the role of the climate scientist

On Thursday, I listened to Jim White give the 'keynote address' to an international group of scientists in Boulder for the annual Arctic Workshop. The workshop was held at INSTAAR this year, and, given the extreme sensitivity of polar regions to climate perturbations, many of the talks and posters featured work related to global warming. Jim's talk was titled 'IPY: not just a year, it's a responsibility'. Most readers are probably scratching their heads right now, thinking... IPY? This year is the International Polar Year, a year of conferences and public outreach aimed at raising awareness of the importance and vulnerability of polar regions in the face of impending climate change.

Jim's talk was aimed at long-time friends and colleagues in the tightly-knit arctic research community, and, as such, it was not simply a recap of the science, challenges, and potential solutions to the global warming threat. It was more along the lines of a call-to-arms to those people who have the greatest potential to instigate public and political action to stop global warming. Scientists, particularly climate scientists, have a unique role to play right now. Those who understand our climate have the responsibility to step up and explain the science, clarify the role of uncertainty, and advocate for large-scale changes to be made so that we won't have to face the catastrophes and surprises that will inevitably come to pass when atmospheric CO2 reaches 500ppm... 600ppm... 800ppm... and it won't take much to reach those levels...