The Norwegian Ambassador will be joined by Dr. Walt Meier, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Dr. Ellen Douglas, a hydrologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Rounding out the panel will be Rafe Pomerance, Senior Advisor with the nonprofit Clean Air–Cool Planet and a founder of the Climate Policy Center.
The scientists will discuss the latest understanding of climate change, its impacts on the Arctic and the implications for Virginia. In 2008, a bipartisan Virginia Commission on Climate Change found that rising sea levels as a result of melting ice in the Polar Regions could inundate roads, submerge beaches and threaten homes in coastal Virginia before the end of the century.
As an Arctic nation Norway has an acute interest in the economic and cultural implications of climate change.