The latest science on global warming released today shows that climate change is happening at an alarming rate. The first part of a major study on global warming includes the work of several San Diego researchers. KPBS Environmental Reporter Ed Joyce has details.
It’s fitting that Lynne Talley’s small office overlooks the Pacific Ocean. While her UCSD office is small, the research she does is big – world climate change. Talley is one of several Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers that worked on the massive United Nations-sponsored report on climate change. The report paints a grim picture of the planet’s future – unless steps are taken to reverse global warming. Talley says a warmer planet and higher sea levels will shift California’s climate.
Talley: So it’s very possible we go into a more, a warmer tropical Pacific which means more El Nino.
Talley says the warmer, wetter climate in California would also sabotage the state’s water economy.
Talley: The other thing that might be very, very, very important here in Southern California is that for water we depend on the snow-pack in the Sierras. And with warming there’s less snow-pack. And so what’s relied on for decades for water management it very well might not be there.
Talley says global warming will also intensify extreme weather in California. She says dry, arid parts of the state could become even drier, increasing the risk of catastrophic fires. The report warns of floods, droughts and rising sea levels linked to greenhouse gases. Talley says it’ll take centuries to undo the damage already caused by global warming. How to reverse and stop that damage will be covered in another climate report expected later this year. Ed Joyce, KPBS News.
