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Aug
26
| Science Made Human - Climate Change and Groceries |
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| Tuesday, 26 August 2008 | |
 Susan Genett, a meteorologist based in Newport, attended last week's hearing on climate change and Narragansett Bay, and shares her insights and impressions from the event.Almost thirty years ago, on July 10, 1979, a congressional hearing of scientific experts championed a Climate Act, but no new policies were forged. Flash forward to August 21, 2008 -- the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works holds a hearing with climate scientists in Rhode Island, focused upon the impact of climate change on Naragansett Bay. Will positive actions result? As a meteorologist, I am familiar with the weather data, but it is the human aspects of the issue that I find compelling. For me, it was a trip to a grocery store in Holland, many years ago, that brought home the reality of human impact on our environment -- and suggested to me that individuals can take action now, rather than wait for the government to collect more data. When I got to URI, the auditorium was overflowing to standing-room-only to hear five experts discuss their research and suggest ways to cope with the climate-change impact already observed in Rhode Island -- rising air and water temperature, rising sea level, and more. LIDAR was a frequent buzzword throughout the hearing. There was no explanation of the term, and the audience was not allowed to ask questions, so I can only assume Senator Whitehouse knows what LIDAR is -- it's an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging, a data-collecting device that measures environmental variables over a period of time. LIDAR is similar to radar, but uses laser light instead of radio waves, providing data with much higher resolution and from a wider range than radar. Researchers have used LIDAR for at least the past 12 years with success in collecting high-resolution storm data, primarily in the Midwest, but the technology also has been recently employed to investigate Mars, the Moon, and distant asteroids. LIDAR was discussed by the panelists as a means to create a network of devices that could accurately measure coastal land changes, to conclusively document sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and other ecosystem shifts. This is a sound strategy -- this state-of-the-art equipment is not likely to become obsolete by the time the government could scrape up the funds (which could take one or two years, in the panelists' estimation), and then it would be another three to five years to get the system running and collect data, and then three or four years for scientists to analyze the data and form conclusions. Essentially, the government wants hard data that proves climate impacts are real before they will consider changes in policy. “Congress's reaction to the climate-change forecast 29 years ago was that the scientists were crazy -- alarmists,” Dr. Caroly Shumway said. So here we are, in 2008, listening to more research over the past 30 years, only this time, these scientists say that the climate forecasts made in 1979 now are here. Not just visible in data, but in everyday life. Certainly the government could have acted sooner, but it hasn’t. I was seven years old in 1979, and in my memory of the time, cars sat in driveways and most everyone rode scooters, bicycles or busses to work. Did that 1979 climate hearing make it into the papers back then? For Americans to ponder or disregard? By 1990, I was a teenager on my first trip to Europe, where my older sister and her family were living. My meteorology studies were still in the future, and I was wide-eyed about exploring new cultures and places. Little did I expect a trip to the grocery store in Holland would be a mind-opening and memorable experience. I was ready to jump in the car and go, when my sister burrowed into a closet and handed me several canvas and plastic bags to take to the store. Seriously, I thought to myself -- no, actually, I said out loud -- "This is crazy, what a behind-the-times country!" I remember my sister graciously stating a a brief explanation about waste in the environment. It was somewhat sound and I tried to digest it, but then I learned we had to ride bicycles -- not enough parking to take the car. This was craziness! Could the two of us bike to the store, shop for a family of four, and carry home our groceries? I soon found that supermarkets in Holland are not super-sized like they are here, and neither are the contents. All this was on my mind during the URI climate hearing, and I wondered, were European nations also introduced to the climate research that the U.S. Congress heard, way back in 1979 -- only they paid attention? The scientists at the hearing were given only five minutes to present their research and recommend strategies to curb climate-change impacts upon Narragansett Bay. Five minutes hardly seems fair for these scientists to comprehensively sum up years of research, explain their conclusions and propose strategies. Yet, they all convincingly made important points. As a member