Benjamin Hale was quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article:

Can ‘climate intervention’ help fend off global warming?

The National Academy of Sciences outlines a research agenda for two broad approaches that may be needed as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

By Pete Spotts
Christian Science Monitor
February 10, 2015

A panel of scientists from the United States is calling for more research into tools for intentionally altering components of Earth’s climate system as a way to forestall or blunt the worst effects of global warming.

Neither of the two broad approaches that the National Research Council (NRC) panel examined in a pair of reports released Tuesday is ready for prime time. But of the two, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is far enough along to benefit from dedicated research-and-development efforts to scale up the techniques and cut their costs.

The other, altering the amount of sunlight that Earth’s surface receives, carries too many unknown, hard-to-quantify risks for it to be more than a topic of additional research – at least for now.

The 16-member panel, operating under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, was asked to review what’s known about the techniques and recommend additional steps to give the public and politicians the information needed to decide whether such tools should be used to tackle global warming, and to explore some of the ethical and policy issues that should be addressed.

The effort comes at a time when greenhouse-gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide, from burning fossils fuels and from land-use changes continue to rise – reaching levels not seen in the climate system for more than 800,000 years.

Meanwhile, global talks aimed at producing a new climate treaty that embraces all nations, not just the industrial countries, are heading to what negotiators hope will be approval in Paris at the end of the year. But the pledges that countries have made so far to tackle emissions fall short of what researchers say is needed in the near term to stand even a 50-50 chance of holding the increase in global average temperatures to about 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F.) above preindustrial levels by the end of the century.

Like the concept of adaptation to global warming before it, the notion of intentionally altering aspects of the climate system to forestall or reduce the more harmful effects of global warming has been around in the research community for decades. Now it is getting a fresh look in the policy arena.

As one gauge of interest, the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office in Washington both have taken up the topic in recent years, as have other policy groups, in addition to position statements and studies from scientific groups such as the NRC, the American Meteorological Society, and Britain’s Royal Society.

Indeed, “the real challenge for geoengineering, writ large, is going to be on the public front,” says Benjamin Hale, an associate professor in philosophy and in environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, as people sort through the ethical issues behind the choices they will face.

Debates over the Keystone XL pipeline will pale in comparison with debates over whether to deploy climate modification tools that in some cases can have vast unintended consequences for billions of people, he says. Read more …

Roger Pielke, Jr. was quoted in a USA Today article:

Buried in Boston? Blame it on climate change — maybe
by Doyle Rice

USA Today
February 10, 2015

Boston is used to snow, but not like this — nearly 6 feet in two weeks, including the biggest two snowstorms since records began after the Civil War.

And two more storms carrying a foot of snow each are forecast in the next week.

Massachusetts has already removed enough snow to fill the Patriots’ Gillette Stadium 90 times, and Gov. Charlie Baker called the situation “pretty much unprecedented.”

What’s going on? Although no individual storm can be directly linked to climate change, Boston’s snowy winter could point to weather patterns affected by global warming.

“The environment in which all storms form is now different than it was just 30 or 40 years ago because of global warming,” said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Higher temperatures warm the oceans and allow the atmosphere to hold a greater amount of water vapor, said Brad Johnson, a meteorologist with the University of Georgia. “Both of these factors, among others, contribute to stronger storms in general,” he said.

Johnson also said scientists are not able to attribute just a single storm or series of storms directly to climate change.

In the future, due to climate change, snowfalls will increase because the atmosphere can hold 4% more moisture for every 1-degree increase in temperature, Trenberth said. As long as temperatures stay just below freezing, the result is more snow — rather than rain, he said.

Several of the Northeast’s biggest snowstorms on record hit in the past 15 years — and two of Boston’s 10 largest snowstorms on record occurred in the past two weeks, according to the National Weather Service.

More than 2 feet of snow fell Monday, jamming travel in the hard-hit Boston region. Boston, which set a seven-day snow record last week, had 20 inches of fresh snow, and the storm was forecast to last into Tuesday in some areas.

The Northeast has seen more of an increase in intense rain- and snowstorms in the past five decades than other parts of the United States, according to last year’s U.S. National Climate Assessment, the most comprehensive report on the nation’s climate.

But Roger Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado, isn’t sure that climate change can be blamed for all the snow. “Those who argue a simple relationship between increasing water content of the atmosphere and storm strength, data do not support such a claim,” he said, referring to the lack of peer-reviewed studies about the claim.

Pielke said the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has not attributed any winter storm trends to human influences causing global warming. Read more …

Bobbie Klein’s work on Colorado Climate Change Vulnerability Study was highlighted in a Daily Camera article.

