ORFE/PACM COLLOQUIUM:Kenneth Golden,Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah

*This event is in-person and open only to Princeton University ID holders*

JOINT ORFE / PACM COLLOQUIUM

On Thinning Ice: Modeling Sea Ice in a Warming Climate

Abstract: Polar sea ice is a critical component of Earth’s climate system. As a material it exhibits complex composite structure on length scales ranging over 10 orders of magnitude. A principal challenge in modeling sea ice and its role in climate is how to use information on small scale structure to find the effective properties on larger scales relevant to coarse-grained climate models and process studies. That is, how do you predict macroscopic behavior from microscopic laws? Also of interest is the inverse problem of recovering parameters controlling small scale processes from large scale observations. We’ll discuss recent results, inspired by statistical physics and homogenization for composite materials, on fluid and electromagnetic transport through the brine and polycrystalline microstructure of sea ice, advection diffusion processes, waves on ice-covered seas, and the fractal geometry of ponds on melting Arctic sea ice. We will also discuss how the microstructure of sea ice influences, and is influenced by, microbial communities living in the ice.

^{Bio: Kenneth M. Golden is a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah. His research is driven by interests in sea ice, the climate system, composite materials, statistical physics, polar ecology and remote sensing. He has published papers in a wide range of journals in mathematics, science and engineering, been on eighteen polar expeditions to study sea ice, and given over 500 invited lectures on six continents, including three presentations in the U.S. Congress. Golden is an award winning teacher and research mentor to over 90 young investigators, from high school students and undergraduates in majors across science and engineering to mathematics graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. His work has been covered by media around the world, including profiles in Science, Scientific American, Physics Today, and a BBC series, with numerous interviews on radio, television, and the internet. Golden is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, cited for “extraordinary interdisciplinary work on the mathematics of sea ice,” an Inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and a Fellow of the Explorers Club, whose members have included Neil Armstrong, Sir Edmund Hillary, Robert Peary, and Jane Goodall.}