Climate Change

A great deal of focus is given to CO2 emissions and their role in the greenhouse effect, however the public is less aware of other powerful greenhouse gases.  Atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) concentrations have been rising since the Industrial Revolution due to anthropogenic activities. It is estimated that N2O accounts for 6% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Due to its atmospheric lifetime of approximately 120 years combined with its heat-trapping effects,  N2O has approximately 310 times more warming power than CO2 on a per molecule basis.

Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University scientist who served on the international research panel on global warming that shared the 2007 Nobel Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, has died. He was 65.

Dr. Ben Santer has said, "We honor the memory of Steve Schneider by continuing to fight for the things he fought for – by continuing to seek clear understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change. We honor Steve by recognizing that communication is a vital part of our job. We honor Steve by taking the time to explain our research findings in plain English. By telling others what we do, why we do it, and why they should care about it. We honor Steve by raising our voices, and by speaking out when powerful “forces of unreason” seek to misrepresent our science. We honor Steve Schneider by caring about the strange and beautiful planet on which we live, by protecting its climate, and by ensuring that our policymakers do not fall asleep at the wheel."

When our plane dipped below the solid cloud layer over Shannon, I had my first glimpse of the Irish landscape and was struck by the intensity and pervasiveness of the green I saw below. That was 17 years ago. This time, in late May 2010 my purpose was to hike the Dingle Peninsula, Inn-to-Inn fashion, and see the landscape up close. I cannot understand why the landscape did not strike me as equally verdant.  Was it that we had 9 days of brilliant sunshine?

The science of climate change adaptation was created before its practitioners existed. International bodies working to identify the effects of climate change and to create legal frameworks for solutions deemed it to exist. Today, there is no time for a methodical evolution of the field as the count-down for the world as we know it has started. Of course the planet is not going to blow-up when it reaches zero but there will be an increasing number of changes with fewer and fewer opportunities to choose ways to adapt to them.

The largest uncertainty in future climate projections is the level of anthropogenic emissions expected throughout the 21st century. As Phil Duffy from Climate Central (and a Data Basin Advisor) often reminds us in his talks: it is IMPOSSIBLE to project future human emissions because human behavior is unpredictable.

I just came back from a week of backpacking in the Gila Wilderness. I hiked from the hot New Mexico desert into cool moist canyons lush with blooming yellow Columbines and omnipresent poison ivy all the way to cool dry peaks where firs, pines and aspen formed healthy green forests. In places, wildfires have killed trees whose boles will retain the stored carbon for years to come providing great drumming opportunities for the local woodpeckers and flickers. We discover these while pitching our tent under a patch of remnant green trees in a large burn area.

WHITEFISH, MONT., June 29, 2010 -- The Western Governors' Association has published a climate adaptation scoping report  that emphasizes the need for coordination between state and federal efforts to identify key science that is Western specific and begins to share and implement smart practices. The governors adopted the report during their Annual Meeting this week. Govs. Bill Richardson (N.M.) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (Calif.) are WGA's lead governors for Climate Adaptation.  Following is their letter that accompanied the report:

How will the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland affect the climate, and climate change predictions?  Mount Eyjafjallokull in Iceland continues to send a plume of ash, dust, and gases up to 40-50 thousand feet into the air, spreading towards Europe by jet stream winds. Silica in this volcanic dust melts and hardens on jet turbine parts, affecting flight paths to and from Europe while the volcano remains active.

In this era of highly politicized debate about climate change, where the scientific exchange of ideas has become so polarized, it has become critical to make observations and simulations of climate-related information available. To quote A. Conan Doyle Sr. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” It is thus essential for scientists to share their data and expertise with the community to help inform a healthy scientific debate and provide decision-makers with sufficient facts and/or hypotheses to meet the upcoming challenges.

On April 21st, CBI and The Nature Conservancy hosted a meeting in Duluth, MN to discuss climate change in northeastern MN and to begin developing scenarios that could be used with a forest simulation model to estimate the effects of climate change on the extensive forests of northeastern MN.