Director of the Climate Change Institute and Distinguished Professor in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences, School of Marine Sciences, School of Policy and International Affairs, the Business School, and the Center for Ocean and Coastal Law (Law School) at the University of Maine- WATCH: Paul Mayewski - "Earth’s First Responder in a Warming World: Arctic Climate" post at Camden Conf channel Oct 23, transcript follows
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Q: as director of the climate change institute at the university of maine professor paul maievsky is actively engaged in research and public education about the changes now underway in polar and high altitude regions around the globe. With the enthusiasm of a born explorer let me tell you, he translates scientific findings into compelling explanations that have great appeal to wide audiences we're talking films books and beyond.
This morning he'll explore what science is now telling us about the arctic climate which he regards as earth's first responder in a warming world welcome professor mayevsky
P: thank you david and thank you to the camden conference and the tech wizards and thank you to the audience for attending. it's my second opportunity to speak close to president crimson and to follow his very wise perspective and my presentation i hope will be not only supportive but it will also help us to oops sorry here it will also help us to understand a bit more about what science can actually offer.
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My presentation touches on several points of consensus related to the science surprises related to the science gaps in knowledge related to arctic climate and then how mitigation and adaptation should be at least in my opinion viewed in the context of future climate. obviously when we look at the polar regions, antarctica, a continent one and a half times the size of the united states on average 3,000 meters of ice is a very different situation from what we find in the arctic. the arctic is an ocean surrounded by land and the sea ice that covers the arctic ocean is one to only several meters thick.
and if we take a look at the seasonal behavior of this remarkable event on earth we see tremendous change in the location of an extent of sea ice throughout the year this tremendous change in the whiteness of the planet is really the key to what we're talking about here. when the planet is or portions of the planet are white they reflect incoming radiation and when the sea ice in the case of the arctic is removed it presents a dark ocean surface. that dark ocean surface absorbs radiation and as and even more importantly it also gives off heat that would otherwise be trapped it's called polar amplification
that means that for one degree of warming you can have at least the net effect of two degrees centigrade of warming in the local area.
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of course all of this is largely dependent on what we've done to the planet in only very recent decades; co2 has increased by one and a half times, and perhaps even more importantly the rise in co2 is 100 times faster than anything that we've been able to measure in the 800,000 years of record that we have available from my scores,
there are certainly plenty of reports that talk about climate change, that talk about the arctic, a focus just briefly on the ipcc i'll mention other things about them in a moment.
under the united nations reports come out every two to five years the biggest reports every five years they represent 190 governments and the consensus report undauntingly is that greenhouse gas rise is the consequence of human activity. within various ipcc reports there's tremendous depth in terms of what's happening to the arctic.
on an annual basis reports such as the arctic report card come out which give us up-to-date understanding of a variety of things changes in sea ice extent, impacts of warming.
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The next three slides give you a very quick summary of what the impacts of warming are in various mediums. obviously there's been significant loss of annual ice, but also tremendous loss of multi-years ice, which is actually one of the pinning points that starts off the freezing of sea ice acidification of the ocean changes in ocean thermal structure. and as ipcc always does, they basically give you the effect positive mix negative and the confidence and we can see that in general food provisioning fishing polar bears walrus crabs bowhead whales etc are all negatively impacted.0
and remember that the ocean is one of our largest food sources, one of our most important resources on the planet we are in fact a water planet and we're beginning to see an absolutely new ocean appear.
impacts of warming for frozen ground are dramatic, very intense. lake ice is appearing during the year for shorter and shorter periods so seasonal snow ice is changing in abundance, river discharge is increasing, obviously plants and animals are migrating and changing in their behavior as a consequence.
and then of course tremendous amount of infrastructure damage. the reddish parts of the diagram show you the damages incurred on an annual basis in millions of us dollars under the high emission rates and then the blue under the medium emission rates roads buildings airports railroads pipelines all dramatically impacted.
