More than 200 scientists, students, and others attended a symposium last week on climate change – the first step, Rutgers administrators say, in making the university the “go-to” place for studies on the impacts of global warming.
“The Climate Ahead: Global Change, Local Impacts,” held September 20 at the Douglass College Center was a precursor to a broader conference on climate change planned for 2007. It will include researchers from other universities and institutes, business leaders. and community stakeholders.
The symposium highlighted how global climate change will affect the daily lives of people living in New Jersey and elsewhere. It approached the issue from a multidisciplinary perspective, and took into account the possible short-term and long-term effects on agriculture, business, water resources, public health, and industries such as tourism and insurance.
"This is one of our most important and timely issues," said Philip Furmanski, executive vice president for academic affairs. "New Jersey is especially vulnerable to climate changes. ... Life and our economic structure are at risk, and devastatingly so as we've learned from Hurricane Katrina and other catastrophes."
Numerous departments and centers at Rutgers study the environment and concern themselves with climate change. “We already have a lot going on – a lot of excellence in this area,” said Bob Goodman, dean of the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the new name for Cook College. “The whole is less than the sum of the parts. Our objective is to make the whole much more than the sum of the parts.”
To that end, researchers from environmental sciences, geological sciences, ecology, marine and coastal sciences, and human ecology presented some of the work they have been doing on climate change. Tony Broccoli, an associate professor of environmental sciences and co-chair of the symposium, presented an overview of the climate change issue.
He explained how carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were steady until the time of the Industrial Revolution when economies demanded the burning of fossil fuels. Excesses of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere and increase the globe’s temperature. “Individual years may be warmer or colder because of things like El Niño,” Broccoli said, “but in particular in the last 30 years or so there has been in increase in warming. ...These temperature trends have been almost ubiquitous throughout the globe.”
The result is an increase in sea surface and land air temperatures, melting of mountain glaciers, and a decrease in arctic sea ice. Continued warming, Broccoli said, will result in increased flooding and droughts and severe storms. Broccoli showed maps projecting significant portions of the Jersey shore and even Newark Liberty International Airport completely submerged underwater by 2100.
“This is an issue for the transportation industry in New Jersey,” Broccoli said.
Reversing warming trends isn’t the only challenge an institution like Rutgers needs to be prepared to address. Public opinion polls on climate change show that only 41 percent of people believe human activity is responsible for warming trends, despite significant evidence to the contrary. Very few identify climate change as a top political priority – meaning the social sciences, public policy, and communication are integral to a multidisciplinary approach.
“The real challenge is going to be finding a way to better connect to each other,” said symposium co-chair Jennifer Francis, an associate research professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. “This symposium is the very first step we are taking in the climate change initiative.”