Study: Climate change could bring more disease, crop damage, fires to Colorado
State-commissioned study sees 2.5 to 5.5-degree temperature increase by mid-century

by Charlie Brennan
Daily Camera
February 4, 2015

Colorado could see more infectious disease, negative impacts on the elderly and people living in poverty, as well as stresses to water, cattle and crops as byproducts of future climate change, according to a comprehensive new report commissioned by the Colorado Energy Office.

“The important takeaway is, here’s what’s important to Colorado,” said Eric Gordon, co-lead editor of the 176-page report and managing director of the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado. “We’re not talking about things that have nothing to do with us, like sea level rise. This is what’s important to Colorado and what we should be worrying about.”

The exhaustive report includes chapters devoted to seven separate sectors where the state might show vulnerability to climate change — ecosystems, water, agriculture, energy, transportation, outdoor recreation and public health.

Dennis Ojima, co-lead editor of the report and a professor in the Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Department at Colorado State University, noted the degree to which each of those sectors can be seen as intertwined with the others.

For example, Ojima said, “In a warmer climate, we need more irrigation and more energy to support that, and more air conditioning in our area in the summer requires more energy, but also more water for cooling. These multiple constraints start occurring when you start looking at the whole state of the system.”

Among noteworthy findings of the report:

• Climate projections show that Colorado’s springtime mountain snowpack will likely decline by 2050, with potential impacts on late-season skiing. Spring runoff season may also be earlier and shorter, which could affect rafting.
• The state’s reservoirs can provide buffering against some expected increases in water demand and decreases in flow, but entities with junior rights or little storage are especially vulnerable to future low flows.
• Rising temperatures, heat waves and droughts can reduce crop yield and slow cattle weight gain. Colorado farmers and ranchers are already accustomed to large natural swings in weather and climate but may find it particularly hard to deal with expected changes in water resources.
• The report, presuming a conservative level of future greenhouse gas emissions, nevertheless forecasts a 2.5- to 5.5-degree increase in statewide temperatures by mid-century, relative to a 1971-2000 baseline. Also, Colorado will be more prone to extreme precipitation events in winter, but not necessarily during the summer.

The report states that impacts on public health are complex and hard to anticipate, but climbing temperatures may mean more frequent episodes of bad air quality and more common heatstroke, plague, West Nile virus and hantavirus.

Temperatures in Colorado have been rising, especially in summer, and that trend is expected to continue, along with increases in the frequency and intensity of heat waves and wildfire.

Even public schools in many Front Range cities are vulnerable to these changes, the report stated. Historically, schools in the state have not often required cooling, so many do not have air-conditioned classrooms.

Boulder County, in fact, is spending $37.7 million from a $576.5 million construction bond issue passed in November to provide air conditioning to eight schools that don’t have it (five of which hold summer sessions). Read more …

Roger Pielke, Jr. quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article:

Study finds wide gulf between public, scientist views about science (+video)

Americans hold science in high regard, but perceive risks and scientific theories very differently from scientists, a new study finds. The public is much more skeptical about the safety of genetically modified foods and pesticides than scientists.

by Pete Spotts
Christian Science Monitor, January 30, 2015

For years, social scientists have tracked the public’s perception of risk from various technologies or their perceptions of well-established scientific theories. A new study from the Pew Research Center takes that a step further to compare public views with those of scientists. Not only do the results find gaps between the two groups. It finds those gaps surprisingly high, but that it cuts across more issues than expected, according to the study’s architects.

The results are raising yellow flags in some circles that public confidence in the United States‘ scientific enterprise, while still high, may be eroding. They are prompting a renewed call for scientists to step out of the lab and into PTA meetings, service organizations, and other groups not as lecturers but as neighbors with a useful perspective to share, especially on issues that have a scientific component to them.

In particular, researchers should be working to find common ground where the science generates “discomfort between science and the rest of society,” says Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the executive publisher of the journal Science. Pew drew on a random sample of just over 2,700 scientists among the AAAS’s US membership for its survey, as well as 2,002 adults picked at random from around the country.

“We only support science if it’s going to pay off in benefits to humankind,” he explains. Unless the public is receptive to what science has to offer and is familiar with what science can and cannot contribute to policy discussions, “the more difficult for society to reap the benefits of science.”

Ironically, the angst comes at a time when public recognition of science’s contributions to society is widespread – a persistent feature of studies gathered regularly by the National Academy of Sciences, as well as this new study. The Pew survey found that 79 percent of adults outside the science community agree that science has made life easier for most people, although the figure is four points lower than it was in 2009. Some 70 percent of adults agree that government spending on engineering and technology, as well as on basic research, at some point pays off. Read more …