Growing up in Massachusetts, I remember winter producing the epic snowstorms you might encounter beyond the wall in George R.R. Martin’s “Games of Thrones.” My sisters and I would spend hours building snowmen, making snow angels and carving elaborate igloo-style dwellings. Of course, we were smaller then, and the giant piles of snow pushed up by the plow seemed to tower above our 4-foot frames.

Still, other than the Snowpocalypse of 2011, these days I’m rarely wowed by a winter storm (in Chicago or back East). And, with temperatures set to reach 50 degrees on Saturday, it hardly feels like January.

Today marks the first time since 1940 that Chicago has gone 320 consecutive days without at least an inch of snow falling, according to the Chicago Tribune. And, the National Climatic Data Center officially confirmed that 2012 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States. “The average temperature for 2012 was 55.3°F, 3.3°F above the 20^th century average, and 1.0°F above 1998, the previous warmest year,” according to the report.

Most people probably aren’t complaining. But, the center also found that 2012 was a, “historic year for extreme weather that included drought, wildfires, hurricanes and storms.” With 11 natural disasters causing $1 billion worth of losses, last year certainly put the U.S. through the ringer.

While many people may be happy to stow their gloves and hats, I can’t help but worry about what such extreme changes in climate mean for the future. Sure, a warm winter day is a pleasant surprise. But, a warmer planet isn’t something to celebrate.

Unless your house was destroyed, Hurricane Sandy has probably more or less faded from memory.  However, Sandy proved to be a major win for the meteorological community.  Up to seven days before landfall, the weather model run by the European Centre correctly predicted Sandy’s extremely unusual westward turn into the coast, and the U.S. models came to the same conclusion a day or so later.  (As a side note, the European model consistently performs better than the U.S. model, for a variety of technical and political reasons.)

Weather models predict the future by applying basic physical laws to an initial atmospheric state, consisting of parameters like temperature, pressure, and humidity, taken at points across the globe and at altitudes from the surface to well above where commercial aircraft fly.  Think of the atmosphere as a giant mass of fluid sloshing around in a tank – it’s constantly moving in extremely complex but basically predictable ways.  The more accurately you know the initial characteristics of the fluid, the more accurately you can predict the future movement.

In practice, both parts of this – the data collection and the prediction – are exceptionally difficult.  To initialize the model, weather data is needed from quite literally everywhere on the planet – the temperatures and pressures in the middle of the ocean are just as important as those over a city.  With the launching of a number of dedicated satellites, we’ve begun to do this reasonably well (however, those satellites are in danger).

Simulating the weather across the entire planet takes a vast amount of computing power.  The operational weather models are run on dedicated super computers, and the speed of these computers plays a significant role in the maximum resolution that the model can attain; in general, higher model resolutions translate into better forecasts.

The prediction of Sandy is a remarkable achievement, especially given the fact that Sandy was basically unique in our 150 years of weather records (that’s not to say that similar storms haven’t occurred before – they’re just very unusual).  Ten years ago, it is unlikely that models would have picked up on the last-minute westward turn that Sandy took before making landfall in New Jersey.

Most East Coast hurricanes are pushed out to sea by the prevailing west-to-east high altitude jet stream.  In Sandy’s case, however, an anomalously strong high pressure system situated over Greenland caused the upper level winds to reverse their course and blow from southeast to northwest, directing Sandy into the coast.

In addition, unusually warm sea surface temperatures and interactions between Sandy’s circulation and an existing low pressure system caused the storm to intensify just as it made landfall.  Its path through southern New Jersey produced the worst possible setup for New York City, with 80-100 mph southeast winds pushing water into Manhattan.

The other thing to note is that along the East Coast, sea levels are now about one foot higher than they were a century ago, meaning that the surge in NYC occurred on top of this already higher water.  Regardless of whether or not the strength of hurricanes increases in the near future, with a steadily rising ocean, the impact of their storm surges will.  Sandy is an excellent example of how climate and weather merge in a sometimes confusing fashion – this storm was not caused by climate change, but the effects of climate change certainly made it worse.

