News from campus and beyond

Zachos of UC California Santa Cruz speaks about climate change Jan. 25

|

Last updated January 12, 2018

By Tina Underwood

Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar James Zachos, professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences at University of California Santa Cruz, will speak Thursday, Jan. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in Plyler Hall, Patrick Lecture Hall on the Furman University campus.

His CLP talk, “Greenhouse Warming in Deep Time: Lessons for the Future,” is free and open to the public. Zachos’ visit is hosted by the Furman Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Zachos’ research centers on ocean, climate, and carbon cycle dynamics during the past 65 million years, with a specific focus on periods of extreme warming. The lecture addresses expanding knowledge of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, and explores the implications for the global climate system and how it will respond to rapidly rising greenhouse gas levels. His discussion will examine important lessons as they apply to the burden placed on future civilizations.

Chair of the Earth & Planetary Sciences department at the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, Zachos was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, and is recipient of the 2016 Milutin Milankovic Medal of the European Geosciences Union for outstanding research in long-term climate change.

He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and recipient of the Emiliani Award for scientific contributions to the understanding of past oceans and climates. He is also a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and the California Academy of Sciences.

Zachos holds a doctorate from the University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography, a master’s from the University of South Carolina, and a bachelor’s from the State University of New York, College at Oneonta.

Since 1956, the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Visiting Scholar Program has offered undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars. The purpose of the program is to contribute to the intellectual life of the institution by making possible an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students.

Zachos is among the 15 men and women participating in the 2017-2018 Visiting Scholar Program. In total, they will visit 110 colleges and universities with chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, spending two days on each campus and taking full part in the academic life of the institution.

Founded in 1776, the Phi Beta Kappa Society is the nation’s most prestigious academic honor society. Its mission is to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, to recognize academic excellence, and to foster freedom of thought and expression.

For more information, contact Furman’s News and Media Relations office at 864-294-3107.

Contact Us
Clinton Colmenares
Director of News and Media Strategy