"Years of Living Dangerously"

Climate change is a complex topic and even some of the experts have a difficult time grasping all of the implications.  As the climate changes so does the society and world in which we live.  The most recent findings of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) point out what the science knows and the risks ahead.

Now a documentary series tries to bring the knowledge of climate change to the ordinary person.  It does this by telling the stories of people affected by climate change.  How does degrading the environment affect the world and the food you eat?  How does drought relate to climate change?  What are the risks involved in our future?

These are some of the questions addressed in a new Showtime series airing Sunday, April 13, 2014, at 10 p.m. called “Years of Living Dangerously”.  It is a nine-part series that will address a number of topics related to climate change.

The first episode is already available on the internet at the website www.yearsoflivingdangerously.com .  If you do not get Showtime, you can watch it here.  Below is a discussion on the documentary and climate change from two of the participants in the program on a recent Face The Nation on CBS:

Climate Change & Fall Colors

The colors of fall are greatly anticipated in this part of the country.  Some plan vacations around a particular week trying to be in the peak of color.  Normally tourists plan for the middle two weeks of October to enjoy the color of western North Carolina.  However, I was surprised on a recent trip into that area to see how late the change of color was this year.

Near Lake Adger in western North Carolina (about 10 miles east of Hendersonville) on October 21, 2013.  Notice the lack of color.  There was still a lot of green.  Click on the image for a larger view.  Image Credit: Jim Gandy

It got me thinking about the set-up this year.  The summer had been very wet, but fall had turned out to be quite dry.  It should have been a good year for color in western North Carolina.  This is not to say that there wasn’t color, but you didn’t see the splash of all the colors at once.

I came across a blog post by a plant physiologist at Appalachian State University which put this in perspective.  Dr. Howie Neufeld goes into detail about how trees change color and what factors can affect fall colors.  It is quite informative and worth a read, but here is an excerpt on the two main factors:

It's All About Chemistry

In 1827 the French mathematician and scientist, Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier postulated that something in the atmosphere was helping keep the earth warmer than it might otherwise.  He is generally credited with discovering the greenhouse effect even though he did not coin the phrase.  However, his work set the stage for later developments in the nineteenth century.

It was the British scientist John Tyndall who demonstrated the absorption of infrared radiation from different gases in 1861.  His work found that nearly all of the greenhouse effect was due to just a few trace gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide (CO2).  This was a startling discovery, because it had huge implications for Earth’s climate.

The Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius was the first to actually detail how a doubling of carbon dioxide would change the global temperature with the publication of his work in 1896.  His work eventually led to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903.  He is recognized with beginning modern climate science.

The discovery of global warming is a fascinating story.  I highly recommend the book by Spencer Weart by the name The Discovery of Global Warming.  If you are interested in the scientific papers, it is available in the collection called the The Warming Papers edited by David Archer and Raymond Pierrehumbert.

Note that the foundation of climate science occurred over a century ago.  It is also noteworthy that the trace gases were recognized for their ability to influence Earth’s climate as far back as the nineteenth century.

Fast forward to today.  The burning of fossil fuels has fueled (pardon the pun) the world economic growth.  China and the U.S. are the two largest emitters of CO2.  In the latest accounting the global growth in emissions continues.

How do we know that the increases in CO2 come from burning fossil fuels?

The Growing Season Ends For 2012

Frosts and freezes were common across the midlands of South Carolina this morning.  A few areas saw temperatures drop to freezing on the first of November, but most of those readings were in low-lying protected areas.  However, much of the area saw temperatures to freezing this morning.  A few areas like the city of Columbia still have not reached freezing, but most of the area saw enough frost to end the growing season for the Midlands.

Low temperatures for the first-order stations in South Carolina for Friday, November 9.  Image Credit: WLTX-TV.

Leaves Are Changing, But Later

By Climate Central

If it seems like autumn leaves are taking longer to change color, you’re not imagining things. Over the past 25 years, the onset of autumn has shifted. Fall now arrives two and a half weeks later in Columbia than it did in the early 1980s. This reflects the shift that's happening around the country, where leaves are staying on trees about 10.5 days later across the lower 48 states (see below).

The journal sourced is on the graphic.  Click on the image for a larger view.  Image Credit: Climate Central.

How do we know? Using satellite-based measurements of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which gauges leaf cover over wide areas, researchers at the Seoul National University in Korea found that the end of the growing season occurred progressively later over the course of their 26-year study. By noting the time of year changes in color occurred most rapidly, the researchers could track when fall in the lower 48 states started between 1982 and 2008.