Photo courtesy of ECMWF

The effects of climate change are often portrayed as a future threat, something that will one day bare its ugly (and warm) face and inflict catastrophic damage on our society.  This is largely untrue – not the part about the damage, but rather the part about the damage being confined to the future.  As a new paper demonstrates in an unusually clear fashion, climate change has already happened, and its effects are rapidly becoming visible in our weather.

The usual refrain when discussing the visible effects of climate change is that no particular weather event can be attributed to human-induced global warming.  However, this view is changing, largely as a result of the last several decades’ clearly anomalous number of above-average temperature events.  Here, the authors show that warming has already shifted the global temperature distribution upward, significantly increasing the frequency of extreme heat waves.

The authors looked at global temperature data between 1950 and 1980.  Over this period, the data take the form of a normal distribution, or a bell curve.  This tells us that in any given year it is highly likely that the average temperature will fall close to the long-term average, and temperatures farther from the this average are increasingly improbable.  This is just common sense; it’s extremely unlikely that Chicago will receive snow in July, and just as unlikely that New Year’s Day will top 100 degrees.

Given this known temperature distribution, we can determine if a particular time period is above or below normal, by how much, and exactly how unlikely this departure from average is.  The authors note that the historical temperature data could be used to determine the areal temperature distribution – the expected percentage of the planet experiencing a certain temperature level at a certain time.  For example, temperatures that have a 10 percent chance of occurring according to the historical data should cover, on average, about 10 percent of the planet.

The authors checked whether recent areal temperature distributions matched those predicted by the 1950 to 1980 temperature data.  They didn’t; in fact, the recent temperatures were drastically different.  From 1980 to the present, the percentage of the planet covered by above-average temperatures has steadily increased, with the most extreme temperatures increasing in coverage at the fastest rate.  In 2010, the most unusual heat events – ones which historically had covered only about 0.1 percent of earth’s surface – now covered a rather incredible 13 percent.

According to the historical temperature data, the probability of extreme heat covering such a large portion of the planet is minuscule, and the fact that similar temperatures have been seen relatively consistently for a decade makes it highly improbable that we’ve just hit a spout of bad luck.  The authors conclude that the only plausible explanation is that the entire temperature distribution has shifted upwards, so that temperatures that constituted a heat wave between 1950 and 1980 are normal today, and heat events which were once considered extreme are now not all that unusual.

The changes that have occurred may not be obvious to an individual observer, but on a global scale the planet is significantly hotter than it was fifty years ago.  Many of the recent extreme heat events have been disastrous.  The 2003 European heat wave killed an estimated 70,000 people, the 2010 Russian heat wave cost approximately $15 billion, and the ongoing heat wave and drought in this country is poised to significantly decrease crop yields.

These increasingly frequent heat waves are at best very expensive and at worst very deadly.  As this study shows, it does not require an especially technical analysis to observe the effects of climate change – just by comparing today’s temperatures to those of a few decades ago, the changes are quite clear.  In a rational world, one would hope that responsible people would react to such information; thus far they have not.  Unfortunately, nature will not take pity on humans for their lack of foresight, and the consequences of our inaction will become increasingly severe.

(Image from study cited in article)

Climate change is arguably one of the most significant and potentially destructive problems that humans have ever faced.  It’s insidious, because the damage it causes is spread over time scales that people are not accustomed to thinking about – ten years in the future, it will be difficult to remember what the weather, the quality of infrastructure, or the price of food was like today.  Regardless of our difficulty understanding slow, drawn-out change, the earth is on average getting warmer and everyone on the planet will increasingly be affected.

Why, then, do many people not care?  Is there anything to be done about this?  A recent paper in Nature Climate Change proposes methods to help explain the benefits of emissions reduction in ways that more people will support, regardless of whether they take climate change seriously – or even believe that it is occurring.