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so what do we have in order to understand how the climate will behave in the future and this is clearly very important. we understand the clear and present danger of what's going on today the top clock shows you world the prediction ipcc prediction for world temperatures by 2100, 2 to 4 degrees centigrade rise depending primarily on whether or not greenhouse gases continue to rise, whether they level off, you get that range.
we take a look at the arctic average and this is the critical thing to look at the average is about two times the world average
however while the trajectory of these two projections for future climate are absolutely sound we're going in this direction without a doubt towards warming we need significantly more temporal and spatial detail because obviously we don't live in a mean world or an average world we live in more localized areas so how well do the models do
the models do a phenomenal job of giving us a basic understanding of the direction that we're going. but if we look at these two charts exactly the same time period, this is a time period that has already passed. The upper left is the instrumental record, notice the very red areas implying that the arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet and if you look in the lower right this is the climate model. it gives you the same basic trend, but it doesn't show you the anomalies on a regional basis this is critically important as we begin to plan for the future
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now again i'm not saying that these models are unimportant, they're consensus models they're critically important and they give us the trajectory but we need to know more between 2007 and 2012 compared to roughly the previous 20 years, the eastern arctic increased in temperature by 5 degrees centigrade on an annual basis that's the equivalent of doubling the length of the summer season which is quite remarkable; think about doubling the length of the season summer season in the place that you live right now.
this is why there has been so much tremendous disruption to the people and the ecosystems.
now to give you an even I think more shocking realization of what this means this five degree centigrade rise in that five year period is equivalent in magnitude and speed to the massive abrupt change in climate that occurred about eleven and a half thousand years ago at the transition between the last vestiges of the ice age and modern climate.
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[KE: There is that word again: “abrupt” climate change]
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now that is to me a very sobering phenomena and if in fact we take a look at where that increase in temperature for the eastern arctic which was five degrees centigrade remember between 2007 and 2012, it's a good four degrees centigrade higher than even the arctic average temperature so there's a lot to be learned from this regional detail could we have predicted this abrupt climate change? well in the early 1990s we discovered abrupt climate change we knew that it existed and we're looking for ways to in the past understand whether they're not to precursor. the fact that it happened in the modern era is because of this dramatic rise in co2 and the speed of this rise.
if we looked at the sea ice record now with hind casting we in fact would have seen it coming and that's i think a very important thing for us to think about in the future. can we see these events sea ice extent change and many others and can we predict them for the future.
As president grimson mentioned, once you warm the arctic you change the thermal balance between the polar regions and the mid latitudes this changes the pattern of the jet stream. the jet stream divides cold air from warm air and it has hemispheric influences. it brings cold air into places much farther south warm air north it increases storms because the surface area connection between cold and warm increases, and of course it creates droughts floods fires as president grimson mentioned.
we have had since about 2015 an increase in frequency in the middle of winter the middle of darkness at the north pole of temperatures because of the fact that the jet stream allowed warm air to get all the way into the north pole. and the net result was the warmth the north pole has been on occasion in mid-winter above freezing.
this is today's temperature situation absolutely today
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the northern regions to the north of greenland are 20 degrees centigrade than the 1979 to 2000 norm and regions where we live right now where where i'm speaking from are 18 degrees centigrade colder than that norm. this is created as a consequence of that tremendous irregular and unstable behavior of the jet stream caused by arctic warming.
but there are other things that are going on that we need to think about making predictions for the future the amount of volcanic eruption 1991 ended up in a one to two year cooling; and if you take a look at the record for that period it actually was a negative four degrees centigrade cooling in the arctic. that would in a warming world have a tremendous impact on for example transportation shipping in the arctic granted a brief period.
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[KE: There's my headline- Abrupt climate change like 300,000 years ago could be approaching now, the data shows. Science class with Paul Mayewski today at Heating Planet blog]
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if we take a look at the effect of melting glaciers in particular greenland which is the greatest contributor of any ice sheet as president brimson mentioned to to sea level rise, we see that that fresh water in addition to the salty water that makes its way basically from west to east across the north atlantic that fresh water addition changes the density of that water; it lessens the likelihood that it sinks. the less it stinks, the less it draws warm air from north america up to europe- have the potential for other anomalies the potential in a warming world for the northern scandinavian regions to be actually colder now than they would normally be in a warming world.
