OK, so I have to admit, there’s a bit of a personally sarcastic tone in that – to someone who’s lived in PA the last few years, 3″ of the white stuff isn’t as big a deal as, say, the Pittsburgh Steelers making it to the Superbowl. To someone from the coastal Carolinas, however, it doesn’t take more than a few flakes to generate excitement. But I do remember the joy of trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue with the other neighborhood kids during those rare Charleston flurries when I was growing up, so I’m not entirely unsympathetic.
So who got snow?
Read the rest of this entry »
So far for the month of December, according to the National Weather Service the average high temperature in Charleston through Dec. 21 is 66.0 degrees Farenheit – usually, the average high for the entire month is 61 degrees. The average daily temperature – the average of all the high temperatures and all the low temperatures for the month – is 55.8 degrees, which is about 4.3 degrees warmer than normal. The difference isn’t quite so dramatic in North Carolina: for Cape Hatteras, the average high temperature so far this month is 60.8 degrees, compared to a normal average of 57.3. The average daily temperature is 53.6, which is 2.7 degrees above normal. Of course, there’s still an awful lot of December to go, so a few days in the deep freeze could put us back to normal. However, forecast lows in the 50s on the Carolina coasts for the latter part of this week, with highs in the upper-60s in Charleston and the lower- to mid-60s in Hatteras, December could still shake out a hair on the warm side.
November was a different story.
Read the rest of this entry »
In President-elect Obama’s recorded address to the Governors’ Global Climate Summit, hosted Nov. 18-19 by California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger, Obama lays out the climate change issues he plans on addressing in the new presidential administration. There are two main ideas that he stresses:
- A new federal carbon dioxide (CO2) cap and trade system, with the goal of reducing our emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by an additional 80% below 1990 levels by 2050; and
- An annual $15 billion in investments to the private sector to support innovation in clean energy technologies. Here, “clean energy” examples are solar and wind power, next-generation biofuels, new (but safer) nuclear power, and clean coal.
So these are two issues that you’ll see a lot more of in the news. Currently, the cap-and-trade system isn’t getting much attention, because it’s being pushed aside by staffing and economic news and such. But when it comes up again, expect a debate between those who support cap-and-trade, those who favor a carbon tax, and those who believe that any action at all is too expensive. For now, the net-worth-of-$60-billion-over-4-years gorilla in the room is the idea of whether “green” spending can boost the economy. This weekend, I saw quite a few articles on a “Green New Deal” and what it would be capable of doing in terms of providing jobs and improving infrastructure efficiency. I honestly don’t know the answer – but I don’t think anyone does, which is why it will get more attention in the coming months. As a good consumer of climate information, there are a few things you should look for once the debate starts:
Read the rest of this entry »
If you click on one of the syndication options (RSS 2.0, Google, etc.) on the right side of my page in that sidebar, your internet browser will ask you if you want to subscribe to the feed and give you some options of ways to do so. Personally, I like adding extra add-ons to my browsers. For Internet Explorer, I installed the "RSS Feeds Toolbar For Microsoft Int" add-on; it puts a nice toolbar right above my tabs that scrolls through various updated feeds I subscribe to. Firefox allows you to subscribe to blogs through the "Live Bookmarks" button, but there are also some add-ons like the "Simple RSS Reader" that also put your feeds right above your tabs. I’ve also configured my personal Gmail account and iGoogle page to include feeds from various blogs that I like to read (and those I don’t like to read but feel obligated to check in on). If you try these out, you’ll be able to see if I’ve posted something without even having to check your e-mail! However, if RSS just doesn’t work for you, send me an email and I can add you to my list of people who have my new blog entries e-mailed to them. However, I do still ask that you come to my web site to check out the blog – we keep anonymous statistics on how many people access my blog each day, what they look at, and what country they come from, so it’s nice to know that someone is out there looking. After all, you’re the whole reason I’m writing this!
-jess
On the way back to the hotel, we had an interesting discussion about the accelerating rate of sea level rise and coastal residents. It would have been interesting to knock on doors and ask people what they know about sea level rise and human contributions to it. The response would probably have been something to the effect of, “Why should I be worried about sea levels in 50 years when I’m worried about high tide right now?” To which my honest response would have to have been: good point. But it got me thinking… what’s the appropriate outreach strategy for issues of climate change and sea level rise?
Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t talked to Dr. Fragile about his class, but it looks like a big part of the class is blogging. He introduces a film through a blog entry, and his physics students respond with their film analyses as blog comments or posts in their own blogs. The students have some great responses on TDAT, and you can check them out in the CofC Physics in Film blog here.
So much of the general public gets their information on climate change from the media, and that includes blockbuster films and those strange worst case scenario documentaries that show up on cable TV. I remember when I first found out that I got the job with Sea Grant, and I had to start explaining what I do to people unfamiliar with environmental science or planning. Peoples’ responses were usually, "Wow. So do you know Al Gore?" Really. I’m not kidding. I still hear it, too. I don’t have any specific research or evidence, but based on my experience, it seems like the media – and here, I’m specifically thinking of TV and film – is a huge factor with public perceptions of climate change. In terms of extension, does this help us because people have been exposed to climate-related issues? Or does it hurt us because people have been exposed to bizarre, unrealistic, and unbelievable portrayals of climate change (here, I’m thinking of TDAT, not AIT, which from a scientific perspective had a few issues with storms was otherwise scientifically decent)? Are there any opportunities for us to use some of what people have seen as a jumping point for outreach? Or do we risk having people think we endorse media portrayals, even if we’re just using public awareness as an opportunity for supporting and debunking climate perceptions? I don’t know, but I may have to have a movie night to consider it further. Thoughts? Please discuss.
John Tribbia and Susan Moser address this issue in their 2008 Environmental Science and Policy paper on California coastal managers’ needs for climate information. Although this paper focuses on research done in California, I suspect that many of their conclusions apply broadly. For example, only about 30% of the coastal managers surveyed reported using scientific journal articles occasionally or frequently – the remaining 70% use them rarely or not at all. If you clicked on that link to the article, I imagine you found out pretty quickly that if you don’t have a subscription (or access to a university library that has a subscription), it’s going to cost you $31.50 to read it. And that’s just to get access to the ONE ARTICLE. Why not just have scientists interact with stakeholders directly? T&M point out that those relationships depend on how willing and able both parties are to sustained interaction and communication – and alas, that’s not always possible. They suggest that we need "boundary organizations" that set up a structure for formalized interaction – i.e., organizations who focus solely on translating scientific information to stakeholders and decision making needs to scientists. The National Sea Grant College Program gets a specific shout-out as a possible boundary organization with such capabilities.
I don’t know whether this was a coincidence, but about the time T&M submitted their paper Sea Grant put out a request for proposals to establish a climate extension program. Enter the Carolinas Coastal Climate Outreach Initiative partnership between the South Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program, the North Carolina Sea Grant Extension, and the Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessment CISA) center at the University of South Carolina. One of the things this proposal did was establish a position for a Regional Climate Extension Specialist (that would be me). I see my primary duties as developing climate outreach programs for stakeholders and helping researchers design new research programs that meet climate information needs along the North and South Carolina coasts.
The fun part is now figuring out how one implements a climate extension program. There are lots of challenges to address – not the least of which is overcoming public perceptions about climate variability and change in order to generate productive discussions that translate into effective decision-making. Of course there are lots of other steps along the way – identifying the information needs of stakeholders in the Carolinas, networking with other extension agents, developing ways to measure the impacts the climate extension program is having… the list goes on. The examples of climate extension specialists are few and far between – the University of Florida has a Climate Extension and Applied Research program, and there’s also a climate extension specialist for the University of Minnesota Extension. However, the NC/SC program seems to be the first program wholly housed in a boundary organization that focuses on coastal issues. So I have my work cut out for me. I intend to post at least once a week to this blog, so in a year or so it should be an interesting tool for tracking how coastal climate extension is evolving. There’s a comment feature, and I welcome your questions and suggestions. I do moderate the comments, and I reserve the right to refuse to post anything inappropriate. This blog isn’t the place for politics or advocacy. However, I do hope that it serves as a record of a place where informed climate-related decision-making is alive and well along the coast. In other words, this blog is the place for making climate science useful.
-Jess