by Matthew Druckenmiller
Research Scientist at NSIDC and CSTPR Research Affiliate

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, with implications spanning all defining characteristics: sea ice, land ice, permafrost, and cold-adapted communities and ecosystems. The observed changes in the Arctic are resounding, the resulting connections to the globe are increasingly clear, and the science community has a clear role to play in supporting action.

The Arctic has experienced the 11 lowest observed summer sea ice extents, all within the last 11 years. At the end of summer, Arctic sea ice today is a mere 60% of the area it covered just 40 years ago, and less than 40% of the volume. A new ocean is emerging, transforming fisheries, ecosystems, and transportation corridors. Governments, industries, and conservationists are struggling to keep pace, scrambling for the best and latest science and observations. There is also growing evidence that diminishing Arctic sea ice leads to a weaker, meandering jet stream over North America, which in turn can be linked to unusually persistent weather patterns and unfamiliar storm tracks, such as those observed during hurricanes Sandy and Harvey. These storms brought remarkable devastation to the Northeast U.S. and Houston, Texas, respectively, while sparking policymakers’ and the public’s attention toward the potential drivers of such events.

But there are also the hidden and slow creeping effects of amplified warming in the Arctic. Carbon trapped in northern permafrost (the remains of un-decomposed organic matter from thousands of years ago) equates to 1500 petagrams of carbon, equivalent to approximately twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere. As permafrost—persistently frozen ground—thaws, we may expect 1 petragram of additional carbon released annually to the atmosphere (~ 1/10 of global fossil fuel emissions). This is a critical positive feedback of the global climate system, and perhaps the best example of the now common refrain from the science community: “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic”.

This equally holds true for the observed rapid melt of the Greenland ice sheet. Greenland melt today contributes a third of the annual increases in sea level, now at 3.5 mm/year. This doesn’t sound like much, but could account for a 6.5-foot increase in some locations (for example, the U.S. Gulf Coast) by 2100. Such cumulative amounts over decades represent a stark deciding factor for the future of coastal cities and settlements (currently 10% of the global population lives along the coast, and is increasing). However, even today, a few mm of sea level rise adds considerably to the storm surge produced by storms that form over a warming ocean.

The destruction and trauma delivered by the 50 inches of rain that fell over Houston during Harvey, or the tremendous loss of life experienced during Katrina 12 years ago, raises critical questions for elected officials, city planners, engineers, coastal residents, and tax payers. When do we choose to rebuild versus relocate? How do we protect and build resilience within our most vulnerable communities? Such questions are grappled with by many, yet perhaps nowhere with such urgency as in the coastal communities of Arctic Alaska. Increasing damage from fall storms (due in part to decreasing sea ice that acts to buffer wind-driven waves), eroding coastlines, and inadequate coastline infrastructure have made relocation an urgent priority for villages along Arctic Alaska’s coastline. It’s more than just a challenge for scientists, engineers, and economists; it’s an issue of climate justice and human rights, where Indigenous leaders and village residents alike must lead. How can we expect these vulnerable villages along shrinking shorelines to benefit from federal disaster policy, which has developed to assist single households rebuild following one-off flooding events, and does little to aid cohesive communities in revamping and repositioning their infrastructure and self-determination around critical food, cultural, and spiritual resources that have sustained their peoples for thousands of years?

Bringing the natural and social sciences into the fold as a resource to address these challenges requires an engaged and interdisciplinary science community that has two-way communication channels with Arctic communities, stakeholders, environmental journalists, and policymakers. The goal is daunting, yet relatively simple in concept: bring the best available science to bear, be available, know your audience, know your limitations, and be willing to engage in discussions across all levels of sophistication. While some members of Congress need to be made aware of simple facts, such as that real people (Americans!) live in the Arctic, others possess a deep appreciation for the dramatic changes taking place and the need for comprehensive approaches to protect infrastructure, safeguard communities, and sustain healthy economies.  For a scientist to be a resource, she or he must be able to listen and learn, as much as provide concise, technical, and relevant scientific information.

This is the approach of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH), which recently spent a week in Washington, D.C. to connect Arctic science to policy. SEARCH is a collaborative program of researchers, funding agencies, and other stakeholders that facilitates synthesis of Arctic science and communicates the current understanding to help society respond to a rapidly changing Arctic. SEARCH currently focuses on how shrinking land ice, diminishing sea ice, and degrading permafrost impact Arctic and global systems.

