17. Tom Matthews on tropical glaciers and extreme heat

Challenging Climate

Dr Tom Matthews is a climate scientist at King’s College London, specialising in glacier-climate interactions and extreme weather. In Episode 17, we discuss Tom’s exciting fieldwork on Mt. Everest co-installing the highest-altitude weather stations in the world, as well as extreme heat and its impacts on society.
Links:

• Tom Matthews’ profile
• Two articles on Tom’s expedition to Mt Everest: this and that
• Wikipedia page on penitentes
• Check out this article on the upper temperature limit of human tolerance and Tom’s paper documenting the first occurrences of this temperature
• Check out these 3 articles on extreme heat in Asia: this and that and this other one
• The book discussed: The Ministry for the Future

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Chapters

1. 17. Tom Matthews on tropical glaciers and extreme heat (00:00:00)

2. Introduction and background (00:01:27)

3. Tom’s fieldwork expedition on Mt Everest (00:04:58)

4. Differences between low-latitude and high-altitude glaciers (00:13:25)

5. Low-latitude and high-latitude glaciers’ response to climate change (00:18:49)

6. Heatwaves in Europe: How do humans experience heat? (00:28:20)

7. Tom's article: Heat events exceeding human's upper physiological limit (00:32:53)

8. Are more frequent extreme heat disasters imminent? (00:40:26)

9. How can societies adapt to extreme heat? (00:47:37)

10. What gives you optimism in this warming world? (00:55:12)