Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 10 hours ago
RSNSW Provocations and Inspirations: 15 April 2025
“Extreme Earth: Antarctica’s climate warning for the future and what we can all do about it”
Professor Chris Turney FRSN FRSA FRMetS
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research)
University of Technology Sydney
https://www.royalsoc.org.au/events/lunchtime-series-provocations-and-inspirations-april-2025/
Summary: Antarctica is the planet’s barometer for understanding the impacts of global heating. In this talk, Chris will explore how the vast southern ice sheets serve as both witness and harbinger of our planet’s changing climate. By exploring ice core data spanning thousands of years, glacial retreat and shifting marine ecosystems, we can decode the story of the Earth’s past and gain insights into our possible futures. Chris will highlight recent research expeditions that have revealed the worrying acceleration in ice mass loss, rising sea level and temperatures, and the implications for communities across Australia and worldwide. But in this most extreme of environments, there is also hope. Not just as a warning of what might come to be but how this vast region might help avert the worst impacts of a changing climate… and what we can all do to take action, today.
Professor Chris Turney is an internationally recognised climate and Earth scientist at the University of Technology Sydney. A former Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Chris has pioneered the development of new records of climate, environmental and carbon-cycle changes from the tropics to the poles. By extending instrumental observations in remote and extreme environments back over millennia, his work has plugged key knowledge gaps around the world to reveal new insights into the Earth system and modes of variability, helping identify tipping points and future impacts. Passionate about accelerating the transition to “net-zero” carbon emissions, Turney is leading the development and deployment of Australian technologies and ideas globally at speed and scale. To help make this a reality, Chris was a Founding Director, Inventor and Scientific Advisor to the New Zealand-based cleantech company CarbonScape which has developed technology to covert plant material into locally-produced, sustainable, carbon-negative bioengineered graphite for lithium-ion batteries (www.carbonscape.com). He is also a Non-Executive Director of Cicada Innovations, Australia’s leading incubator of deep tech ventures, and the NSW Government’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA). Chris is also the podcast host for ‘Unf*cking the Future’ with Imagine Entertainment, exploring the sobering climate reality our planet faces today and the common–sense solutions that can be implemented now to save it.
RSNSW Provocations and Inspirations: 15 April 2025
“Extreme Earth: Antarctica’s climate warning for the future and what we can all do about it”
Professor Chris Turney FRSN FRSA FRMetS
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research)
University of Technology Sydney
https://www.royalsoc.org.au/events/lunchtime-series-provocations-and-inspirations-april-2025/
Summary: Antarctica is the planet’s barometer for understanding the impacts of global heating. In this talk, Chris will explore how the vast southern ice sheets serve as both witness and harbinger of our planet’s changing climate. By exploring ice core data spanning thousands of years, glacial retreat and shifting marine ecosystems, we can decode the story of the Earth’s past and gain insights into our possible futures. Chris will highlight recent research expeditions that have revealed the worrying acceleration in ice mass loss, rising sea level and temperatures, and the implications for communities across Australia and worldwide. But in this most extreme of environments, there is also hope. Not just as a warning of what might come to be but how this vast region might help avert the worst impacts of a changing climate… and what we can all do to take action, today.
Professor Chris Turney is an internationally recognised climate and Earth scientist at the University of Technology Sydney. A former Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Chris has pioneered the development of new records of climate, environmental and carbon-cycle changes from the tropics to the poles. By extending instrumental observations in remote and extreme environments back over millennia, his work has plugged key knowledge gaps around the world to reveal new insights into the Earth system and modes of variability, helping identify tipping points and future impacts. Passionate about accelerating the transition to “net-zero” carbon emissions, Turney is leading the development and deployment of Australian technologies and ideas globally at speed and scale. To help make this a reality, Chris was a Founding Director, Inventor and Scientific Advisor to the New Zealand-based cleantech company CarbonScape which has developed technology to covert plant material into locally-produced, sustainable, carbon-negative bioengineered graphite for lithium-ion batteries (www.carbonscape.com). He is also a Non-Executive Director of Cicada Innovations, Australia’s leading incubator of deep tech ventures, and the NSW Government’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA). Chris is also the podcast host for ‘Unf*cking the Future’ with Imagine Entertainment, exploring the sobering climate reality our planet faces today and the common–sense solutions that can be implemented now to save it.
