About Hans-Peter Plag

About
Biography (Print version);
300 Word Bio (Print version);
Comprehensive CV (Print version)
Short CV (Print version)
Education
Professional Experience
Professional Activities
Services
Teaching
Research
Publications:
— All,
— Peer reviewed,
— In Books,
— Other publications,
— Edited publications,
— Presentations,
— Reports,
— Web Pages

CURRENT POSITION AND AFFILIATIONS

Director, Mitigation and Adaptation Research Institute (MARI)
Professor of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Old Dominion University
Innovation Research Building I Room 3211
4111 Monarch Way
Norfolk VA 23508
P: +1-757-683-5335 M:+1-757-773-8884 Skype: hpplag Email: hpplag@odu.edu

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Sustainability and Adaptation science
Earth system science and modern global change
Global catastrophic risks and Anthropocene risks
Global to local sea level changes and modern climate change
Solid Earth geophysics
Earth observations
Space geodesy and geodetic reference frames

RECENT ACTIVITIES

[2019/01/17] Lecture at the ILR, Virginia Beach on “The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (pptx).

[2018/11/2 ] Presentation at the workshop held in Brest, France, on November 26-27, 2018 on “Plastics: A rapidly growing global challenge for Earth's life-support system and humanity” (pdf).

[2018/10/18] Lecture at the ILR, Virginia Beach on “Modern Climate Change: A Symptom of Humanity's Evolution into a Growth-Addicted Industrialized Civilization” (pptx).

RESEARCH TOPICS ADDRESSED

  • Sustainability of the anthropsphere, global and climate change mitigation and adaptation;
  • Sea level fluctuations and impacts on humans and ecosystems;
  • Monitoring, analyzing variations, and modeling physical parameters of the Earth system from global to local spatial scales and temporal scales from minutes to millenia, including, but not limited to Earth rotation, displacements of the Earth surface, fluxes in the global water cycle, sea level, atmospheric water content, air pressure, temperature, wind, etc.;
  • General approach to studies of the Earth system;
  • Rheology of the Earth mantle;
  • Geophysical phenomena and geodetic observations related to global geodetic reference frames;
  • Earth rotation studies and integration of the solid Earth into Earth system models;
  • Deformations of the Earth due to exogenic forcing, particularly postglacial rebound and atmospheric, oceanic, hydrological and cryospheric loading;
  • Inproving the global geodetic reference frame as a major utility for all Earth observation;
  • Application of geodetic techniques to geohazards and early warning.

My Life in Atmospheric CO2 and Global Population

  • 312 ppm/2.637 billion people: Birth
  • 320 ppm/3.420 billion people: Started as Carpenter
  • 331 ppm/3.942 billion people: Started at university
  • 338 ppm/4.304 billion people: Diploma
  • 350 ppm/5.201 billion people: PhD
  • 373 ppm/6.319 billion people: Married
  • 395 ppm/7.092 billion people: Started current job
  • 425 ppm/8.095: Today (March 2024)

My “age” in CO2 increase: 113 PPM.
Increase over the last 20,000 before industrialization: 120 PPM.
The increase in my life-time was 300 times faster than on average during the pre-industrial 20,000 years.