Open Lecture: “Sea Level and Paleoclimate Changes over the Last Glacial Cycle” by Edouard Bard (Collège de France)

In his lecture, Professor Bard will explore sea-level variations and paleoclimate changes over the last glacial cycle, highlighting the interactions between ice sheets, oceans, and the global climate system. Drawing on the complementary approaches of paleoclimatology, oceanography, and geology, the talk will place past climate shifts into a broader context to better understand the processes shaping current and future global change.

About the Speaker: Edouard Bard is a renowned French climatologist, Professor of Climate and Ocean Evolution at the Collège de France, and member of the French Academy of Sciences. He has received numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to climate and ocean sciences, including the CNRS Bronze Medal, the AGU Macelwane Medal, the Wegener Medal of the European Geosciences Union, and the Grand Medal of the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco. He is also an elected member of the Academia Europaea, the Royal Belgian Academy, and the US National Academy of Sciences. Edouard is the author of more than 200 articles in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, as well as some thirty popular articles and books intended for the general public, including L'Homme et le climat, Découvertes Gallimard, 2005 and director-author of L'Homme face au climat, Odile Jacob, 2006 and L'Océan, le climat et nous: un équilibre fragile, Le Pommier & Universcience, 2011.

Abstract: To better evaluate and understand the evolution of today's environments, it is necessary to study natural variations on long time scales. Sea level changes can be reconstructed over the past millennia by recovering fossils of biological organisms fixed on ancient submerged coastlines throughout the world ocean. The major climatic transition, which followed the last glacial maximum centered around 21,000 years before the present, led to a tremendous rise of more than 100 meters in the world sea level. The transition was not smooth, but was characterized by abrupt variations of the sea level at rates of several meters per century, which is even faster than the rise predicted for the coming century. The acceleration of sea level rise is due to a complex interplay between ice-sheets, oceans and continents.

📍 The lecture is open to all interested students and staff upon registration (open until 10 Sep 2025 12.00).
☕ Coffee will be served for participants.

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