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Severe Storms A Sign Of Climate Change, WKU Professor Says
Bowling Green, Ky. - Americans have a fascination with the doomsday scenario portrayed in blockbuster disaster flicks, but Dr. John All, assistant professor in Western Kentucky University’s Department of Geology and Geography, says the possibility of a global climate catastrophe is more than just Hollywood hype and special effects. Recently, Mother Nature has been the one putting on the show.
"Because of the way movies over dramatize, I think we now tend to look at anything that seems doomsday -- like as not being real," Dr. All said. But the effects of global climate change, he said, are very real -- and imminent. Dr. All said that some of the effects of global climate change are in evidence already and cited the active Atlantic hurricane season and the recent severe storms in Kentucky and Indiana as examples. "The climate models have predicted for quite some time that hurricane activity, tornado activity, any sort of storm activity is going to increase," Dr. All said. He said those predictions are based on an increase of energy in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel emissions. Since storms, including hurricanes and tornadoes, are created from energy, adding energy to the atmosphere results in more intense storms. He said there are cycles that will cause an increase or decrease in the frequency of storms, but global climate change will cause those periods of increased frequency to be more intense. He noted that the global climate change model predicts similar patterns for the winter months as well. Without a doubt, “global” climate change is an international issue. Dr. All has been involved in organizing a United Nations committee to study the possible effects of climate change on human health. In December he will travel to South America in December to study the effects of global climate change in Chile. Dr. All said that the spread and increase of such diseases as malaria and West Nile virus are due to a changing climate as areas become warmer and more suitable for disease. He said that climate change is not characterized simply by warming, but by extremes in weather conditions. The increase in severe thunderstorms rather than day-long soaking rains is another indicator, he said. “Under global climate change, you expect super heat, then super cold, and they can be one right after the other. It’s climate disruption,” Dr. All said. So what about Kentucky’s future? Dr. All said Kentucky will likely become a subtropical zone. The Commonwealth is projected to be about 40 percent wetter, while the rest of the country becomes dryer. “That will offset the increase in temperature so that our soil moisture should remain roughly constant,” he said. “Basically, we will have a climate similar to what Georgia has now.” Dr. All said it is important that people be educated on global climate change and what it can mean for the future. "Global climate change— not possibly—it is going to be more important to humanity than the bubonic plague and nuclear weapons. It’s probably going to change ecosystems, when combined with human acts, as much or more than the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs," he said. More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
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