During September 25-29, SEARCH scientists began their week in D.C. with a two-day workshop led by the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting. Dr. Sunshine Menezes (Metcalf Institute Exec. Director) and her team led more than 30 participating scientists through lessons focused on pitching stories to the news media, best practices for engaging policymakers and agency staff, and crafting compelling presentations for varied audiences. Much for the time was directly devoted toward preparing for presentations and discussions that took place later throughout the week. SEARCH scientists briefed the Senate Arctic and Ocean Caucuses on the Hill (Sep 26), convened a panel of Arctic researchers at AAAS Headquarters to discuss the “Global Implications of a Thawing Arctic” with journalists (Sep 27), held individual meetings with several Congress members from coastal states to discuss sea level rise (Sep 28), and participated in a panel at the Woodrow Wilson Center on “Arctic Environmental Futures: Nexus of Science, Policy, and Operations” (Sep 29).

These events led to individual discussions with specific policymakers, journalists, national security officials, and other Arctic-focused audiences, as well as provided SEARCH an opportunity to highlight a number of new 1-2 page science briefs addressing stakeholder questions about Arctic environmental change. These are available at Arctic Answers, which provides short and up-to-date summaries of the current state of knowledge surrounding diverse topics at the interface of Arctic science and policy.

Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO)
September 2017 Summary

September media attention to climate change and global warming was up throughout the world. Articles were up 34% globally from coverage in the previous month of August. Scaling down from the global to monitoring in eight nation-states, coverage was also up in each country from the previous month of August 2017: 54% in Australia, 56% in Canada, 10% in Germany, 18% in India, 30% in New Zealand, 82% in Spain, 41% in the United Kingdom, and 16% in the United States (US). While September 2017 counts from fifty-two sources across twenty-eight countries in seven regions around the world were up 14% from coverage in September 2016, coverage in the month was also up about 7% from the average number of stories appearing each month in 2017 (approximately 2300 stories per month from January – September 2017).

Figure 1 above shows these ebbs and flows in media coverage – organized into seven geographical regions around the world – from January 2004 through September 2017.

In September, coverage relating to ecological and meteorological issues grabbed attention. Hurricanes in the Caribbean Basin – Harvey (in late August), Irma (in early September) and Maria (in mid-September) garnered a range of stories about ecological and human impacts from the storms along with stressors on ecosystem services, flora and fauna. ‘Hurricane’ was the fourth most frequently invoked word of four letters or more1 in articles across the US press – The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times – that also invoked the terms climate change or global warming in September 2017, while ‘people’ (often relating to impacts from these storms) was the third most frequently used word. For instance, Laura King and Les Neuhaus reported in the Los Angeles Times on September 6th of the then-current human death toll in the Caribbean as hurricane Irma made its way to the Florida Coast. Figure 2 shows three-letters-or-more word use in articles on climate change or global warming, with the size of the term indicating the frequency of their deployment across the month.

Figure 2. Word cloud showing frequency of words invoked in media coverage of climate change or global warming in the United States in September 2017. Data are from five US sources (The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times).

Evidence from Figure 2 leads into attention paid to political content of coverage during the month as well. In the US, ‘Trump’ was invoked 3443 times through the 322 stories this month. ‘Trump’ was the most invoked term four-letter-or-more making print in climate change or global warming stories in September. ‘President’ was the second most utilized word in US press accounts. This effectively continued the ‘Trump Dump’ that was mentioned in previous summaries and that has been detected since January 2017. These political stories were frequently linked to aforementioned ecological/meteorological pieces during this month. Stories also noted the absence of mentions of climate change in US President Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, but the presence of other world leaders’ critiques of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. For instance, Ben Glaze from The Mirror reported on UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s September 20th address that contained a “thinly-veiled rebuke to the US President”.

These politically-infused media portrayals bridge also to media coverage of scientific dimensions of climate change in September 2017. As an example, Dino Grandoni in The Washington Post recounted on September 14th how US President Donald J. Trump mentioned that these 2017 storms were still not as big as some that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s. This puzzling set of comments generated news coverage in how it appeared to demonstrate that the politicized nature of these issues can influence how one defines ‘record setting’ and ‘big’2, while deflecting how the impacts of the 2017 storms can be exacerbated by coastal development and rising atmospheric and ocean temperatures. This scientifically-germane and politically-drenched stance also showed some signs of fissures among right-of-center political actors. For instance, Arizona Senator John McCain was quoted in media accounts stating a fundamental notion that it is important to recognize that the climate is changing.

Across the globe in September there were a range of stories that pervaded the cultural arena. Articles focused on issues such as local and indigenous-led conservation efforts in the Amazon. Dan Collyns from The Guardian reported September 6th on conflicts between these groups and miners as well as loggers in the region, and also to how these practices affect greenhouse gas emissions inventories from countries like Peru and Brazil. In the corporate cultural sphere, a number of stories at the end of September discussed ExxonMobil’s new voluntary commitments to curb methane emissions leaks from its oil and gas operations. For example, Clifford Krauss from The New York Times reported on a multi-year program to replace equipment and to train new workers in monitoring techniques.

