Event explores changing, evolving climate
Rob Davies, Utah Climate Center coordinator and USU adjunct professor, addressed the culminating issue of climate change during Friday’s Science Unwrapped, explaining the vehicles that are perpetuating these changes.
Davies explained that climate change is different from global warming. Global warming is the warming of the atmosphere, and the climate includes all aspects that can be affected by this change from weather to the biosphere.
“Humans are the single largest tug on the climate system now, causing it to change by a factor of 10 and 30. So we’re between 10 and 30 times stronger than the next natural tug on the climate,” Davies said.
Davies said the scientific community has reached a consensus about the causes of the warming. He also said this community has looked at the different natural causes, such as warming cycles and the sun, as primary causes of the problem using different climate models. A climate model is a complex equation that factors different variables and tests the effects that they would have on the climate system, he said.
Scientific consensus is reached through peer review, said Simon Wang, an assistant professor in the department of plants, soil, and climate.
“It’s not voting, it’s similar to counting hands, but you don’t only say that I agree because I like to. Every agreement or disagreement comes with data,” Wang said.
The process of collecting data can come from many different sources including ice cores, tree rings, coral and ocean sediments, which give the scientific community information about earth’s climate in periods before recorded data spanning back thousands of years. Current climate measurements are collected from devices around the globe designed to gather data on different aspects of the climate.
Bruce Bugbee, a professor in the department of plants, soil, and climate, is helping to replace USU’s current weather station that has been operating since 1893. The new station – which is now automated – allows for a continuous gathering of data. In addition, the data collection is automated, which means it no longer requires someone to check the readings every morning, Bugbee said.
“We’ve never had a station like that on Utah State University campus,” Bugbee said. “This was our chance to make the jump to light speed with a really modern weather station.”
The new weather station will be used to continue the research done at the university and teach students about data recording.
Students will also be able to use the new station when it becomes active by getting information about the climate on campus via website. The informational sign that will be next to the data collector will have a bar code on it that can be scanned by smart phones to automatically take students to the website that gives information collected by the weather station.
Davies said as a society, we need to reduce the amount of green house gases being emitted by 90 percent before the middle of the century if we hope to avoid the most severe consequences of a changing climate.
– randall.henry@aggiemail.usu.edu