And then of course we have the elephant in the room permafrost melting and as permafrost melts it releases methane. methane is 30 to 50 times more effective in in capturing heat than co2 is. and we look at this projection for the time period 2090 to 2100 from the ipcc model, when the arctic is expected to be plus five to plus six degrees centigrade warmer than it is right now, this could happen much earlier and it could happen abruptly and we would have another obviously major transition
so to summarize quickly, human activity is dramatically altering the physical and the chemical climate i say chemical because not that the arctic is necessarily a very big emitter of toxic substances. but all of the ice in the arctic is a sponge for the toxic substances that have been emitted throughout the northern hemisphere and the globe for that matter but particularly the northern hemisphere and as all of this ice melts it introduces toxic substances into the local water into the ocean.
and the indigenous people of the arctic who tend to eat marine mammals, these marine mammals are when they absorb toxic substances that stay in their systems and as a consequence indigenous people have increasing rates of cancer; because of the fact that melting ice is introducing chemicals at the same time of course there'll be vector-borne diseases migrating farther north and all the things that we know go along with warming.
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the arctic climate is extremely sensitive to even small changes in climate. we just got an example of that from 2007 to 2012. we also have in the past the norse colonies which existed in greenland from 1000 to about 1400 and disappeared within a matter of just a few years; because the shipping routes that resupplied them from europe stopped as a consequence of cooling barely one degree centigrade that allowed sea ice to be more extensive and trap those colonies.
arctic climate change has far reaching effects president crimson says this i hope that you believe the examples that i've shown you and the bottom line is that a warming world leads to an unstable climate and climate instability is even more so pushed as a consequence of very sensitive changes in the arctic
climate change can operate faster than a political cycle; abrupt climate change tells us this. that's quite remarkable when you think about it. political cycles are on the order of two to five years abrupt climate change dramatic changes in climate can operate that fast
so if we want to for now and in the future have the most responsive mitigation and adaptation strategies we need to think about these multiple scenarios for the future of climate and environmental change in the arctic and for that matter all over the world. we need to think about occasional cool periods we need to think about the elephant in the room. thank you
all right so for this question and answer session again i need your questions…
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it gets at the paradox of the arctic where there's economic opportunity shipping lanes and resources and the fact that that also makes what you've just been talking about professor worse, because increased economic activity if it is not clean activity gives us more climate gases. the question is how do we reconcile the open you know as the ice melts new shipping lanes versus that itself creates more of a problem?
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It's an excellent question and of course whenever in this case a new ocean opens up and new land masses open up, there are there's the the fight for for more resources i think that's the the significance of the arctic circle of the camden conference of including science in all of these discussions. clearly there will be resource depletion in the coming decades in the arctic but it's extremely critical for us to understand what we've done already to understand the value of renewable energy and how in a world in particular in north america where we have an infrastructure that in fact is quite old- it was phenomenal in the 50s to the 80s.
but now when we have to think about how we're going to rebuild our infrastructure, we need to think about more renewable energy. so one can hope that we will continue to make good policies that we will continue to be smart about what we do and that we begin to think much more about renewable energy than extraction.
there are certain things that obviously will still be extracted but we need good policies to make sure we do it in smart ways. we all want these things it's not going to stop our desire for them but we need to be smarter than we've been in the past.
Q: by the way i failed to give credit where it was due that last question was from tillman crane of camden maine thank you very much for that there are some similar questions as well professor, professor president grimson, just do you want to follow up on that- we touched on that when you talked about hey we're gonna we're not going to close down production of lng gasses from from the arctic before talking about how about coal in west virginia and so forth. but what about this idea that the arctic itself could produce more of the problem that's destroying the ice?
C: well i don't think the arctic is contributing to the problem so far, you can't really argue that from any point of view whether a scientific point of view or a business point of view. but just to give you a concrete example, the big oil company of france total decided to withdraw from all explorations in the arctic. so as we have to concentrate on what's happening here now, the problem is not in the arctic the problem is in the united states in china in asia and europe and elsewhere and it's very important that we acknowledge that.
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in fact you can see in parts of the arctic a remarkable example of how renewable energy can indeed happen very quickly. i often draw the attention of people to this triangle in the north atlantic from greenland to iceland to the faroe islands to scotland and and and to norway. in the early years of my life all these countries were primarily fossil fuel countries imported oil and coal. they are now each of them in their own way a shining example of renewable energy transformation
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iceland has over clean energy norway close to that over percent of the energy production electricity protection in greenland is also 60% from renewable energy. faro islands will within a few years be hundred percent renewable energy and scotland in fact has achieved the remarkable progress in wind energy for example in recent years. so whereas you had before almost entirely fossil fuel based economies in this northern part of the north atlantic arctic map in what i often call the mid the middle arctic, you now have a primary example of a renewable energy success and it's one of the reason why norway iceland are among the most prosperous countries in in the world.
