A Clintel/ICSF Zoom lecture held on Wednesday, Oct 26, 2022
In this lecture, Professor Yim will focusses on his area of speciality, namely terrestrial and submarine volcanoes, demonstrating how these profoundly impact natural climate variability. He shows that satellites since the late 1970s and ARGO ocean operational floats since the early 2000s are providing precise observational records of terrestrial and submarine volcanic eruptions. His research has identified climatic impacts which include both cooling and warming, extreme rainfall variability, frontal activity storms, hot blobs beneath the ocean surface, polar sea ice trends and the long-lasting and strong 2014-2016 ENSO. In this lecture, the climatic impacts of selected volcanic eruptions from 2010 to the present are used as illustration. Based on the timing of volcanic eruptions, these impacts cannot possibly have been caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide, as claimed by the IPCC. Studies on the release of geothermal heat from volcanism, which is underestimated at present and ignored by the IPCC, should improve our understanding on the real causes of climate change.
Professor Wyss Yim, DSc London, PhD Tasmania, DIC, FGS, FHKMetS, spent 35 years until retirement at the University of Hong Kong where he taught civil engineering, geosciences and environmental management and helped found the University’s Department of Earth Sciences. At a global level, he was Leader of the International Geological Correlation Programme Project No. 396 Continental Shelves in the Quaternary 1996-2000, Chairman of the Continental Shelf Working Group of the International Union for Quaternary Research 1999-2003, Deputy Chairman of the Climate Change Science Implementation Team of UNESCO’s International Year of Planet Earth 2007- 2009 and currently Science Advisor of the Association for Geoconservation, Hong Kong. In retirement he is continuing his research studies on the impacts of volcanism on climate change, as evidenced on observation records.
