Climate of Our Future

As the new contributing author on Climate of Our Future, I’d like to give you some background on my field of expertise and interests. I’m a limnologist. No, that isn’t someone who studies limbs. It comes from a Greek word limnos, which means fresh water. In my role as senior scientist with an environmental consulting firm, I study fresh water (e.g., lakes, rivers, ponds), and everything that’s in it, around it and affects it. I work with industry and government to solve environmental problems that impact fresh water.

A common phenomenon that limnologists study is something called “eutrophication”. Eutrophication describes the natural process of aging for a lake or pond (called succession), with the gradual input of nutrients and sediment from erosion and precipitation. In many urban lakes, the rate at which this happens is sped up through the unnatural release of nutrients and industrial and municipal effluent or poor land use practices. The phenomenon is called “enhanced eutrophication”, which is characterized by algal blooms, excessive weeds, increased pests and fish kills. A lake that undergoes “enhanced eutrophication” is out of balance with its natural cycle. Limnologists have studied and tried to deal with this imbalance for decades. Sometimes they’ve succeeded; other times they’ve failed abysmally. It all comes down to understanding rate of change and what determines it.

No living thing survives without water, which occupies 83% of our blood, helps digest our food, takes in oxygen, transports body wastes and controls body temperature. Water does exactly the same thing on a planetary scale.  Water in the atmosphere amplifies the greenhouse effect. Its abundance in the oceans moderates the seasonal swing in temperatures and its terrestrial distribution over the land determines the geographic extent of forests and deserts.

Ultimately, water sustains the critical balance of our planet’s thermal regulation.

Twelve years ago, at a U.S. Global Change Research Program seminar, Thomas R. Karl (Senior Scientist, National Climate Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Asheville, NC) asserted that “Increases in [human] greenhouse gases resulting from the burning of fossil fuels and the deforestation of forests have altered the composition of the atmosphere, resulting in an increase in the amount of heat energy trapped at or near the Earth’s surface. This enhancement of the greenhouse effect is increasing surface temperatures while provoking other changes in climate as well.”

Trapped heat energy through the greenhouse effect has increased the rate of water cycling from the surface to the atmosphere and back to the surface as rain or snow.

Observations now support models showing that roughly 80% of additional heat energy trapped at the Earth’s surface by greenhouse gases returns to the atmosphere through increased evaporation of water, causing warming through condensation and enhancing precipitation. The rest of the added heat (20%) goes directly to warming the surface and the lower atmosphere. The result is a warmer climate and an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere, which not only enhances the greenhouse effect but provides more energy to drive storms and associated weather fronts.

Twelve years later, we are witnessing this in every corner of our precious planet; in significant changes in weather patterns, which together contribute to the larger macroscale paradigm of climate change. I am reminded of the work of climate scientist, Edward Lorenz and his computer simulations of global climate using chaos theory mathematics. In a paper entitled, “Does the flap of a butterfly in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” Lorenz’s simulation detected a “Butterfly Effect” (sensitive dependence on initial conditions) hovering around the focal points of “Strange Attractors” that described how the effects of a very small phenomenon could escalate into something significant.

In his 2005 book, “Climate Crash” John D. Cox describes an abrupt climate change that “occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some kind of threshold, triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause. Moreover, the cause of such an abrupt climate change may be undetectably small.”

As for “undetectably small” we are seeing it rather detectably; in the increased ice storms of Quebec; aseasonal tornadoes in Kentucky; high winds in British Columbia; severe storms and snow in England. The list is endless. I’m hearing it from every blogger I communicate with. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, resulting from the combustion of petroleum, coal, and natural gas, represented 82 percent of total U.S. anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2006. Assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the Earth’s climate has warmed between 0.6 and 0.9 degrees Celsius over the past century and that human activity affecting the atmosphere is “very likely” (90% chance) an important driving factor. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (Summary for Policymakers) states, “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” It goes on to state, “The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone.”

Global tilting and sun activity aside—to not acknowledge humanity’s role in affecting the rate of climate change through the burning of fossil fuel and the greenhouse effect is simply irresponsible and ignorant.

“We need to substitute renewable energy for carbon-based energy. It is just that simple,” said former vice president and climate activist Al Gore to a group of Harvard students last October. Gore argued that “the economic crisis, the financial crisis, the dept crisis and the climate crisis all have the same thread running through them: overdependence on carbon-based fuels. When you pull that thread,” argued Gore, “all of these crises begin to unravel and you hold in your hand the solution…We need to put a price on carbon [and] we need a global treaty.” He urged our leaders to help make a “generational commitment to a one-off massive investment in a new energy infrastructure that is not free, but that is based on fuels that are free forever: the sun and the wind and the natural heat of the earth.”

Like fossil fuel itself, we have a finite amount of resources and time to best address the enhanced climate change that is inevitably upon us. How should we respond? Accept the increased rate (like my eutrophication example?) or do something about it, knowing there are many of a finite set of tools from which to choose: we only have time for one set. 

What do you say?

Nina Munteanu is an environmental scientist and internationally published author of several novels, short stories and essays. She has published over fifty scientific papers and is a frequent speaker at scientific conferences. Her award-winning blog, The Alien Next Door, showcases Nina’s opinion pieces on pop culture and environmental issues.