“Human impact or natural variability? The conundrum of climatic change” - Emeritus Professor Martin Williams University of Adelaide
Thursday 5th September 2024 at 6.30 pm
5.30 pm for wine tasting, drinks and nibbles
Mawson Lecture Theatre, North Terrace Campus, University of Adelaide
For more information email: mario.werner@sa.gov.au
This special meeting is hosted jointly by the Field Geology Club of South Australia, the Royal
Society of South Australia and the Geological Society of Australia (SA Div.)
Climate change is the subject of a great deal of discussion, some of it neither well informed nor constructive. There is a need for dispassionate debate and for information that allows the
individual to make a considered judgement. Such information needs to be accurate, up-to-date, and easy to grasp. These requirements provide the context for this talk.
The prolonged drought that afflicted much of northern Africa during the 1960s and 1970s caused enormous loss of life. Among the questions that were hotly debated at that time and ever since was the thorny issue of human impact versus climate change as agents of desertification. Could the cumulative effects of over-grazing and over-cultivation really cause a change in climate, resulting in prolonged drought?
Distinguishing between human impact and natural variability is far from easy and has often
generated more heat than light. The first aim of this talk is to describe some of the factors that
control global climatic fluctuations at different scales in time and place. The second aim is to
examine some of the ways in which human actions have influenced our climate. The talk
concludes by noting some of the key issues about which we remain ignorant.
The speaker
Martin Williams has always been fascinated by climatic change. He has worked with international teams of archaeologists and geologists reconstructing prehistoric environments and past climatic fluctuations in some of the remoter parts of Africa, Asia, and Australia. For several decades Martin was directly involved in providing practical training and policy advice about land degradation in the drylands of Australia, Africa, and Asia.
During 1986-1992 he was Convenor of the Victorian Branch of the Land Degradation Study
Group of the Soil and Water Conservation Association of Australia and during 1994-1998 he was Presiding Officer of the Natural Resources Council of South Australia.
In early 1993 the Directors of the United Nations Environment Programme and of the World
Meteorological Organisation invited him to prepare a detailed scientific assessment of Interactions of Desertification and Climate. The purpose was to provide a peer-reviewed scientific foundation for the negotiations that led to the 1993 United Nations International Convention to Combat Desertification. The report was later published as a book by Arnold, London.
His more recent books include Climate Change in Deserts: Past, Present and Future (Cambridge UP, 2014, 629 pp.), Nile Waters and Saharan Sands (Springer, 2016, 255 pp.), The Nile Basin: Quaternary Geology, Geomorphology and Prehistoric Environments (Cambridge UP, 2019, 405 pp.), and When the Sahara was Green: How our greatest desert came to be (Princeton UP, 2021, 222 pp.). He holds a PhD degree from the Australian National University and an ScD degree from the University of Cambridge. He is Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor in Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
