In “Loading the Climate Dice” Prof. Krugman says yes, weather fluctuates, and that variability is making climate change even harder to fight. Here he is:
A couple of weeks ago the Northeast was in the grip of a severe heat wave. As I write this, however, it’s a fairly cool day in New Jersey, considering that it’s late July. Weather is like that; it fluctuates.
And this banal observation may be what dooms us to climate catastrophe, in two ways. On one side, the variability of temperatures from day to day and year to year makes it easy to miss, ignore or obscure the longer-term upward trend. On the other, even a fairly modest rise in average temperatures translates into a much higher frequency of extreme events — like the devastating drought now gripping America’s heartland — that do vast damage.
On the first point: Even with the best will in the world, it would be hard for most people to stay focused on the big picture in the face of short-run fluctuations. When the mercury is high and the crops are withering, everyone talks about it, and some make the connection to global warming. But let the days grow a bit cooler and the rains fall, and inevitably people’s attention turns to other matters.
Making things much worse, of course, is the role of players who don’t have the best will in the world. Climate change denial is a major industry, lavishly financed by Exxon, the Koch brothers and others with a financial stake in the continued burning of fossil fuels. And exploiting variability is one of the key tricks of that industry’s trade. Applications range from the Fox News perennial — “It’s cold outside! Al Gore was wrong!” — to the constant claims that we’re experiencing global cooling, not warming, because it’s not as hot right now as it was a few years back.
How should we think about the relationship between climate change and day-to-day experience? Almost a quarter of a century ago James Hansen, the NASA scientist who did more than anyone to put climate change on the agenda, suggested the analogy of loaded dice. Imagine, he and his associates suggested, representing the probabilities of a hot, average or cold summer by historical standards as a die with two faces painted red, two white and two blue. By the early 21st century, they predicted, it would be as if four of the faces were red, one white and one blue. Hot summers would become much more frequent, but there would still be cold summers now and then.
And so it has proved. As documented in a new paper by Dr. Hansen and others, cold summers by historical standards still happen, but rarely, while hot summers have in fact become roughly twice as prevalent. And 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000.
But that’s not all: really extreme high temperatures, the kind of thing that used to happen very rarely in the past, have now become fairly common. Think of it as rolling two sixes, which happens less than 3 percent of the time with fair dice, but more often when the dice are loaded. And this rising incidence of extreme events, reflecting the same variability of weather that can obscure the reality of climate change, means that the costs of climate change aren’t a distant prospect, decades in the future. On the contrary, they’re already here, even though so far global temperatures are only about 1 degree Fahrenheit above their historical norms, a small fraction of their eventual rise if we don’t act.
The great Midwestern drought is a case in point. This drought has already sent corn prices to their highest level ever. If it continues, it could cause a global food crisis, because the U.S. heartland is still the world’s breadbasket. And yes, the drought is linked to climate change: such events have happened before, but they’re much more likely now than they used to be.
Now, maybe this drought will break in time to avoid the worst. But there will be more events like this. Joseph Romm, the influential climate blogger, has coined the term “Dust-Bowlification” for the prospect of extended periods of extreme drought in formerly productive agricultural areas. He has been arguing for some time that this phenomenon, with its disastrous effects on food security, is likely to be the leading edge of damage from climate change, taking place over the next few decades; the drowning of Florida by rising sea levels and all that will come later.
And here it comes.
Will the current drought finally lead to serious climate action? History isn’t encouraging. The deniers will surely keep on denying, especially because conceding at this point that the science they’ve trashed was right all along would be to admit their own culpability for the looming disaster. And the public is all too likely to lose interest again the next time the die comes up white or blue.
But let’s hope that this time is different. For large-scale damage from climate change is no longer a disaster waiting to happen. It’s happening now.
But, of course, Al Gore is fat…
July 23, 2012 at 8:17 am |
Is it fair to leave progress up to the few willing to learn and let the super religious make all the money to run the world and decide what gets taught in school? I’m speaking of the Mormons, evangelicals and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Let us pray they find the truth in a book by Darwin or Einstein. At least the life long yearning for truth and discovery. Not the sanctimonious sort that devout believers the world over find so comforting. I have faith that humankind will find a way to survive in spite of the efforts to close the walls behind us and sequester knowledge.
But talk of Florida succumbing to rising ocean levels makes it difficult to explain to anyone who sunbathes or swims in the ocean. A ten year plotting of summer winds and temperature highs and lows won’t influence people. In fact I wonder why we are indulging the Koch brothers and Exxon at all. What we’re talking about is renewable energy. One doesn’t have to be a nuclear engineer to understand the consequences of a hydrogen bomb. Witness Jimmy Carter. So stop explaining science to the kids in the last row who have no interest in learning. Put your money and your time in science and engineering schools.
July 25, 2012 at 6:46 am |
If u want to get out of a hole stop digging. Translation: the unforgivable. Stop trading with China. That will solve the yuan. Break their backs before they strangle u with debt. The trouble with the US is not the euro. We need Germany and France like we need another NRA with a loaded gun in a theater yelling terrorists on board. If and I don’t have the facts the Brazilians are trading sugar for less than our corn than what do u do? You increase payments from Uncle Sam to ADM. No of course not. You screw the midwest until it puts its bible down and learns to live in the current century. The second most important thing to do other than shutting down traders all together is to stop the presses. One day China is on the brink. The next the pinnacle. This garbage churning junk from Fox and Buffett and Citi has to stop. Geithner may have saved the central bank from disaster. But he needs to put a collar no pun intended on Ben. Forget the stupid QE. That ship sailed. Let businesses do what they do. Invest, make money, pay taxes, hire.