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"Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet"

Published by Nick Sundt on Mon, 08/02/2010 - 07:44

On Tuesday (3 August 2010), publisher Harper Collins will release The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet, .. http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Weather-Future-Heidi-Cullen/?isbn=9780061726880 .. a book written by Heidi Cullen, .. http://www.climatecentral.org/about/people-bio/heidi_cullen .. CEO and Director of Communications at Climate Central. As she states in the introduction:



"It's a book about climate science and climate scientists, but ultimately it lays bare the true stakes of climate change. It illustrates that doing nothing and remaining complacent are tantamount to accepting a future forty years down the road in which your town, your neighborhood, and even your backyard will not look the same. It is not an exaggeration when I say that no place on the planet will look the same forty years down the road if climate change continues. All weather is local, and as you'll see, in the future all climate change will be local too."

"This book is different because it shows you how climate change is working its way into our weather today," Cullen told us. "Combining the latest climate research with state-of-the-art model projections, I explain the science and spell out the inherent risks that global warming poses." And Cullen adds that all the available evidence leads to a single overarching conclusion: "If we continue to burn fossil fuels, the weather of the future is going to be more extreme. That means more extreme heat, extreme storms, extreme drought."

To make the problem more tangible and interesting to her readers, Cullen focuses on seven key locations around the world: the Arctic, Greenland, the Sahel, Bangladesh, The Great Barrier Reef, San Joaquin River Delta (California) and New York City. She explains in the book's introduction:

"I chose these seven places not necessarily because they're the most endangered places or because the stories they offer are the most dramatic, but instead because collectively they demonstrate a spectrum of risks that exist with climate change. By mid-century, not every part of the world will be affected by global warming in the same way. Each location I've chosen has its own Achilles heel, a vulnerability that unabated climate change will expose and exploit until the place is forever altered. Taken together these vulnerabilities show the breadth of repercussions that climate change will bring. It is my hope that whether taken as individual stories or as a whole, the predictions found in this book will demonstrate that global warming will hit all of us in the places we love and the homes where we live."

However, the book does not present future climate change scenarios as preordained. Indeed, Cullen refers to a long-range climate projection as an "anti-forecast in the sense that it forecasts something you want to prevent." Though she says the forecasts "contain the seeds of a Greek tragedy, ultimately the forecasts also contain a kernel of hope, because unlike the prophecies in Greek tragedy, they are changeable." She continues:

"The forecasts paint a picture of just one possible future. While these forecasts, or indeed any forecasts, make certain assumptions about how trends will continue, one true variable they cannot approximate with much accuracy is our own behavior. We are the factor that could render all the predictions false, because we alone have the power to reduce our carbon footprint. The question that we must now answer is how. In the end, these forecasts pose a question that is vital to our collective future: if we are really capable of forecasting the future and seeing the devastation of a changing climate in advance, will we act to prevent it? Can we rally around this forty-year forecast for the good of the world, or will we wait until the levees break before we decide to act?"

Heidi Cullen received her doctorate in climatology and ocean-atmosphere dynamics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. After several years as a researcher at Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society and at the National Center for Atmospheric Research she shifted her focus to communicating climate change issues to the public. Then "I had this opportunity to cross over and shift from being a research scientist to being the on-camera climate expert at The Weather Channel," she explained in a seminar at Stanford in late 2009.

She took the position and in 2003 started working at The Weather Channel informing millions of people about the issue on a regular basis. While there, she helped create Forecast Earth, a weekly program on climate change and the environment.

Cullen joined Climate Central .. http://www.climatecentral.org/ .. in early 2008. Climate Central is a non profit organization focused on creating "a bridge between the scientific community and the public, providing clear, honest, nonpartisan, and up-to-date information to help people make sound decisions about climate and energy." In particular, it brings to the debate high quality videos, animations and graphics. "In short," the organization's Web site says, "Climate Central combines sound science and vibrant media to increase public understanding and attention to the climate challenge."

Online Resources:

Excerpts from The Weather of the Future. Posted by the New York Times (2 Aug 2010).
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/books/excerpt-the-weather-of-the-future.html?_r=1&ref=books

Warming Is Real. Now What? By Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times (2 Aug 2010)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/books/03book.html

Communicating Climate Science in a Changing Media Landscape. Stanford Energy Seminar, 2 December 2009.
http://sciencestage.com/v/34357/communicating-climate-science-in-a-changing-media-landscape.html

http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/content/heidi-cullen-book-weatherofthefuture