Students were given a fascinating view into arctic ecosystems and the changes in temperature, carbon levels, plant growth, and weather patterns that have been documented there in recent decades. Dr. Adrian Rocha, who delivered a lecture on Tuesday, April 9, as part of Trinity’s Lecture and Performance Series, is an ecologist and Notre Dame professor whose current research focuses on the north slope of Alaska.

Dr. Rocha talked about the process of gathering data, creating models to make sense of the data, and the complexity involved in using these observations to predict what will happen in the future as climate and ecological systems continue to change. Students took full advantage of the twenty minutes of Q&A time following the lecture and asked many great questions.

Dr. Rocha’s lecture was entitled “Fire and Ice: Arctic Ecosystems in a Changing World.”