Tabor is offering a free climatology lecture by Michael Retelle, Professor of Geology at Bates College in Maine, on January 29. Retelle will share information about paleo-climatology through his study of arctic glaciers.

Retelle did his undergraduate studies at Salem State College prior to working as a field geologist on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in 1976. He did his graduate work in Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

His primary research interests include glacial and marine environments and climate change in northern New England and in the Canadian and Norwegian arctic.

Retelle's talk will focus on the recent environmental history in Svalbard, Norway, with an emphasis on the alpine glacier history from the ice expansion during the Little Ice Age of the 14th-19th centuries, to the retreat that began in the early 20th century and has accelerated in recent decades.

Svalbard is an extensively glaciated archipelago in the Norwegian high arctic that sits at the boundary of polar and North Atlantic waters. It is climatologically sensitive to shifts in ocean currents and related air masses, impacting regional sea ice and glacier extent.

This lecture is free and open to the public and will be held in Lyndon South Auditorium, Stroud Academic Center, 232 Front Street, Marion, at 6:30 p.m.