award committee chair, notes that the “main message from the ice sheets is that CO2 and temperature are tightly coupled; that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today is without precedent in the last 800,000 years. And this has profound implications for how our planet will evolve over the coming decades and centuries.”
