Dorthe Dahl-Jensen receives European Agassiz Medal
Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, head of the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute, has been awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal by the EGU (European Geoscience Union). She is receiving the medal for her outstanding scientific contributions in glaciology and for her leadership of international projects that, on the basis of the Greenland ice cores, have provided new insights into past climates all the way back to the previous warm period, the Eemian, 115-130,000 years ago.
Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, head of the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute, has been awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal by the EGU (European Geoscience Union).
The Louis Agassiz Medal was established in 2005 by the EGU’s ’Division on Cryospheric Sciences’ in recognition of the Swiss geologist Louis Agassiz’s scientific work. In 1837, he developed the theory that the Earth had had an ice age before the last ice age and he studied glaciers in the Alps to determine their structures and movements. He concluded that Switzerland had been another Greenland, covered by a thick ice sheet. Agassiz is recognized for his pioneering work on ice ages. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen received the Agassiz Medal at the annual EGU meeting, which took place in Vienna with more than 12,000 researchers from 106 nations taking part. The ceremony hall was packed full with around 300 attendees.
“The breadth of Dorthe Dahl-Jensen's work is formidable and it has led to numerous important scientific contributions to the reconstruction of past climate history based on data from ice cores drilled through the Greenland ice sheet. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen is without a doubt a worldwide leader in ice core research and her leadership is formidable - both in the Danish and the international worlds of ice core research projects,” said the President of the Cryosphere Division of the EGU, Jürg Schweizer in his speech.
“I am very honored to receive the Agassiz Medal. Louis Agassiz was one of the most significant glaciologists, proving that there were large ice sheets during the ice ages. In particular, I welcome the mark of appreciation that it is to receive it and for all of the colleagues who came and participated in the medal lecture at EGU,” says Dorthe Dahl-Jensen.
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen is a tireless advocate for science and research that informs and can lead to intelligent decisions, for example, concerning the global climate. She also has the rare ability to be able to talk about climate change in a way that everyone understands and as a result she is very popular in the media and in the public context.