Anders Ekström: "What's Left for Glaciology? or, How We Remember What We Know About Anthropogenic Climate Change”

ABSTRACT:

Glaciologists are currently calculating when their objects of study will become extinct. In this talk, I will outline the development of modern climate knowledge in the context of late nineteenth century natural history and field science in northern Scandinavia, with a particular focus on the establishment of reference glaciers and research stations for studies of Arctic warming. I will discuss the grounded ways of knowing anthropogenic climate change that grew out of these environments, and the intermediary life of glaciers as cultural and natural objects in studying and communicating climate knowledge. Moving to the present, the talk will describe how glaciologists are increasingly preoccupied with their own scientific heritage, engaging with historical and anticipatory temporalities of loss and extinction that used to be closer to the humanities and cultural sciences. In the conclusion, I briefly reflect on the prospects of searching for new proxies of climate change with the potential of travelling across disciplinary boundaries in rapidly changing Arctic landscapes and local communities.