Global warming lectures honor ECU professor

GREENVILLE, NC —   A scholar on global warming will visit East Carolina University March 22 to discuss how climate change will affect on North Carolina.

William H. Schlesinger, a professor of biogeochemistry and dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Studies at Duke University, will present “Global Warming in North Carolina: What to Expect and Why, and What to do About It” at 7 p.m., in C307 of the Science and Technology building at ECU.

The lecture is being held in honor of Robert Morrison, a longtime professor of chemistry at ECU, who was named the 2006 distinguished professor in the Harriot College of Arts and Sciences. Morrison, who has organized three lectures on global warming for this series, said he wanted the program to call attention to global warming and climate change.

“We see in the news almost daily some effects of the changing climate ranging from polar bears being endangered, to the tapping for maple syrup in Vermont occurring earlier in the year, to whales foraging further north in the seas north of Alaska,” Morrison said. “The lecture series is an effort to raise our awareness of the changing climate and learn what we can be doing about it.”

Morrison, who was presented with the award in August 2006, arrived at ECU in 1970 and has taught chemistry since 1972. He is a past chair of the faculty and has served on numerous committees and university taskforces.

The first lecture was presented March 9. The third lecture will be given April 19 by Kevin Trenberth, senior analyst at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Trenberth, a major contributing author to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, will present “Global Warming is Unequivocal” at 7 p.m. in C307 of the Science and Technology Building at ECU. Free.