so you can also go into the arctic and get concrete examples of renewable energy transformation in a remarkable short time. so people who argue that it's not possible for the rest of the world to go towards renewable energy should make an arctic visit not to study oil drilling or anything of that so but the renewable transformation in in the arctic
Q: a follow-up question comes from turkey from turkey, and i'll start with professor mayevsky on this but it picks up on what president grimes was just talking about. next ten years if we're going to address this issue of decreasing climate gases is there anything professor mayewsky that leads you to think that we can really take a bite out of this problem over the next decade i mean bill gates microsoft fame just published a new book about breakthroughs we already have breakthroughs that we need but what's your sense of this; it's really almost a question professor about why you continue toiling in this space what would give you hope that we could make some progress?
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M: that's a very important question certainly president grimson has already partially answered that and i'll answer on on behalf of what i hope will happen in maine. maine has tremendous pension potential for offshore wind power- it will be a great employer for the people of maine it will be a great resource that's the equivalent of several nuclear power plants. and this sort of renewable energy is popping up all over the united states, in addition to the middle arctic region it's beginning to take over.
it's a matter of course of how we give tax incentives for this renewable energy and how we create new jobs and the Biden administration has been very smart about making the point that there will be many new jobs created from renewable energy.
[Biden administration? I had no idea this video is a year out of date at least. ]
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C: well let me if i may add to that because in recent years clean energy solar wind geothermal have become so cost effective that they don't need any subsidies. they are in fact a much better business than the old fossil fuel model. many people ask how is it that iceland has become clean energy it was not because we were climate missionaries it was simply because it was good business for us to move away from oil and coal. one of the reasons why norway and iceland and scotland all these three countries hundred years ago were among the poorest in europe that's why you had so many immigrants in the united states from scotland from norway and from iceland because people fled the poverty that existed in this country.
now they are among the most afro in in the world so i think it's very important that people realize in the united states that if the us wants to be a winner in the business competition of the 21st century it is imperative that you move quickly quickly into renewable energy.
look at china; ten years ago i had a long debate with my good friend al gore about china and climate and he was blaming china was a hopeless case now china is the global leader the global leader in solar energy wind energy electric cars geothermal urban heating and if the us doesn't get it act together china will corner the global market for the technologies in these areas.
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so it is a strong business case business case for the united states to use the next few years and definitely this decade to make sure that the us is a global leader in the renewable energy transformation.
Q: thank you president crimson professor mayowski i mean you mentioned offshore and this gets to a query that we have about almost you know we think about well the chinese do enough to fix their climate issue but what about ourselves? when you talk about offshore people don't like the fact that windmills can block the view and then we got an interesting related question from the university of maine at farmington do you think that the transportation of green energy through ocean cables could be successful in the us but then he also mentions power company in central maine central maine power company running to trouble rooting the the the power to and from quebec. in other words we don't want the infrastructure of distributing green energy in our backyards either. this may require some quick rethinking on the part of how we regard our own neighborhoods.
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M: certainly in the case of offshore wind for maine it's actually quite offshore and i believe that there is a hold on having it very close right now that the governor has put into action. and clearly the stakeholders in particular fishermen mariners need to be brought in to the equation. i also believe that in terms of potential ecosystem disruption if a tiny tiny percentage of the funds that are dedicated to building this offshore infrastructure are also dedicated to thinking about where it'll go how it will impact the ecosystem it's a smart way for us to proceed.
getting this power onshore in the case of offshore wind is the very same thing that of course norway has managed or is in the process of doing for for the uk and europe it's doable it's being done it's been done many times there's some sensitivity. but at the same time it's important to realize that our oceans are changing and for example lobster fishing may very well change dramatically; the lobster men need new jobs. if this happens, they're extremely experienced in the marine environment and new positions will open up this is all-
we're talking about a transition over the next several years over the next couple of decades and if we're smart and for and and consider how to work this out in an equitable way it certainly points the path and just to follow up, in president grimsen's comment about not needing subsidies it's true. i i agree however to make the transition from our current infrastructure in the united states so the next one requires a change in policy and and maybe even some additional stimulus at the same time
Q: all right professor mayevsky president crimson thank you so much for this discussion.
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