Climate Change Presentation

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of seeing a lecture on Abrupt Climate Change by Ohio State Distinguished Professor Lonnie Thompson. His work was published in Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth this summer and also this summer was named one of the "25 leaders who are fighting to stave off the planetwide catastrophe" in Rolling Stone. It was a very interesting presentation to say the least. Some of the main points Thompson made are:

• 2005 was the warmest year on record; 2006 was the 5th warmest
• Thompson and his research associates use ice cores from glaciers to gather data on climate behavior in the past. They are very powerful, ideal for rapid climate change and can show multiple lines of environmental changes. In fact, they were able to see, in the ice, when lead was outlawed in gasoline in the US in the 1970's.
  
• Sea levels are rising 3mm per year, more than double last century.
• Warming is not an isolated incident. The most warming is occurring in the least populated areas: the Arctic, Antartic peninsula, Alaska and Greenland.
  
• Glaciers are retreating at a remarkable rate. Furthermore, this is not an isolated incident; glaciers are receding in Peru, the Himalayas, the Andes, Mt. Kilimanjaro (has lost 22% of its ice since 2001) and Alaska (see my blog on NPR's Mendenhall glacier story, I was there last summer). Because glaciers (ice caps) showing the most dramatic ice loss is occurring in the tropics (+/- 30º latitude), where 2-3 billion people live, the ramifications are huge; loss of ice will affect fresh water supplies, crops, hyro-electric generation and ultimately people.
  
• The biggest fact that Thompson showed in his presentation is that human activity is contributing to global warming and is not just part of a natural cycle. Thompson's data corroborates this as the rate in which warming has occurred is alarming. Furthermore, data show that there is a strong correlation between global temperature and CO2 level. In fact, Thompson stated the R^2 (R-squared) level was 0.89, which is unheard of when looking at two variables in nature. This gives rise to, in 1750 the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was 280 ppm and in 2000 was 380 ppm (we are spewing 8 billion tons of CO2 into the air each ear).
  
• To those that do not believe global warming is the result of human activity and may be the result of some other phenomenon (e.g., a warmer sun), Thompson stated that temperatures have risen more in the winter than the summer and have risen more at night than at day. If the sun were the cause of this then the opposite would be true for both of these facts.
  

To conclude the presentation, Thompson summarized by stating there is broad scientific consensus on human activity and our contribution to global warming - we must act now - CO2 has a residence life in the atmosphere of 100 years. He also realizes that we as humans only respond to crisis and we will have to prevent, adapt and suffer before we respond to the crisis. Thompson brought up the example of the Cuyahoga river - people knew that there was a problem with pollution, but we didn't respond until it caught fire - now there are fish swimming in the river. He questioned what will be our crisis?.

For more information and pictures please visit this piece on Thompson and his website.