AMS Climate Change Audio - Environmental Science Seminar Series (ESSS)

A primer on interacting with media workers and professional journalists.

Herman Daly, Ph.D., delivers the keynote address the recent AMS workshop on Federal Climate Policy. He explores the distinction between economic growth —a quantitative increase in size that is constrained by the physical limits of the Earth system—and economic development—a qualitative improvement in our state of being. In so doing, he helps identify design principles for climate policy that can enhance environmental protection, benefit the economy, and promote political feasibility. Daly is a professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland. Previously he served as Senior Economist in the Environment Department at the World Bank, where he helped develop policy guidelines related to sustainable development. He has received numerous awards including the Honorary Right Livelihood Award, Sweden's alternative to the Nobel Prize.

Observed changes in natural systems, largely over the past century, indicate a clear global climate change signal. Even in the face of apparently dominating forces, such as direct, human-driven habitat destruction and alteration, this climate fingerprint implicates global climate change as a new and important driving force on wild plants and animals. Patterns across taxonomic groups are remarkably similar. Large poleward and upward range shifts associated with recent global climate change have been documented in a diversity of species. Likewise, significant trends towards earlier spring events have been documented in plants and animals across North America, Europe and Asia. These changes in species’ distributions and timing have been linked with regional climate warming for many species based on basic research and on long-term historical records. Our recent estimate is that about half of all wild species have responded to regional warming trends of 1-3° C over the past century, with strongest responses over the past 30 years. In the Third Assessment Report of IPCC (2001), we predicted that species restricted to extreme environments, such as mountaintops, the Arctic and Antarctic, would be most sensitive to small levels of warming and, indeed, these areas are showing the first signs of species declines and extinctions. Range-restricted species, particularly polar and mountaintop species, are showing severe range contractions in response to recent climate change. Tropical coral reefs and sea ice specialists have been most negatively affected, with indications that cloud forest amphibians are also highly vulnerable. New analyses indicate large differences in magnitude of spring advancement between major taxonomic groups, suggesting that normal interactions among species, such as flowers and the insects that pollinate them may become disrupted. Evolutionary adaptations to warmer conditions have occurred at the local, population level, but observed genetic shifts are limited. There is no indication that novel traits are appearing that would allow species to exist under more extreme climatic conditions than they currently live in. Dr. Parmesan’s early research spanned multiple aspects of the behavior, ecology and evolution of insect/plant interactions in natural systems. Since 1992, however, the focus of her work has been on biological impacts of anthropogenic climate change in natural systems. Her field work has focused on documenting continental-scale range shifts of butterfly species across both North America and Europe. Her more recent research has concentrated on global-scale syntheses of biological responses to climate change across all taxonomic groups. These syntheses have documented the global nature of climate change impacts, spanning all living organisms from microbes to charismatic animals in terrestrial, freshwater and marine systems. The intensification of global warming as an international issue led Dr. Parmesan into the interface of policy and science. She has given presentations for White House and Congressional representatives, has been involved in several U.S. and international assessments of climate change impacts, and has provided formal testimonies for the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, as well as the Texas Senate Natural Resources Committee. She has also been active in climate change programs for many international conservation organizations, such as IUCN (the International Union for the Conservation of Nature), the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), and the National Wildlife Federation, and served on the Science Council of the Nature Conservancy. She was a Lead Author and Contributing author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (2001), as well as Reviewer and Co-author of the Uncertainty Guidance Report for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007). IPCC and its participants were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

