Coastal expert available to comment on UN climate change report

Apr 05, 2007

Australian-based lead author of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment, Professor Colin Woodroffe, will be available to comment when IPCC releases its summary of the findings of one of the three major working group reports on the impact of global warming tomorrow (Friday, 6 April).

The report, from the IPCC’s Impact, Adaptation and Vulnerability Working Group, has been prepared with input from hundreds of scientists around the world. It considers the impact of global warming on issues ranging from the threat to coastal and island communities from rising sea levels, to the viability of agricultural industries in the face of changing temperatures.

Professor Woodroffe is one of the lead authors of the coastal chapter in the report. He is an internationally renowned coastal geomorphologist based at the University of Wollongong. Professor Woodroffe’s research is focused on the effects of climate change on island and coastal communities on the east coast of Australia and in Torres Strait, as well as islands in the Pacific Ocean including the Kiribati group and Lord Howe Island.

He recently received a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Cambridge for his work in the field.

The report will be released around the world on Friday, 6 April at 6pm (AEST). Details will be available on the Australian Science Media Centre website (www.aussmc.org.au), and Professor Woodroffe will also be available to speak to the media at the National Briefing to be held in Sydney on Tuesday 10 April , for which the link is: http://www.aussmc.org/IPCCWG2_Briefing.php

Professor Woodroffe can be contacted on (02) 4221 3359 (w); (02) 4285 1603 (h); or 0422 256 905 (m).

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128