of the American Meteorological Society, I had received a copy of "State of the Climate in 2007" just a week before the hearing -- 161 pages of global atmospheric analysis and conclusions. The report reflects a clear consensus that average land temperatures continue rising, with 2007 the warmest year recorded since records began in 1880, an increase of 1.15°F from 2006. Whether these rising land temperatures result from an increasing concentration of greenhouse gasses (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide [CO2], and methane) in the atmosphere is at the heart of the climate-change debate. The globally averaged CO2 concentration, measured at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, rose to 382.7 parts-per-million (ppm) in 2007, which is an increase of about 1.8ppm since 2006, compared to an estimated 280ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere around 1850. The clear concensus of the panelists was that without a reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions, no decrease in the land-temperature trend is forecast, and if the temperatures continue to rise at an accellerating rate, that warrants concern. The combined land and ocean global surface temperature declined in 2007, but it was one of the 10 highest on record. This raised a question for me, which I would have liked to ask the panel -- So if 2007 land temperatures are the highest on record and the global land/ocean temperature decreased, then are polar ice caps melting and cooling oceans at a rate faster, or equal to, the rising of land temperatures? Whether research scientists know the answer to this, or even if it is important, I wasn't able to find out. The panelists said global climate change will affect Narragansett Bay, changing our local weather patterns, coastal geography, ecological environments, and the economy. Prof. Jon Boothroyd said models forecast a three-foot rise in sea level as soon as 2050 or 2100, which would move much of Rhode Island's coast nearly one-quarter to one-half mile inland. Though it was unclear to me how certain that prediction is, perhaps the coastal LIDAR data measuring network that the panelists recommended will help to fine-tune such forecasts with more data. Long-range forecasts cited by the panelists predict temperatures and water levels higher than ever recorded, and some recent observations indicate the 1979 forecasts may now be our reality. In August 2007, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that the Northwest Passage, a 3,000-mile sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific via the Arctic Ocean and Canadian waterways in the far North, is nearly completely clear of ice, making it navigable for the first time in recorded history. Pacific Ocean salinity is decreasing to the point that Alaska fishermen have observed scallop-shell disintegration upon harvest. Since shellfish need a high concentration of water salinity to develop hardened shells, this is integral to the health of species. Changes in salinity and water temperature in Narragansett Bay are changing ecosystems here by killing eel grass and changing migrating fish patterns, according to Dr. Shumway. John Torgan, representing Save The Bay, said warmer coastal water temperatures have encouraged more frequent algae blooms, forcing beach closures during the busy summer season and resulting in lower beach and tourism revenue. Dr. Kate Moran said tick-borne disease has become more widespread in Rhode Island due to the warmer water and land temperatures. Additionally, she noted that mid-latitude storms (storms that form north of 30° North latitude) and wind patterns will shift poleward as land temperatures and sea levels both rise. I wondered if this scenario could already be having an impact. Tropical Storm Fay seemed to escape the usual West-to-East mid-latitude wind pattern that tends to steer tropical storms away from the U.S. coastline. It took an incredibly long five days for Fay to slide 350 to 400 miles across Florida, pummeling the state with 45 to 55mph winds and an incredible 5 to 12 inches of rain. Grover Fugate, executive director of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, put the scenario in perspective: "The coastal states will bear the brunt of climate change," he said. I am grateful Senator Whitehouse brought the Senate Environment Committee hearing to Rhode Island. The keen environmental interest of Rhode Islanders was made clear to him, by the overflow of supporters and the richness of our local research. Dr. Kate Moran summed up the most critcal element of the hearing for me when she said, "Scientists need to talk more like humans." I took her words to heart. A meteorologist by trade, by nature I am keenly aware of my environment. So I shop with my own grocery bag, bicycling every chance I get, here in Newport, the city by the sea. Susan Genett operates a custom forecast service, RealWeather, in Newport, where she lives, and creates custom weather forecasts for marine, aviation, and film clients. For more info.... click here for a Web site that shows data on carbon emissions in the U.S. |
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