For years now, climate scientists have seen explaining their work as a way to help the public make good decisions in response to global warming — without politics.
Climate scientists at the University of Washington want to talk more about their work because it and public policy
For years now, climate scientists have seen explaining their work as a way to help the public make good decisions in response to global warming — without politics.
Climate scientists at the University of Washington want to talk more about their work because it and public policy are intertwined. They stick to the science side of the equation, which they want the rest of us to understand better so that we can make informed decisions about climate change.
On a recent day that felt arctic, I walked with three of them from their office to a Vietnamese restaurant where hot pho warmed our conversation about the actual Arctic, which is where a lot of the action is in climate science.
Michael Steele is an oceanographer who studies the circulation of sea ice and water in the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic is warming faster than elsewhere because of a positive feedback loop in which melting expanses of white snow and ice expose darker water and land, which absorb more heat and melt more ice and snow.
Steele uses data and simulations to learn more about that process, which is important because global warming is already changing climates and affecting life on earth. Coasts are flooding, sea life is dying, polar bears are in trouble.
People are contributing to the heating of our planet mainly by burning fossil fuels and thereby increasing the greenhouse gases in 