Climate Speaker Series at UC Merced Kicks Off with Warnings … and Hope

The global climate crisis was entirely predictable and impacts nearly every facet of life. But we still can slow its progress and mitigate the effects we already see.

That was the message delivered earlier this month by climate scientist Michael Mann, who spoke at the first in a series of presentations at UC Merced planned for the university community and the public.

Mann said he and colleagues published research in the 1990s that showed the Earth's warming and the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the climate.

"We saw there's something pretty unique going on today, and it probably has to do with us," he said.

By examining what Mann called the "archives of climate" - items such as tree rings, corals and ice cores - researchers could go back in time to examine conditions before instruments to measure them were available.

"The average temperature is now 2 degrees warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution," Mann said.

Though some climate change impacts, such as rising temperatures, were predictable, questions remain. Those include what the changes mean for rainfall and drought in California.

There are some years where it's colder but the Pacific Ocean sees an El Niño pattern, or warmer water. And the opposite - when it's warmer, there is sometimes La Niña, or colder patterns. What seems evident is what Mann called "weather whiplash" between heavy precipitation and severe drought.

Though Mann started his work in the 1990s, other scientists were already aware of the impacts of the use of fossil fuels on the environment. He pointed out that Exxon Mobil's own climate scientists created a report in 1982 that cited "potentially catastrophic events" if the use of fossil fuels, and their resulting greenhouse gas emissions, increased.

However, it's not too late to act, Mann said.

"The surface stops warming when carbon emissions reach zero," he said. "This is an underappreciated and largely unknown fact."

The United States has contributed the most to the reduction of fossil fuel emissions. Other countries, including China and India, are also investing heavily in renewable energy, Mann said.

"This may be the last opportunity the world has to commit to reduction in carbon emissions," he said. "The dinosaurs couldn't do anything to affect their fate. We can.

"The warming of the planet stops when we bring fossil fuels to zero."

In the meantime, there are steps individuals can take. Professor John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at UC Merced, spoke about some of those measures.

"The story in California and much of the West is the story of water," he said. "When it's a warm and dry summer, a lot of fire happens, particularly in forested parts of the state."

The Sierra Nevada snowpack provides water in the spring and summer to much of the state. But as temperatures rise, there is less snow to hold water. And groundwater is being depleted.

"But there are a whole bunch of solutions," he said. Those include finding more ways to store water, recharging groundwater supplies and even providing more tree cover for disadvantaged communities. Urban forestry programs can bring trees to areas that don't have them, providing shade and lowering the temperature for residents.

Agrivoltaics may offer some solutions: Solar panels provide renewable energy without the carbon emissions, and the panels can shade areas that don't have it. That can lead to less water use for crops that aren't getting so thirsty under a hot Central Valley sun.

"These sorts of win-wins might be useful if they can be scaled up," he said.

Increased burning and reducing fuels during wetter seasons can help alleviate the threat of massive forest fires.

The Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced has been delving deep into some of these solutions, said Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, who recently took over leadership of SNRI.

"SNRI is working to support the emergence of the Climate Institute at UC Merced," she said. The institute serves as a hub for climate and environmental research. "We are working on fire resilience, energy and equitable climate solutions."