The authors polled a group of people who professed to believe in climate change and another that denied its existence, asking two sets of questions.  First, each group was asked how they thought that mitigating climate change would affect society with regard to five parameters – interpersonal warmth, competence, morality, societal dysfunction, and societal development.  In each group, the poll showed that many people believed these societal characteristics would improve – people would be more conscious of the environment and each other, jobs would be created, and technology would progress – if action is taken.

The second experiment tested whether promoting action as a path to these societal benefits, rather than to prevent environmental damage, would garner more support.  The authors found that it could; both climate believers and deniers were more enthusiastic about environmental protection when it was framed in terms of societal warmth and development than when only the consequences of climate change were mentioned.

These results show that while people may not be motivated by the key benefits of emissions reduction and environmental protection, they can be persuaded to support mitigating action if other potential societal improvements are mentioned.  This communication approach is clearly not optimal, as it would be preferable if people took the threat of a warming world seriously; but if it motivates support, it is worthy of an attempt.

While there are various reasons why climate change in particular has been challenged in the public sphere – many involving the real or perceived financial impacts of emissions reduction on established organizations – this study highlights the general difficulty of communicating science to the public.  The scientific community often feels that presenting results in anything other than a straightforward, rational way is at best inefficient and at worst intellectually dishonest.  But, the style of presentation accepted among scientists is rarely effective with the public, perhaps because people are not accustomed to gleaning societal consequences from technical results.  While much scientific work has direct and extremely significant implications for the public, these impacts are often not obvious.  It is essential for the scientific community to keep this in mind when presenting work, especially when it is as important and requires as broad a response as does that involving climate change.

Photo credit: NASA

This summer I’m working at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, which is one of the country’s main facilities engaged in climate change research. Scientists at GFDL don’t go to Greenland to extract ice cores, they don’t visit paradise to observe the response of coral reefs to their acidifying ocean home, and, in fact, they don’t really have to go outside at all; instead, they make models. Not physical models, but rather computer simulations – really big computer simulations of the earth’s entire climate system, involving the oceans, atmosphere, and the activity of living things, including humans.

These models have evolved over about fifty years into monstrous software packages that require supercomputers to run them, but the core idea of a climate model is simple.  The climate is a description of the weather patterns that occur repeatedly over long periods of time.  These weather patterns are governed by a relatively small set of physical laws, like those that determine how air moves in response to a difference in pressure or how much and how quickly air temperature increases as solar energy is absorbed.  The goal of a climate model is to apply these known physical laws to a virtual atmosphere, perhaps changing a factor like the greenhouse gas concentration, and observe the climate that emerges.  The complexity comes from the fact that the atmospheric system is fluid and dynamic (hence the lab’s name), interacts with the land and ocean, and is influenced by life, geologic processes, and an enormous number of other factors.  Think of trying to predict the location at any moment in the future of a small bit of water flowing into turbulent river rapids – and also the behavior of the rapids based on the underwater rock formations and recent precipitation.  It gets complicated rather quickly.  Despite this difficulty, the models developed at GFDL and elsewhere have become remarkably successful at simulating the behavior of the atmosphere over long periods of time, aided immensely in recent years by the explosion in computing power.

You might wonder how successful prediction of climate conditions far into the future is possible, given the seeming inability of weather forecasters – who also use computer models – to predict whether it will rain even a day or two in advance.  This is a valid question, and the answer is mainly that climate researchers have a few advantages.  The most significant is that climate predictions are not made for a specific place and time; they are made for entire regions and describe expected long-term average behavior.  The removal of the extreme specificity needed for weather forecasting makes the whole enterprise possible.  In climate research, we’re interested in how temperature and precipitation over continent-sized areas will change over decades and centuries, not minute-by-minute conditions in specific cities.

The results of this work have been spectacular.  Climate models are now our primary predictive tool, and we’re relatively confident in our forecasts for the coming decades.  We can’t say exactly how much temperatures will change or exactly where and to what degree precipitation will increase or decrease, but we can give relatively narrow ranges with confidence and determine the general trends with certainty.

