The public is invited to a free lecture being held on Sept. 12 at the Library of Congress, Washington about NASA Scientist Lora Koenig’s research at Earth’s poles in extreme conditions.

The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain 99 percent of the Earth’s fresh-water ice, according to Koenig, a physical scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “Changes to the polar regions affect sea level, placing the poles at the center of climate change research,” Koenig said.

To understand the current state of the ice sheets and to model their future, scientists spend months at a time on the ice in challenging darkness, frigid temperatures and high winds. They must learn to solve practical problems of survival and travel through extreme environments while they take precise measurements with specially-designed instruments.

Koenig, who is one of these scientists, will discuss, “My Winter in Greenland and Summer in Antarctica” at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 12 in the Mary Pickford Theater on the third floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not needed.

The illustrated lecture, the fifth in a series of programs in 2012, is presented through a collaboration between the Library’s Science, Technology and Business Division and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The collaboration is in its sixth year.

Koenig is a physical scientist at NASA Goddard’s Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory and an expert in remote sensing of ice sheets and snow. Her research interests focus on detecting accumulation-rate changes and temperature changes over the ice sheets. Koenig studies the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets on the ground using field techniques such as snow pits and ice cores, and she also studies them using airborne and space-borne sensors.

Her talk will give insight into what it is like to conduct field research measuring temperatures and snowfall, or accumulation, over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets during both the polar night and polar day, and on the meaning of her research results.

The Library of Congress maintains one of the largest and most diverse collections of scientific and technical information in the world. The Science, Technology and Business Division provides reference and bibliographic services and develops the general collections of the Library in all areas of science, technology, business and economics. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/. The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds nearly 151.8 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.

For inquiries about this or upcoming talks at the Library of Congress, the public can contact the LOC Science, Technology and Business Division at 202-707-5664. ADA accommodations should be requested five business days in advance at 202-707-6382 (voice/tty) or ada@loc.gov .

To read Lora Koenig’s Blog: Winter Camp: A Blog from the Greenland Summit, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GreenlandBlogKoenig/

To read Lora Koenig’s Blog: SEAT: Satellite Era Accumulation Traverse, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/fromthefield/category/seat-satellite-era-accumulation-traverse/