The hurricane season ends November 1, and more is yet to come in news along political, scientific, ecological/meteorological and cultural dimensions of climate change or global warming.

Save

In elite sports, science plays a crucial role in the implementation of anti-doping regulations. Doping refers to the taking of substances which have been banned due to their possible performance enhancing benefits to the athlete. The organization that oversees anti-doping efforts for international sports under the Olympics is WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency.

In 2011, WADA, along with the International Association of Athletics Federations (which oversees track and field competitions) established a working group to assess the prevalence of doping in elite sport. The group of scientists conducted a study at two major events that year. But when it came time to publish their results, WADA and IAAF did not allow them to do so,

Finally, in 2017 after much debate and controversy the results of that study have been published.  That study is a blockbuster:

Ulrich R., Pope H.G., Cleret L., Petroczi A., Nepusz T., Schaffer J., Kanayama G., Comstock R.D., Simon P., 2017. Doping in two elite athletics competitions assessed by randomized-response surveys.Sports Med. doi:10.1007/s40279-017-0765-4.

It shows that in the two events that it looked at, about 50% of elite athletes disclosed that they had doped.

In a companion piece, CSTPR faculty affiliate Roger Pielke discusses the significance of the new paper. Pielke writes:

“Perhaps the most important result from Ulrich et al. is not that half of elite athletes are doping, but rather quantifying prevalence and how it changes over time is not just possible, but readily available. Anti-doping agencies, sport organizations and the athletes whom they oversee simply have to decide that gathering such data is a priority. So what are we waiting for?”

Pielke’s complete commentary can be read here.

New research provides insight into people’s perceptions of large-scale climate manipulation technology

CIRES News
October 9, 2017

Many people expressed serious concerns when presented with the idea of deliberately manipulating Earth’s climate, according to a focus-group study conducted in four places around the world. But despite those negative feelings, they remained open about “geoengineering” or climate intervention ideas, in the face of a changing climate and uncertain future.

In the new study, published in the September-October issue of Climatic Change, CIRES and collaborators around the world used focus group discussions to study the ways non-scientists sought to understand large-scale “climate engineering” technologies. They found that participants in all places focused less on the details of the specific technologies, and more on the meaning of those technologies, including the reality of climate-related risks to their communities and the broader world.

“People’s opinions develop not so much from the idea of the technology itself, but rather from what that technology means,” said Lisa Dilling, Associate Professor in Environmental Studies, Director of CIRES Western Water Assessment and Associate Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. “The meaning people attach to technology says a lot about their values, and what kind of world they see themselves living in.”

Dilling, along with Rachel Hauser of the National Center for Atmospheric Research led the U.S. component of a focus-group study to explore what people think of climate engineering technologies. The goal was not to complete a total, representative survey of the globe, but rather start to understand how people form opinions and make sense of these controversial concepts—which for now exist mainly in the minds of scientists.

During focus groups in the United States, Japan, New Zealand and Sweden, researchers began by asking about how participants thought about environmental change and climate change specifically. Then the researchers neutrally described the technologies proposed for climate engineering to see how focus group participants reacted and how people made sense of the largely unfamiliar concepts. The technologies described included: pulling large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with giant scrubbers and storing it in underground, and reflecting solar radiation away from the Earth with mirrors deployed in space or brightened clouds.

Many focus group members reacted first with nervous laughter. Most participants had not heard of climate engineering. So they made sense of these unfamiliar concepts by creating analogies to what they already knew. During the sessions, participants compared climate engineering to technologies such as transport infrastructure, the introduction of species to new areas or large-scale nuclear power. Even though all focus group participants were recruited because they said they were interested in environmental problems, few knew much about the climate engineering technologies, and many met the ideas with skepticism.

Their apprehension came in four major flavors:

• What happens if the technologies backfire with unintended consequences?
• Are these solutions treating the symptoms of climate change rather than the cause?
• Shouldn’t we just change our lifestyle and consumption patterns to fight climate change, making climate engineering a last resort?
• Isn’t there a greater need to address political solutions to reduce our emissions?

For many participants, their perception of climate engineering echoed their personal beliefs about how humans should interact with nature. For example, the focus group held in Boulder, Colorado—a community well-known for its eco-conscious mindset—emphasized the need to reduce carbon footprints by driving less or choosing sustainable foods.

Another topic that came up during focus groups discussions in all four locations: If large-scale climate engineering technologies were deployed, would it give people an excuse to keep rapidly burning fossil fuels, extending our dependence on them? Participants wondered: If technology existed to clean up our messes—would we continue to carelessly make them?

Finally, most participants felt it might be necessary to “keep the door open” for climate engineering research—especially when moderators introduced the idea of a future “climate emergency” such as rapid environmental change. Overall, participants felt that mitigation and adaptation were strongly preferred options for responding to climate change, with climate engineering seen as a last resort.