The Mauna Loa CO2 Record: From the Era of Discovery to the Era of Consequences 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the Mauna Loa and South Pole CO2 records, which are the longest continuous time series of atmospheric CO2 levels. These records have played a critical role in advancing research on global warming by establishing the reality of increasing CO2 and providing a quantitative basis to assess the impact of human activities on atmospheric CO2. From 1958 to 2008, the CO2 levels at Mauna Loa increased from 315 to 385 part-per-million. The records establish that an amount of CO2 equivalent to 56% of the global emissions of fossil-fuel burning over this period has been retained in the air. The remaining 44% has therefore been absorbed by the oceans and land plants. Our ability to predict the impact of future emissions on the CO2 loading of the atmosphere and hence future climate hinges critically not only on future CO2 emissions, but also on the behavior of these land and ocean sinks. Over the past decade, our understanding of these sinks has improved, based in part on observations of trends in atmospheric O2 concentration. Our knowledge of these sinks establishes securely that large reductions in fossil-fuel CO2 emissions will be required over the next few decades to stabilize CO2 below “dangerous” levels. Recent work has also raised concerns that the sinks may be weakening due to effects of global warming on the stores of carbon in land ecosystems or in the oceans. This subject remains clouded in uncertainty, however. Even larger and more immediate emissions reductions may be necessary if such “positive feedbacks” turn out to be important. Carbon Dioxide in Historical Context: Implications for Policy The uptake of fossil fuel into the biosphere is limited, both in how fast the carbon will be taken up, and in the total amount of CO2 that will be absorbed, by the ways in which the carbon cycle on Earth works. The carbon cycle today is taking up fossil fuel CO2, slowing considerably the rate of CO2 rise and warming. But CO2 concentration measurements from ice cores from the past 800,000 years suggest that ultimately the carbon cycle may act as an amplifier of climate change, releasing carbon during times of warmer climate. The biosphere on land is currently in net balance, with natural uptake in some areas compensating for deforestation in other areas. The land biosphere could act as either a source or a sink in the coming century, but ultimately would be swamped by the amount of fossil fuel carbon available. About three quarters of of the carbon we release will dissolve in the oceans on a time scale of a few centuries. Uptake into the oceans will slow as the rising CO2 concentration exhausts the buffer chemistry of seawater, its ability to dissolve more CO2. CO2 is also less soluble in warmer water than cold, so that CO2 uptake will decline further with climate warming. There is recent evidence that CO2 uptake in the Southern Ocean, the main invasion route into the deep sea, has been slowing even more quickly than expected based on those two reasons alone, suggesting that CO2 uptake into the ocean is also slowing because of changes in ocean circulation. The ocean might take up CO2 more slowly if its overturning circulation stagnates in a warmer world. Carbon cycle models agree that even after the ocean and land have taken their fill of fossil fuel CO2, between 15 and 30%, will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Many of the most profound changes in Earth's climate will take place on these long time scales, such as the melting of ice sheets, permafrost soils, and methane hydrates in the ocean. Sea level in the past has changed by 5 to 20 meters for each degree C change in Earth's temperature. These results imply that the long-term change in sea level from fossil fuels could be 100 times worse than the forecast for the year 2100.

According to a February, 18, 2007, press release describing a survey on public perceptions of global warming, a majority of Americans agreed with most scientists that the Earth is getting warmer, but were divided over the seriousness of the problem, predicated on a belief that scientists themselves disagreed about global warming. What, if any, was the role of the news media in fueling that perception? Is that perception still prevalent? And where does the public stand today regarding amelioration strategies? Do people support the policy solutions that are most favored by the Presidential candidates? Is there a relation between what people know about global warming and how concerned they are about it? Is there a divide between Republicans and Democrats on these matters? If so, how might one explain these differences in perceptions about global warming? Program Summary With both major Presidential candidates endorsing cap and trade programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and Congress increasingly devoting effort to climate change legislation, the American public's views of these matters will become more important in the coming months. Yet survey evidence suggests that cap-and-trade is one of the public's least favorite ways to reduce emissions. Our speaker today, Professor Jon Krosnick, has conducted a new national survey to explore the reasons for this reluctance. Different respondents were randomly assigned to receive different descriptions of cap-and-trade, to see whether some framings increased the policy's appeal. The results identify communication strategies that were and were not successful and thereby point to reasons for the public's reluctance. The survey also experimentally tested the hypothesis that "balanced" news media coverage of climate change has caused the majority of Americans to believe that there is no consensus among scientific experts about the existence of climate change. The survey's evidence highlights unintended consequences of "optimal" journalism and the power of the press. Biography For 25 years, Dr. Jon A. Krosnick has conducted research exploring how the American public's political attitudes are formed, change, and shape thinking and action. He is co-principal investigator of the American National Election Study, the nation's preeminent academic project exploring voter decision-making and political campaign effects. A world-renowned expert on questionnaire design and survey research methodology, he has conducted survey studies of Americans' attitudes on environmental issues in collaboration with ABC News, the Washington Post, Time magazine, and New Scientist magazine. Dr. Krosnick has authored six books and more than 120 peer-reviewed scientific articles. His books include the Handbook of Questionnaire Design (forthcoming), Attitude Strength, Thinking about Politics, and Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis. Dr. Krosnick teaches courses on survey methodology around the world at universities, for corporations, and for government agencies, testifies regularly as an expert witness in courts in the U.S. and abroad, and has served as an on-air election-night television commentator and exit poll data analyst. Dr. Krosnick earned an A.B. degree in Psychology (Magna Cum Laude) from Harvard University in 1980; an M.A. degree in Social Psychology (with Honors) from the University of Michigan in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from University of Michigan in 1986.