Climate in Crisis

I thought that the worst of the climate crisis would not happen until after I was dead. And I thought that climate models would get better at predicting it. I was wrong on both counts.

warming stripes showing global temperature change (1850–2022) — by Ed Hawkins

I’ve worried about the environment for over 20 years — I began my BSc in Environmental Studies in 2003. Since that time, climate models have become much more sophisticated, and some theories have come and gone, or changed in importance. I remember when global dimming was said to have affected the monsoons decades ago, and now pollution controls on shipping are said to have reduced dimming and thus to have contributed to this year’s weather weirdness.

More is known of the extent to which volcanoes add to dimming now. The typical amount of pollution from all active volcanoes is incorporated in models, and it takes a major eruption to make a difference.

Science is not fixed. The scientist who embraces a theory and then refuses to consider any data that might contradict it is no longer a scientist, however eminent or well paid. Science is the process of questioning, but in a positive way, not the naysaying of climate deniers.

During my lifetime opinions have varied about the extent to which the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, which warm NW America and Europe, are slowing down, and the consequences. This has made it hard to know whether Britain and…