Climate in Crisis? You Betcha!
Climate is not just for climatologists anymore, say the geologist and climatologist who are teaching a new course this spring, “Climate in Crisis?” It’s listed as NRES 299 and will be Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 2 p.m. in Hardin Hall, at the corner of 33rd and Holdrege.
Policy makers and leaders in all fields need to understand how a changing climate will affect them.
"A day doesn’t go by without most people hearing mention of our changing climate,” said Ken Dewey, a climatologist with the School of Natural Resources. “It’s easy to get confused because there’s a lot of science about climate change and a lot of political rhetoric reported in the media. It is our goal to bring the basics of climate change to any student at UNL who is interested in an unbiased, rudimentary understanding of our climate system, including changes in the past, present trends, and future outlooks.”
The course will also help students sort through conflicting views on global warming, and the difference between normal scientific debate and ideologically driven denial. “Clearly, there’s been a downplaying of climate science by this administration,” said Jim Swinehart, geologist. “You have people out there who are deniers rather than skeptics. Every scientist is a skeptic.”
The course “is for anyone, with or without a science background, who is interested in this controversial subject,” Dewey said. “We as academics can’t imagine any profession that isn’t impacted by the changing climate. Come learn more!”
"We are facing ever-increasing warming, melting glaciers, more intense storms, and rising sea levels,” Swinehart said. “Business as usual is probably not an option. We don’t want to put millions of people in danger of degradation of quality of life. What can we do besides put in compact fluorescents? We’re going to have to do something in the way of policy. Governments need to decide how to spend money. Is it on mitigation? Adaptation? With the lags that are built into climate, it’s not like you can throw the brakes and stop the train,” Swinehart said. “There’s a 20-year lag built in, with increasing temperatures in the atmosphere and the ocean. We have to have a long-term view. We can’t just be looking one generation ahead. We have to be looking two and three generations ahead.”
As a geologist, Swinehart brings a paleoclimatological perspective. Paleoclimatologists use naturally recorded data such as tree rings and ice cores to extract climate history. Swinehart has studied the layers of sediment in Nebraska’s Sand Hills. “Twenty years ago, we had this idea that not a whole lot had changed on the prairies – not too much colder or hotter,” he said. “But by studying the sand dunes, which are now stabilized, we realized there’ve been major periods of dune activity. In the past 10,000 years, the sand hills have probably been in desert conditions at least half of the time.”
Paleoclimatologists have also discovered that some climate shifts are remarkably dramatic. From studying the layers of ice in Greenland, it appears that about 13,000 years ago, there was a drop of roughly 12 degrees Fahrenheit in average Greenland temperatures, and it happened over about 10 years’ time. Apparently, huge amounts of cold water from glacially dammed lakes broke through their confines and emptied down the St. Laurence Seaway into the Atlantic Ocean, putting a stop to the Atlantic current. About 1,300 years later, Greenland’s surface temperature warmed back up about 15 degrees, also in a decade or less. This cool period, the Younger Dryas, is best documented in Greenland, but affected most of the Northern Hemisphere.
"The good news is, that can’t happen in our lifetime, because we don’t have glaciers over Toronto,” Swinehart said. “But it shows you that if you cross a certain threshold, you’re not just throwing out the baby with the bathwater, you’re throwing out the kitchen sink, too.”
For anyone looking for one more reason to enroll, Swinehart noted that the books for the course are both available as mainstream trade paperbacks, far less expensive than traditional textbooks. They are The Rough Guide to Climate Change, by Robert Henson, and Field Notes from a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert.
Sources:
Jim Swinehart, School of Natural Resources Geologist, 472-7529, jswinehart1@unl.edu
Ken Dewey, School of Natural Resources Climatologist, 472-2908, kdewey1@unl.edu
Writer:
Kelly Helm Smith, School of Natural Resources Communicator, 472-3373, ksmith2@unl.edu
