Dr. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen receives the 2020 Mohn Prize - Photo: Alberto Grohovaz / Arctic Frontiers 2020.
CEOS chair receives prize for Arctic climate research
Arctic Frontiers and UiT host 2020 Mohn Prize Award and Seminar
“This is a big day and an important event,” says Universitetet i Tromsø (UiT) Rector/Chancellor Dr. Anne Husebekk.
Attendees of the Arctic Frontiers Conference gather in Tromsø, Norway, honouring the Laureate of the 2020 International Mohn Prize for outstanding Arctic research. The winner of the Mohn Prize is Dr. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Canada Excellence Research Chair at the Centre for Earth Observation Science (CEOS), University of Manitoba, and Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.
The Mohn Prize is awarded in recognition of premiere Arctic research. The prize aims to put relevant issues for future Arctic development onto the national and international agenda. Nominations are put forth by members of the Arctic research community and are evaluated by an international scientific committee.
In the words of the selection committee: “Dr. Dahl-Jensen is a leading figure in one of the most important scholarly areas of particular relevance to our understanding of processes driving the ongoing dramatic transformation of the Arctic environment.
By ranking Dr. Dahl-Jensen first, the committee underscores the importance of her decades-long leadership in building, coordinating and maintaining international teams.”
Dr. Husebekk says Dr. Dahl-Jensen is a world leader in the field of cryosphere science.
“She studies the climate of the past through ice cores in order to make predictions about current and future climate change,” Dr. Husebekk succinctly summarizes the core work of Dr. Dahl-Jensen as she awards her the prize.
Dr. Dahl-Jensen thanks the selection and nomination committee before displaying why she is considered a leader in academic research, extolling the virtue of team effort.
“Drilling ice cores and getting climate results out of ice cores is certainly a teamwork, even a very interdisciplinary teamwork where we need to combine scientists with engineers with logistic people, and they have all had their part in the success of our team.
I also want to acknowledge that I’ve been welcomed into a new and fantastic research team at the University of Manitoba”, Dr. Dahl-Jensen adds. “This is a world-leading group in sea ice research which I would like to combine with freshwater and the importance for people. And I would also like to thank the research group at the University of Manitoba for being so welcoming.”
The award ceremony was followed by the 2020 Mohn Prize Seminar: Climate Change in the Arctic. View the full seminar, or by the time stamps below:
0:13-0:23 – Professor Steinar Thorvaldsen, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, “Henrik Mohn (1835-1916) – The founder of Norwegian research in meteorology and physical oceanography”
0:23-1:05 – Lecture by the laureate Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Canada Excellence Research Chair, CEOS, University of Manitoba; Villum Investigator of Physics of Ice, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, “Can abrupt climate changes happen again?”
1:05-1:30 – Professor Matthias Forwick, Department of Geosciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, “Long-term environmental changes in the Arctic – insights from geological drill cores”
1:30-2:00 – Professor Inger Greve Alsos, The Arctic University Museum of Norway, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, “Long-term effect of climate change on arctic vegetation: new knowledge based on ancient DNA”
2:35-3:05 – Professor Søren Rysgaard, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Arctic Geomicrobiology and Climate Change at CEOS, University of Manitoba; Department of Bioscience – Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, “An updated view on water masses on the pan-West Greenland continental shelf and their link to proglacial fjords”
3:05-3:30 – Professor David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science, Professor and Associate Dean (research), CEOS, University of Manitoba, “What does Climate change have to do with Sea Ice, Glaciers, Bromine and Freshwater-Marine coupling in the Arctic”
3:30-End – Professor Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen, Barents Chair in Politics, Department of Social Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, “Science diplomacy and climate change”