What Can Oceanography Teach Us About Climate Change?

Speaker 1: 00:00 We often look to the sea to understand how climate change has impacted our world. For years, oceanographer, Ken McCoy has been studying environmental change in our ocean and in this new book waves and beaches, the powerful dynamics of sea and coast, he offers his insights and perspectives on the fascinating world of ocean science and how it furthers. Our understanding of climate change works is sponsoring an upcoming live discussion of Kim McCoy's book. But before that, he's joining us now, Kim, welcome. Speaker 2: 00:32 Thank you, Jane. So start off Speaker 1: 00:34 By telling our listeners a little bit about, Speaker 2: 00:37 Well, this is the third edition of a book waves and beaches, and it was accepted and loved by surfers and scientists throughout the last few decades. It was originally published in 64 and I brought it up to date with the significance of climate change and how humans interact in the coastal zone. And that's where the items that are going to be disturbing us from sea level rise are going to hit us the hardest. Speaker 1: 01:06 The book is something of an update of the original publication by Willard Bascom. What about the original book inspired you? And what did you hope to add to this updated edition? Speaker 2: 01:17 Well, I actually used the book in graduate school and it was almost a little pamphlet at that time. Then the second edition came and I was lucky to have known Willard Bascom quite well. The last couple of years of his life. And he was endeavoring to do a third edition. This edition really focuses on how humans interact with the coastal zone. And it gives a fundamental understanding of how waves are created, how they propagate and how they interact with the coastline. Of course, humans are on the coastline and we want to know what's going to happen to the coastline in this period of climate change. Speaker 1: 01:56 And of course, a big part of your work deals with climate change. I mean, how has your work and your many travels furthered your understanding of environmental changes on the planet, particularly in the topics of global warming and sea level rise? Speaker 2: 02:10 Well, I've spent over a year of my life in polar regions. I've done nine trips to those areas and I've spent years of my life at sea, over 40 major field experiments. And when I started out, some of the areas that I went to in the Arctic were extremely difficult. One area to get to one area hadn't been visited since the 1840s and that group died. So in the 1980s, it was very difficult. Now there are cruise ships heading to those areas. So it's drastically changed. I spent a couple of months in Antarctica and there the penguin species that have been there for 5,000 years of being displaced by warmer species of penguins as the poles warm. So it's, it's everywhere. The outflow from rivers and Delta formations have completely changed because of how we've dammed the rivers and pulled lots of groundwater out that changes C-level and affects sand dynamics in the coastal region. Speaker 1: 03:18 And I mean, we know change is inevitable, but it seems like this is all happening at such an accelerated pace. Speaker 2: 03:23 Well, it is, you know, one proxy for that is how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. And everyone knows if this hockey stick, however, we can observe these things very easily and Jakarta Indonesia and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, the Ganges bomber, preacher Delta in India and Bangladesh and Kiribati in the South Pacific. These things are not fictitious. They are currently occurring where sea level rise is really attacking those, those areas. And some of the groups are just simply ignoring it and other countries full countries have codified it. And that's something that city councils and state assemblies and federal federal groups need to do that we need to codify that things are occurring along the coast, which means that instead of having a city council debating whether or not they're going to do this or do that, they just simply need to say, okay, when something like this occurs, it is now by law allowed we're allowed to do something. So they don't say who's going to pay for it, things like that. And so that, that change needs to occur. Speaker 1: 04:38 The updated text, uh, provides perspective on some of the major climate events and disasters of the, of the past 20 years, including the deadly 9.0 earthquake that devastated Japan 10 years ago this week. How do you think our understanding of climate change has evolved in that? Speaker 2: 04:55 Well, the Tohoku earthquake that caused the disaster at Fukushima had, you know, that's a naturally occurring thing. Earthquakes couldn't have influencing those. However, um, the repercussions of that, the tsunami that struck Fukushima changed global energy policies. It's subtle, but it's incredibly important and not to be ignored. The Japanese decided that they're going to remove nuclear power from their energy slate. Uh, the Germans also passed some laws, pulled nuclear reactors off the energy supply chain, and that needs to be replaced with other forms of energy production. That's because of its tsunami. This book looks at the dynamics of those things and it looks how humans need to react there. The book has a lot of references at the end of the book. So anyone who wants to get more involved, there was quite a bit of, uh, information to dig deeper into quite a few subjects. Speaker 1: 06:02 And what have been some of the most obvious impacts here locally? Speaker 2: 06:06 Well, uh, not too long ago, we had a collapse along the railroad tracks up near Del Mar. Now that track is the major conduit to the North in and out of San Diego. It's collapsed and people start asking, well, who's going to pay for it. There's an estimated cost of about $3 billion. No funding is currently available in this project. If they relocate the tracks should take 10 to 20 years, $3 billion, no funding is currently available. It might take 10 years to repair, but CBO creeps along a few millimeters every year. Speaker 1: 06:47 I'm curious, you know, has COVID 19 affected your ability to carry out your work and research? I mean, it's, it's hard to get much more socially distance than out on the ocean, but I don't know, Speaker 2: 06:57 Distinctly enough here at Scripps institution of oceanography in LA Jolla, COVID stopped the entire fleet from going out to sea. So for quite a few months, all the vessels were called back to ports and people were disembarked and it was quite a few months until they reassume field deployments. And that's extremely difficult for an oceanographic cruise. You go out and you plan for a year and you throw things overboard and come back in a year or several months later. And oops, Oh wait, we can't use the boat anymore because so, uh, also along the coastal zone, uh, COVID has in a roundabout way, augmented awareness of the coastal zone during the lockdown, the beaches were inundated with humans. Why? Because it's a nice, wonderful open place where those things are changing and glad it brought awareness to it. But cliffs are collapsing and things such as roads, train tracks, Naval, ship yards, Harbor facilities, coastal businesses. Those things will continue to be in an dated way beyond COVID. Speaker 1: 08:07 I've been speaking with author and oceanographer, Kim McCoy, Kim, thank you so much for joining us. Speaker 2: 08:12 Thank you very much Jade for having me.