Ice cores

Interview with Lonnie Thompson, Distinguished University Professor at Ohio State University and Senior Scholar at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. Thompson describes the administrative history of the Byrd Center and he surveys his current field work in ice core drilling and the role of theory in his research. He provides his perspective on how humanity should respond to climate change and why natural climate fluctuations do not explain the current climate situation. Thompson recounts his childhood in West Virginia and the opportunities that allowed him to pursue a degree in physics at Marshall University. He discusses his graduate research at Ohio State in geophysics and geology while serving in the Army Reserves, and he describes how he developed the Byrd Center. Thompson describes his field work in China and Russia and the value of drilling across the planet. He discusses his work with Al Gore on An Inconvenient Truth and he conveys his feelings about winning the National Medal of Science. Thompson describes working with his wife Ellen Mosley-Thompson as his closest collaborator and what he has learned about conveying his scientific findings to the public. He reflects on the meaning of environmental heroism and the remaining field work that needs to be done after nearly 50 years of drilling. At the end of the interview, Thompson describes his current interest in finding and preserving biodiversity and why the next frontier for ice core drilling will be on Mars and beyond.

This interview was conducted by Morgan Seag for her graduate research work on the U.S. Antarctic Program at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge.  In this interview, Mosley-Thompson discusses her family background and upbringing in West Virginia, her interest in science from an early age, her decision to study physics in college, and the happenstance manner in which she became involved with the Institute of Polar Studies at the Ohio State University.  Mosley-Thompson describes extracting the climate history of an Antarctic ice core for her Ph.D. and the circumstances leading to her first visit to Antarctica in 1982, and what it was like to be among the first female scientists working in this field.  The interview covers Mosely-Thompson’s subsequent trips to the Antarctic and other locales for field research, and her thoughts on the changing programmatic and research aspects of the field over the past three decades. Mosley-Thompson also discusses her involvement in federally-supported research initiatives and her specialized contributions in data analysis and graphing, while balancing family and research responsibilities with her husband and fellow scientist and Ohio State University professor Lonnie Thompson.  The interview concludes with Mosely-Thompson’s description of her work as Director of the Byrd Center and her ongoing interest in research and teaching.