Focus Earth Episode: Climate Change and the Weather

This week, Focus Earth looks at the controversy over climate change and its impact on extreme weather events. Bob Woodruff will talk with Chris Field, a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who recently testified before the Senate that greenhouse gases are already outpacing the estimates detailed in their 2007 report. He warns that areas of the Southwest may become unlivable due to drought, heavy rains combined with warming in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges is already causing dramatic decreases in snowpack and intense flooding, and there will likely be an increase in natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes. Leading the opposition to this view is respected MIT scientist Richard Lindzen, whom even Fields calls "formidable" and who labels concern over global warming "hysteria" that "will astound future generations." Are extreme weather changes a natural pattern of the earth, or are they exacerbated by human influence?

Next, Bob Woodruff looks at hurricanes as a case in point. In 2004 and 2005, the Gulf Coast and Florida, in particular, were battered by increasingly strong hurricanes, culminating with Katrina. Just three weeks prior to the devastation in New Orleans, MIT Professor Kerry Emanuel published a study linking climate change and the intensity of hurricanes, claiming that active hurricane years like 2005 would become the norm rather than a fluke. Last year, however, Dr. Emanuel surprised the scientific community by reconsidering his position and suggesting that hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries. While he feels that global warming may play a role in raising the intensity of hurricanes, he is unsure what that role is. Bob will also talk with Dr. Jim McFadden, NOAA's foremost "hurricane hunter" who has flown into every major hurricane of the last 40 years.  

Then, IPCC Scientist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona says that "No other place in the United States is warming as much as we're warming in parts of the Southwest," and calls the Navajo Nation "ground zero for climate change in our region." Margaret Hiza Redsteer, a native American who became so concerned about poor water quality on the reservation and its impact on her three small children that she went back to school for a geology degree, has returned to the Navajo Nation to study the gargantuan sand dunes—created by more than ten years of severe drought combined with global warming—which cover one-third of the reservation. Frequent dust storms, accelerated by warming, can move these granulated mountains as much as 160 feet a year, wiping out vegetation vital for grazing (cattle are a main source of income) while threatening roads and homes. Those same wind storms are sending dust as far as the Rocky Mountains, where they blanket snow peaks and contribute to early melting. Focus Earth will see Redsteer helping Levi and Linda Biggambler, whose home is in the direct path of one of these huge dunes.

Finally, in a look at rains and flooding: is California in store for a catastrophe far worse than that of New Orleans? Some scientists believe so: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the single most flood-prone region in the country. As climate change brings more rains and rising sea levels to the area, the threat of deadly flooding is imminent. And dams and aqueducts meant to alleviate levee pressure by controlling potential floods rely on outdated weather information that does not take premature snowmelt and increased rain into account. Exploding residential development in the area puts further strain on the levees. Stein Buer, Executive Director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, takes us out on a levee protecting the Sacramento suburb of Natomas—an area at great risk of flooding and the collapse of which could mean a huge loss of life, the contamination of the state's chief source of water for drinking and for agriculture, and billions of dollars in repair. There is no real solution at hand and time may be running out. ? 

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Related Posts:
Risk of Floods and Drought In California Stirs Leaders to Action
Dust Storms Strike the Southwest
Global Warming and Hurricanes: What's the Connection?