Dr. Richard Alley will present his groundbreaking research on ice cores and Earth’s climate history, offering insight into how scientists understand past climate change and what that history tells us about the present. By studying records preserved deep within glaciers, Dr. Alley explains that while climate has always changed naturally, those changes have had profound impacts on life on Earth. Comparing past shifts in carbon dioxide to today’s conditions shows that current climate change is overwhelmingly driven by human activity, and scientific models accurately reflect the scale of the challenge we face.

Dr. Alley, a Penn State professor since 1988, is an internationally recognized climate scientist whose honors include election to the U.S. National Academy Presentation co-sponsored by the of Sciences, The Royal Society, and receipt of the U.S. National Medal of Science. He has contributed to the Nobel Peace Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, hosted the PBS series Earth: The Operators’ Manual, and authored award‑winning books that make climate science accessible to the public.

This program is free and open to the public.