Global climate change, Part 1: Is the climate really changing?

White Thaw: The Helheim Conspiracy is the title of my third thriller, following Category 5 and Prophecy. Being a meteorologist, I thought it time to base one of my thrillers on global climate change, the environmental topic of our times. Although technically accurate, my book is not intended to cover the subtleties of the debate over global warming. White Thaw is a work of fiction and, accordingly, to make it interesting, my story focuses on evil people doing terrible things to our planet.

But because I am a meteorologist and because the subject of my book does involve climate change, various of my readers are sure to ask my opinion regarding this sometimes contentious subject. For this reason, I have written a two-part blog.

What’s happening to our planet?  The climate seems to have a mind of its own, subjecting us to more and more weather extremes and often ignoring the usually reliable march of summer, fall, winter, and spring. Everything from cataclysmic Super Storm Sandy that obliterated much of the New Jersey coastline last year, to the early May snowstorm that affected Denver, to the forest fires that are currently ravaging much of the west, makes us wonder what’s happening to our planet.

There are two questions here: is the climate changing and who or what is responsible?  There are those who deny the former, but the overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise. And it is the evidence that must be accepted. That is the way science works; scientists look at data and develop theories to explain patterns. This technique is known as the empirical method (in contrast to the experimental method in which parameters are manipulated to gain further understanding.)

Many of the scientists who study climate are members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). I am a meteorologist and a member of the AMS, but certainly no expert on climate. For people like me who enjoy going directly to the executive summary, the AMS occasionally produces an Information Statement, “intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.”  One such statement on Climate Change was issued recently, in August of 2012. This document is comprehensive, and I would like to extract a few relevant passages.

Here is a quote from the AMS concerning global climate change in general. “Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. Observations show increases in globally averaged air and ocean temperatures, as well as widespread melting of snow and ice and rising globally averaged sea level.” The AMS statement goes into further detail. Please read more at https://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2012climatechange.html; the document is not that long and is not a difficult read.

Concerning rising sea levels mentioned in this statement, I can add a personal story here. While developing the plot for White Thaw, my wife and I visited Cartagena, Columbia, on the northern coast of South America. I chose Cartagena to be the home for my antagonists and, as our Princess Cruise ship was leaving the harbor, I identified a peninsula that I thought would be perfect for the rich palatial estate of my antagonists. (Go to www.paulmarktag.com to see Google Earth pictures for most chapters in my books.) But during an earlier bus tour of Cartagena, on a perfectly clear, but stiflingly hot day, I observed significant puddling of water on the street. I asked our tour guide if there had been a shower earlier to account for the water. He said that there had not been, that the water was coming from the ocean, which did not appear to be that much lower than the surface of the road. He said that since the early 1990’s, the ocean level there had risen four inches. That seemingly small rise was enough to cause flooding problems for the city.

Of the two questions highlighted above, the second one is the more contentious: are human beings causing any or all of this global climate change, usually referred to as global warming?  I will address this aspect in Part 2 of this blog.

Categorised in: White Thaw

This post was written by paulmarktag01