[Classifieds] [classifieds] WHRC Lecture: 24 October, 5:30 pm

[MBL Classifieds]

From: "Allison White" <abwhite at whrc.org> 

The Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) will hold the third and final lecture of its Environmental Tipping Points series on Thursday, October 24, at 5:30 pm, when WHRC Senior Scientist Michael T. Coe will present Food for Thought: Balancing Agriculture, Forests, and Climate . Dr. Coe will discuss deforestation in the Amazon and how it can lead to radical climate shifts that will affect forests, crops, and hydropower. 


Dr. Coe is an earth system scientist who specializes in understanding how human land cover change and land management decisions affect the energy and water cycles, and ultimately feedback to regional climate. He is currently participating in projects based in the Brazilian Amazon and savanna environments. He leads field research programs to collect data on how expanding agriculture changes evaporation, soil moisture, river discharge, and biochemical cycles. He and his colleagues combine field data with satellite observations and earth system computer models to better understand the scale of historical and potential future human impacts on tropical climate and ecosystems and help develop mitigation strategies. 

Dr. Coe was co-author of a study released last May that suggests large-scale deforestation in the Amazon could backfire for the country's cattle ranchers and soybean growers, reducing precipitation and increasing temperatures to the point that production falls way behind normal for the amount of land cleared. “The whole point of the deforesting is so that you can get agricultural production out of it,” remarked Dr. Coe. “It surprised us that it reduced yields so much that in fact you might as well not have done the deforestation in the first place.” 

In 2014, Dr. Coe will be in residence as a Fulbright Scholar at the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil, continuing his work with colleagues there to understand how massive deforestation in the savanna regions of Brazil may affect the climate in the coming decades. 

Prior to working at WHRC, Dr. Coe was a scientist at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has been a visiting scientist at Lund University, Sweden, and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany. 

The lecture will take place at 5:30 pm in WHRC’s Harbourton Auditorium, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, MA. There is no charge and the public is invited to attend. Parking and seating are limited, however, and reservations are highly recommended. To reserve, email events at whrc.org or call 508-444-1517 . 

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Contact: 
Beth Bagley 
ebagley at whrc.org 
508-444-1517 





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