Report from the Hill

Well I wasn't exactly at Capitol Hill...rather at AGU (American Geophysical Union) HQ. Our task was to put together a document that would persuade NSF (National Science Foundation) to restart/start a program to fund paleoclimate research. See right now paleoclimate research is funded by core programs and has to compete with every other imaginable subject. Surprised? Well very simply core programs are dictated by traditional sciences ie biology, chemistry, physics etc. Paleoclimate is interdisciplinary. In other words it is a combination of all those sciences.

So what has changed in the last few years. Well about 6 months ago the White House discovered climate change and what possibly might happen say if the monsoons failed and India and Pakistan began a nuclear war over water. Then early this year the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) released its latest report saying scientists are now 95% certain that 20th century warming cannot be explained by natural causes. Furthermore for the first time paleoclimate had a whole chapter to itself.

Simply put for the first time, paleoclimate for the first time may have its time in the sun because to quote one speaker 'Society wants to know what is going to happen, what we are going to have to adapt to and what unacceptable (moral judgement) changes are going to happen'. From a business model perspective...surprises cost money.

Perhaps our motto should be "Global Warming: more than just warming". What we decided we need to focus on studying is: 1) How vulnerable is the cyrosphere (icy places on our planet)? with societal relevance being sea level change in coastal regions. 2) Understanding the carbon cycle. How long will it take to remove the CO2 we've put in the atmosphere by natural means. 3) Regional climate and extreme weather events. The effect of global warming on droughts, El Nino, monsoons, hurricane, big winter storms etc. 4) Abrupt and unexpected climate changes. How will we avoid surprises? I'll let you know if NSF feels like funding science to answer these questions...

Comments

[Captain]

Hi, Ingrid! I was wondering if you'd seen this series, "Altered Oceans," from the L.A. Times. Here's the link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans-series,0,7842752.special
The photos and captions are stunning in more ways than one.

I'm sure the info there is nothing new to you, considering your job, but the presentation of it is wonderful.

[Sarah P.]

Thanks for reporting to the lurking nonscientist knitter. I really appreciate it.