Fri, Jul 04, 2008
 Robert Strom
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Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.23.2007
If you're looking for a rosy view of global warming, that tough, smiling grandfather over at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory isn't your guy.
Robert G. Strom, 73, is technically retired. He's a professor emeritus at the laboratory, but he's active on the science team for NASA's Messenger orbiter, due in the outskirts of Mercury next January.
He has devoted most of his career to other planets, most notably Mercury. But about five years ago, he aimed his critical-thinking skills at Earth and global warming.
"Last time I heard, Earth was a planet," Strom said in his campus office, wrapping up a teleconference with a group at Brown University.
"I got interested 15 years ago when I was working on planetary catastrophes," Strom said.
It was about five years ago, he said, when the mounting evidence for global warming and its implications for future generations hit him like a ton of bricks.
The doomsday report on global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, released earlier this month, said the international panel of scientists had a confidence level of 90 percent that global warming was being caused by humans.
The report didn't surprise Strom. He already was deep into a book for laymen on global warming, to be released next month: "Hot House: Global Climate Change and the Human Condition" (Springer, New York, 2007, $27.50).
He's not pulling any punches.
Jonathan Overpeck, director of the UA's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth and one of the key authors of the report, called it a "slam dunk."
Strom said, "Humans are responsible 100 percent, not just greater than 90 percent" (the panel's shocking finding).
There's no argument, the way Strom sees it. That train has left the station — and it's burning coal.
Strom lines up dozens of data sets suspected of having a connection to climate change; all show dramatic positive correlations with industrialization and population growth.
Even the anomalies point to man, Strom said, noting dips during economic downturns such as the Great Depression, when greenhouse-gas production tapered off briefly.
"Whenever you have a world recession," Strom said, "the greenhouse-gas emissions go down. They start going down first, even before you know you have a recession. When it starts going down, sell your stock."
Another disturbing statistical burp — a decrease in temperatures followed by a dramatic spike — lines up with the Clean Air Act and its controls on exhaust stack emissions.
"The one thing uncertain is long-term consequences," he said.
But that, Strom said, is just a matter of how bad the situation will be. Without a massive turnaround in production of greenhouse-gas emissions within 20 years — a 60 percent cut in greenhouse gases or a 70 percent reduction in carbon dioxide alone — reversal of the trend may be impossible, he said.
"When the CO2 abundance reaches 440 parts per million, the temperature will eventually reach a minimum of 3.6 degrees F (higher than average) no matter what we do," Strom said.
The CO2 level today is 381 parts per million. And even if we were able to maintain today's levels, Strom said, that could produce temperatures 1 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit higher worldwide in 50 years — "enough to produce serious consequences."
The Earth already is an average of 1 degree warmer than the 1950-80 average. And for those who don't think that's a big deal, he points to a two-week heat wave in Europe in 2003 that killed thousands, and a 35 percent crop failure rate in the Midwest that was caused by a two-week heat wave.
Strom said the message should be coming in clearly, and he professes sincere bewilderment at what he calls a lack of public and media attention given to global warming in the United States.
To those who maintain that there will be some adaptive response to the results of warming, Strom said, "How do you adapt to starvation?"
Not all scientists are convinced.
Nationally, there are few who will deny the existence of global warming, but some will argue about whether it's human-caused, or if it is, whether that the cause is greenhouse gasses.
"Yes, there is a human effect. But it's not that drastic," said John Christy, an atmospheric sciences professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, who is a frequently cited critic of the dominant thinking on global warming.
"I happen to think some of the warming in the past years is due to humans," Christy said. "I do say there is more CO2 in the air, without a doubt, and that will make temperatures rise. The question is: How much and why?"
He attributes some of the warming to urbanization and its resultant nighttime heat "sinking." Paved-over land holds heat, and sinking pollution layers that trap heat.
"I'm skeptical in trying to predict the future with any great confidence," Christy said.
He added that if people want to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the answer is building nuclear power plants by the thousands. "If you want to cut CO2 by 10 percent," Christy said, "you need 1,000 nuclear power plants. Nuclear doesn't emit greenhouse (gas)."
Strom, who has three grandchildren, said the very young, or those yet to be born, will suffer the most if global warming isn't checked.
"I'm 73," Strom said, "so I'm not going to be around to see what happens. I don't want my grandchildren looking back and saying, 'Grandpa didn't do anything.' I don't want to be part of that generation . . . the cause of the collapse of civilization."
He does have a suggestion: a Kyoto Protocol-like agreement, but with teeth.
Currently, 10 countries are producing 70 percent of the carbon dioxide, the largest of the greenhouse gases that are trapping heat and are blamed for the bulk of global warming.
Strom said the Kyoto Protocol offers little hope because the United States, the No. 1 producer of CO2, didn't ratify the protocol; China (No. 2) and India (No. 5) are exempt as developing countries; Russia (No. 3) is saved from doing anything right now because of economic collapse; and Japan (No. 4), though it's trying, isn't hitting its goals.
"So four of the top five are doing nothing," Strom said.
And of the second five in the top 10 (Germany, Canada, Britain, South Korea and Italy), he said only Britain stands a chance of making its goals.
● Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 573-4185 or dsorenson@azstarnet.com.
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