2008 Woodie Awards
Leading climate scientist speaks about global warming
Stephanie Harris
Issue date: 4/15/08 Section: News
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The seventy-fifth season of the "What Physicists Do" lecture series welcomed Professor Inez Fung to speak about global warming and its effects.
The University of California at Berkeley Professor of Atmospheric Science and Codirector of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment presented "The Warming Will Accelerate the Warming" lecture to a room of students, faculty and community members.
The lecture featured various graphs and equations that focused on ancient air bubbles, the water cycle, global temperature change and melting glaciers to display the research done by Fung and the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, which was credited with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
According to Fung, who has been making sophisticated models of the earth's atmosphere for over two decades, the twenty- first century warming depends on the rate at which carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gasses increase. Research from the past five years reveals that CO2 levels have been rapidly rising.
"For us in this business it is not a happy thing to be proven right," said Fung.
Currently, scientists know the physics of energy systems and clouds based on satellite data. Fung re-creates the earth's atmosphere to learn how different scientific processes work.
Various modeling groups test multiple samples from around the country and then combine their data in order to find a standard fit. Researchers use the information gathered on subjects such as the positive and negative effects of clouds and water to prove that climate change alters the processes that store carbon on land and in the oceans. As a result they have found that climate change accelerates climate change itself.
"Temperature changes the entire biological atmosphere. The warming accelerates the warming," said Fung.
Fung referred to the work of physicist Lewis Fry Richardson who pioneered the modern mathematical techniques used to forecast the weather. Although Richardson's data was later proven incorrect, his work revealed the strengths and limitations of mathematics and physics when predicting climate change.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Kiran
posted 4/15/08 @ 12:02 AM PST
According to a research the poorest people in the world?s poorest countries will suffer the earliest and the most from climate change, according to this year?s edition of the Environmental Review. (Continued…)
Amazon Herbs
posted 4/30/08 @ 12:03 PM PST
It is great to hear lectures like this so people can learn what we have been doing to our planet. Also what happens anywhere on the planet affects where you live. (Continued…)
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