Dorthe Dahl-Jensen receives Berlingske Foundation Award of Honour
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Professor and Leader of the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute, is awarded the Berlingske Foundation Award of Honour today.
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen is a glaciologist and researches the Earth’s climate history using ice cores drilled through Greenland’s three-kilometer thick ice sheet, which can tell us about the climate more than 100,000 years back in time.
“We want to reward Dorthe Dahl-Jensen’s longstanding efforts to not only preserve, but to strengthen Denmark’s position as a world reader in research into the Earth’s climate history. Through her dedication, she has managed to bring the research to light and disseminate this knowledge in a serious and nuanced, but also easily understandable way. So it stands to reason to give the foundation’s award to such an important and talented researcher as Dorthe Dahl-Jensen,” declared the President of the Berlingske Foundation, Editor in Chief and CEO Lisbeth Knudsen.
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen drilling ice cores at the NEEM project in northwestern Greenland.
Using the ice cores, the research has helped to determine that the most recent ice age came to an end almost exactly 11,700 years ago and the research has documented that the previous warm interglacial period, called the Eemian, occurring more than 115,000 years ago was even warmer than our current warm interglacial period. This is key information in a situation where the planet may once again be hit with powerful climate change and it is precisely this knowledge at an international level, which is now being honoured with the Berlingske Foundation Award of Honour.
Visualization of the climate
“I am deeply honoured that I have been selected to receive the Award of Honour. I would like to share the honour with the entire Centre for Ice and Climate research group, for it is together that we have achieved these great and important results. For many years, I have had a dream that has just been too expensive to realize. At many exhibitions and fairs I have visited the stand that develops and sells large globes where you can show films on the entire surface of the planet. You can show the development of the ice over ice ages, you can show weather forecasts for the following days, show the ocean currents and the development of the surface temperature. A fantastic tool for teaching and for the visualization of the ice group’s results. I would like to use the award to realize this dream and I thought it would be a good way to use a prize awarded by the Berlingske Foundation, where communication and education are paramount.” says a delighted Dorthe Dahl-Jensen.
The prize consists of the sculpture The Newspaper Reader, which is made by Astrid Søe, and 100,000 kr.
She believes and hopes that through research and innovation we will be able to change our energy supplies. Therefore, she does not see a future with limited freedom for the individual.
The prize is awarded to a Dane who has enriched us and has had a special significance in politics, business, culture or society. The presentation of the award will take place at a ceremony later today in Pilestræde, where Chamberlain Berling lived with his family. The award consists of a sculpture and 100,000 kr.