Did Climate Change Cause Ancient Civilizations to Collapse? 08th IIT Delhi SciTech Spins Lecture to Explain

New Delhi: IIT Delhi scientist Prof. Yama Dixit from the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences will deliver the 08th SciTech Spins lecture titled ‘Learning from the Past – Climate and Civilization Changes’ for school students on April 23, 2022.
The Earth is warming at an unprecedent rate, and it is unknown as to how various climate processes such as monsoon rainfall will change in response to this warming. In the past, Earth has witnessed warmer and colder periods than present. Past history of Earth’s climate can help us better understand the future changes in climate processes in projected warming.
“In this lecture, I will talk about how to reconstruct past climate using chemistry of natural materials like lake and ocean sediments, which store information of past rainfall and temperature variability,” said Prof Yama Dixit, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi.
The speaker will address questions like ‘Rainfall and elemental isotopes: How are they related? Would you believe that Thar desert in Northwest India was once a densely populated region? How can the ocean bed be used as an archive of past climate changes? How are the ‘natural climate experiments’ recorded in lakes and oceans? Could climate change have caused ancient civilizations to collapse? How close are we to a climate catastrophe on this warming Earth?
The talk will be live streamed on the IIT Delhi’s official YouTube channel also (https://youtu.be/4IW4B9t5a0M).
The SciTech Spins lecture series is an academic outreach initiative by IIT Delhi for the school students especially from classes 9th to 12th. The Institute gives e-certificates to all registered students nominated by their respective schools who attend the lecture.
These students will also be invited to ‘Open House’, an annual intellectual fest organised by IIT Delhi, which provides an ideal platform to school students to connect with some of the leading researchers in the field of science and technology.
Schools may reach out to Associate Dean, Academic Outreach & New Initiatives, IIT Delhi ([email protected]; [email protected]) to nominate their students for the SciTech Spins lecture series.