Big year for climate awareness
Steve Running kicked off a lecture series on climate change in Kalispell on Thursday, taking an audience of about 150 people into the basics and the complexities of the subject.
Running, a University of Montana researcher, is a lead author of the fourth assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize of 2007.
He is an elected fellow of the American Geophysical Union and designated as "Highly Cited Researcher" by the Institute for Scientific Information.
Running shared volumes of information Thursday at Flathead Valley Community College, projecting graphs and other data on large screens behind him.
He said the Nobel Peace Prize reinforced the work of the IPPC in developing its climate change assessment with 2,500 expert reviewers and 800 authors over a six-year period.
"There's been a lot of publicity, so I think 2007 will be looked at as a time when we turned the corner," he said, referring to broader public acceptance of climate change theories.
Running explained that climate behavior is primarily driven by the earth's oceans, which have a "tremendous capacity to absorb heat," while the weather is governed by a relatively thin atmosphere.
"The climate, we are learning more and more, comes from the oceans," he said.
But climate also is influenced by the "greenhouse effect" of carbon dioxide and other gases accelerating heating within the atmosphere.
Running said tremendously powerful and complex computer models have demonstrated an accelerated warming that has been under way for the past 20 years.
And that has led to observable planetary changes, most significantly an accelerated melting of the Arctic ice cap. The changes are projected to result in damaging impacts.
"Sea-level rise will be the single most damaging agent to humanity," Running said.
Growing seasons have been getting longer, vegetation growth has been increasing and ocean temperatures are 2 degrees higher than they were just a few years ago off the Northwest Pacific coast.
Since 1986, the wildfire season in the West has expanded by 78 days, with increasing numbers of large and severe wildfires.
"This is not only a climate signal," Running said, noting that decades of fire suppression also have contributed to more severe wildfires.
Running's presentation was well-received by most who attended the event, sponsored by the National Parks Conservation Association.
But there were some in the room with differing opinions, including Edwin Berry, an atmospheric physicist who recently moved to the Flathead from California and is writing a book challenging the conclusion that human activity is the main cause of climate change.
Berry spoke up after Running's presentation.
"I mentioned the key thing in the models that is not represented correctly is water vapor and clouds," Berry said in an interview.
"Carbon dioxide is well-distributed around the earth, but water vapor is not, making it more difficult for models to account for," said Berry, who asserts that there is considerable dissent rather than consensus in the scientific community on the issue of climate change.
Berry opposes proposals to establish costly programs aimed at reducing energy production to avoid the consequences of a projected 1-degree-Celsius increase in global temperatures.
The lecture series continues with speakers and panel discussions every Tuesday at FVCC, from Sept. 30 through Oct. 28. All of the presentations start at 7 p.m. in the college's Arts and Technology building.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com