April 21, 22: Mathematics and sea ice
Utah's Golden to present Rees Colloquium lectures on math, sea ice
8:31 a.m., April 21, 2016--Kenneth M. Golden of the University of Utah will present lectures on mathematics and sea ice on Thursday, April 21, and Friday, April 22, as part of the Carl J. Rees Colloquium sponsored by the University of Delaware’s Department of Mathematical Sciences.
Golden will speak from 3:30-4:40 p.m. in 116 Gore Hall on both days.
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The April 21 talk is titled “Modeling the Melt: What Math Tells Us About the Shrinking Polar Ice Caps.”
Golden will explore the mathematical underpinnings of the mystery of the precipitous loss of Arctic sea ice that has far outpaced expert predictions. He will show how mathematical models of composite materials and statistical physics are being used to study key sea ice processes, work that is helping to advance how sea ice is represented in climate models and improve projections of the fate of Earth's ice packs and the polar ecosystems they support.
The April 22 lecture is titled “Homogenization for Sea Ice.” Golden will discuss mathematical models of composite materials and statistical physics that researchers have been using to describe the effective fluid, thermal and electromagnetic transport properties of sea ice, and to address other problems in sea ice physics such as the evolution of melt ponds on the sea ice surface.
Golden is a professor of mathematics and adjunct professor of bioengineering at the University of Utah. His scientific interests lie in sea ice, climate change, composite materials, phase transitions, inverse problems and remote sensing.
He has published papers in mathematics, physics, geophysics, oceanography, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and biomechanics journals, and given over 400 invited lectures on six continents, including three presentations in the U.S. Congress.
Golden has journeyed seven times to Antarctica and ten times to the Arctic to study sea ice. In 2011 he was selected as a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics for "extraordinary interdisciplinary work on the mathematics of sea ice," and in 2013 he was an inaugural fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
In 2014 Golden was elected as a fellow of the Explorers Club. His polar expeditions and mathematical work have been covered in over 40 newspaper, magazine, and web articles, including profiles in Science, Science News and Scientific American.
The colloquium honors the memory of Prof. Rees, who taught at UD from 1920-67. He chaired the mathematics department for 10 years, and for several years served simultaneously as provost and dean of the then-College of Graduate Studies.