And the trends are not good.  With no significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions even conceivable in the near future, it seems likely that the more pessimistic model predictions will be the most accurate.  These changes will likely have far-reaching and broadly disruptive effects on human societies across the planet, as we implicitly rely on a static climate in almost everything we do, from growing crops to choosing building materials for highways.  Any change in this fundamental underpinning of civilization will impede our ability to make long-term plans and will decrease the efficiency of activities that we’ve optimized for our current environment.

An understanding of the new reality that will soon be upon us is essential if we intend to continue our progress towards a world under our control.  Fortunately, the same technological prowess that we’ve used to modify something as gigantic and seemingly immobile as the planetary climate can also be utilized as an early warning system.  My experience thus far at GFDL has shown me the extent to which science has given us the tools we need to protect ourselves; the hard part now is choosing to use them.

I’ve been watching a lot of the Discovery Channel show “Frozen Planet.” Ripe with stunning cinematography, the program chronicles the trials and tribulations of the Arctic’s inhabitants (both animal and human) as they navigate the changing icy landscape. I often spend the majority of each episode yelling at my television set in an attempt to warn seals, walruses and penguins of approaching predators. I know it’s the cycle of life, but I can’t help but see them as plush, cuddly toys from the aquarium gift shop.

But these days, even the predators face serious threat as climate change wreaks havoc on their delicate eco-system. And recent research by climate scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research reveals another “weak point in the Antarctic ice sheet” that could lead to an additional rise in the global sea level of 4.4 millimeters per year.

Rising temperatures in the air above the Weddell Sea could lead to an “inflow of warmer waters” beneath the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature. This would lead to water temperatures in the ice shelf cavity increasing by more than 2 degrees Celsius. Making an already grim situation look even grimmer, scientist Jürgen Determann said the melt rate for the Filchner-Ronne would likely rise from 5 meters per year to up to 50 meters per year.

Why is this surprising? Scientists know that global warming is taking a toll on the western part of Antarctica, particularly the Amundsen Sea. But the southeastern part was thought to be fairly stable until this recent discovery, according to the institute. “The Weddell Sea was not really on the screen because we all thought that unlike the Amundsen Sea its warm waters would not be able to reach the ice shelves,” said Dr. Hartmut Hellmer, an oceanographer at the institute who lead the study. “But we found a mechanism which drives warm water towards the coast with an enormous impact on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in the coming decades.”

Now, this likely would not begin to happen until 2070, and it will take an additional 20 years after that for the temperature to increase to the predicted amount. But the discovery refutes what the scientists are calling a “widespread assumption” that ice shelves in the Weddell Sea are mostly impervious to climate change.

This news leaves me feeling a bit helpless and disheartened. But I’m also hopeful that in the next 50 years we may be able to reverse a portion of the damage we’ve done, so the parts of our planet that are frozen remain as such. If you ever need a reminder of why this is so important, you can tune into Discovery’s penguin cam. If that doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.

A new battery prototype has emerged in Japan that turns waste material into electricity.  Sony’s battery is paper-powered and still in the early stages of development, but it may be a new way to charge your cell phone if it is commercialized in the future.  Maybe we’ll finally have a purpose for that stack of old grocery receipts.

The device was demonstrated at the Eco-Products exhibition this past December.  The paper was dropped into a solution of water and enzymes, and after a good shake and a little wait, the battery was able to propel a little fan.  The primary enzyme utilized is called cellulase. It turns the paper into a form of sugar called glucose, which can be used by other enzymes to form electrons and hydrogen ions.

The project builds on work in which fruit juice was used to produce electricity. White ants and termites use the same process for energy when they digest wood. The byproducts of the process are just water and an acid called gluconolactone.

Yuichi Tokita, a senior researcher at Sony’s Advanced Material Research Lab, suggested to BBC News that old greeting cards could also be used as fuel.  The battery is currently powerful enough to run basic music players, but falls short in comparison to publicly-available battery technology.  Nevertheless, Greenpeace still welcomes Sony’s forward-thinking in power generation because the absence of toxic chemicals in the design of this battery makes recycling it a more eco-friendly process as well.

The Bubonic Plague has for centuries been relegated to the grimmest annals of the history books, one of humankind’s gorier chapters and often said to be the grisly muse for the children’s nursery rhyme, “Ring Around the Rosie” (though this is of questionable veracity).

Whatever the case, most people would be surprised to discover that the bacteria responsible for what has come to be known as the Black Death, or simply plague, is still around today.

According to the CDC’s webpage, the World Health Organization reports between 1,000 and 3,000 cases of plague each year, most commonly in the western and southwestern parts of the United States, as well as South America, Africa and Asia.

Because plague is so much less virulent today – with slighter symptoms and without the killer capacity for transmission it possessed in the late 1340s – researchers have wondered if perhaps the medieval version is different from that which we now see.  That, however, does not appear to be the case.

By extracting DNA from teeth found in London plague victims, they were able to extract about 99 percent of the bacteria’s genome, reports Elizabeth Weise in her article “Researchers trace the roots of Europe’s Black Death plague.”  While the genome is not fully complete, it is enough to establish that the plague of yester-century wasn’t much more virulent than today’s strain.

From this, researchers have theorized that perhaps the Black Death’s unbelievably massive fatality rates resulted not from the plague’s virulence but from a cooler climate, which led to malnourishment and poor immunity.

The parallels with today, while remote, are not ruled out.  Climate change is always a factor where human health is concerned. Like all animals, we need time to adapt to variations in food supply, temperature, disease and weather.  The Black Death may not, after all, be the story of an unconquerable killer but rather the timely lesson of a society ill-prepared to deal with a massive population and a moderate threat.

The goal is to deter companies from greenwashing – disingenuously promoting products or services as “green” -  while still promoting green product development, and it seems to be working.  Companies are still churning out greener products while slowly reducing their greenwashing claims.  The first “Sins of Greenwashing” study on the environmental marketing of consumer products was published in 2007 by TerraChoice, an environmental marketing and consulting firm.  Their 2010 report is called “The Sins of Greenwashing: Home and Family Edition,” and surveys cleaning, housewares, and health and beauty products, among others.

Environmental Leader highlighted the study, which considers claims about the environmental practices of the company as well as the environmental benefits of the product or service.  It seems that categories of products that have grown up with environmental claims, like building, construction, and office products, tend to have a smaller percentage of offenders than categories that are new to making environmental claims, like toys and baby products.

Greenwashing has decreased slightly since 2009, as shown by the rising numbers of products that aren’t misleading customers- up from just 2% in 2009 to 4.5% in 2010. TerraChoice refers to this 4.5% as “sin free,” based on their “Seven Sins of Greenwashing” list. Even products that have third-party certification often have false green claims, and though specialty green stores may tout their superiority, they usually carry a smaller percentage of certified products than larger generic retailers.

TerraChoice has recently become part of the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) global network.  The UL family of companies serves customers in 102 countries, and is one of the largest independent testing and certification organizations around the globe. TerraChoice will now be able to use the resources of UL Environment, one of UL’s fastest growing companies.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

That’s the sound of my biological clock. And while it’s halfway to doomsday, the desire to reproduce and set a little mini-me free on the town still hasn’t struck. I’m not sure if it ever will. Despite my predilection to change direction more often than a Roomba on patrol, it is one of my few plans that have never wavered.

This makes me an atypical millennial, or person born after 1980. On March 9, the Pew Research Center released data showing that 74 percent of millennials aged 18 to 29 want to have children. Another 19 percent are still considering it. And only 7 percent of us never want to change a diaper.

So, both among the American population and my friends, I am the anomaly.

Don’t get me wrong – I love babies. But the U.N. expects 7 billion people to walk this earth before the year is over – and predicts around 9 billion by the year 2050. Where friends see adorable little munchkins playing with stuffed animals, I see polar bears going extinct, coral reefs dying off and diversity of habitats and creatures dwindling as more people pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (Read more…)