In this interview with Dr Jennifer Francis from the Woodwell Climate Research Centre in the US, we discuss her teams new research into feedbacks from the melting Arctic Ice cap. We also discuss how destructive climate impacts are starting to influence policymaking, albeit with resistance from misinformation campaigns. Finally, we discuss the rise of research into geoengineering and Jennifer’s insights into whether we should deploy risky temporary-techno fixes to buy time, while we wait for structural action at the policy-level to be implemented.
Transcript:
Nick Breeze
Hello, Jennifer, it’s good to see you again. Good. Can you Nick Can you start by explaining how you’ve quantified the loss of Arctic sea ice in the colder winter period in relation to the increased precipitation we’re seeing in the northern hemisphere?
Dr Jennifer Francis 00:18
Sure. Well, you know the loss of sea ice is something that we can measure quite easily using satellite information. Various wavelengths of light, basically, can be used to determine where there’s open water versus where there’s sea ice. And so that’s where the changes in sea ice have been observed over the last several decades, and we know that depending on the time of year, in the summer, we’ve lost almost half the area of sea ice compared to, say, before 1970 1980 during the winter, the losses are smaller because during the winter, the ice is confined By the coastline, and so it’s not free to grow and shrink as much as it is during the summer. So what we’ve done in this study is to look at how evaporation has changed from the areas where ice has been lost. So we look at the difference between how it used to be in the winter and how it is now, typically in the winter, and calculate how much additional evaporation has occurred from the open water. So having so much more open water now means that evaporation has increased quite a bit, because we get very little evaporation from ice, and so, but it’s, you know, quite straightforward to imagine that having more evaporation means that we’re probably also going to see more precipitation, because the Arctic is one of those places where the evaporation will be used for precipitation, and That’s what’s changing more than areas around the Arctic. So So knowing that we’ve got that extra precipitation, the question that we were looking at is, what happens to it? Where does it go? And can we measure, can we actually track that moisture that comes from the areas where the sea ice has disappeared, and find out where that precipitation is occurring more heavily now?
Nick Breeze 02:23
Okay, I noticed one of the areas was on Greenland, which you said, was sort of an unusual feedback, where it’s slowing the melt rate. But it is there any idea of how permanent that feedback is, or is it significant in how we view Greenland.
Dr Jennifer Francis 02:43
Probably the increase in precipitation from the Arctic itself, from these ice loss areas on Greenland is probably not going to have a big impact on the loss of the Greenland ice sheet, because most of the precipitation that falls on Greenland comes from moisture that is transported over the ice sheet from the Atlantic Ocean, and that’s a much bigger reservoir of moisture for the atmosphere. So we did measure an increase in precipitation from this source of moisture over the Arctic. It’s small compared to what comes in from the Atlantic Ocean, but anywhere where there’s more snow falling, especially, and that’s something we looked at, is the changes in extreme snowfall connected to this new source, new if you want to call it that, you know, anything that increases The snow cover, it’s going to affect how much reflected solar there will be later in the spring. If there’s more snow then the it’ll be slower for that snow to melt, and it’ll mean that it’ll be a brighter surface in the spring when the sun comes out, and so it’ll reflect more energy back to outer space longer. But, you know, I think greenhouse gas warming is winning that battle, so that we are seeing the snow cover in the spring disappear ever earlier because of the warming. So it’s somewhat of an offset to that general warming caused by the greenhouse gas increases.
Nick Breeze 04:19
Okay, in the study, references land in the northern hemisphere and even here in Northwest Spain, the increased rainfall has been desalinating the coastline quite significantly, with profound impacts on shellfish and ecosystems, which is having a knock on effect of fishing communities and so on. Is this part of a connection? I know it’s connected to things like the heat wave in the Atlantic as well. But is this an adding component to that?
Dr Jennifer Francis 04:50
Sure it’s a component. You know, generally we’re seeing bigger swings in precipitation, you know, the precipitation, drought, heavy precipitation. Operation drought sort of cycle. So generally, we’re seeing the cycle of water in the atmosphere accelerating, meaning that we see these heavier downpours happening more often. But we’re also seeing drought increasing as well. So of course, you know, we’ve got more moisture coming from the Arctic, but there’s also a lot more evaporation from the warming oceans worldwide, and that, I would say, is actually a much bigger deal, because, you know, the oceans are warming so much, and the Arctic is part of that story, for sure. But the farther south you go of the Arctic, the bigger the influence from the oceans nearby. So in Spain’s case, the fact that the Atlantic Ocean is breaking records for temperatures that evaporation is probably a much bigger part of that story in in Spain and Western Europe and northern parts of the land areas in the northern hemisphere are having a more outside influence from the Arctic.
Nick Breeze 06:06
Okay? So there could be like Great Britain or Scandinavia, those sorts of countries of Canada,
Dr Jennifer Francis 06:11
right? And Siberia and Canada.
Nick Breeze 06:16
And as this continues, as you say, as it accelerates and so on, and you started losing more sea ice. I presume that we will continue to lose the sea ice as we’re continuing to burn fossil fuels and so on. We’re just going to see this massive relocation of the water trapped in the ice all the way around. Is that how you foresee it transported away? Sure.
Dr Jennifer Francis 06:38
I mean, the trends are not going to turn around anytime soon. So the more sea ice that disappears, and we’re definitely on that trend, the more evaporation will occur, and the more it will contribute to heavier precipitation events, especially extreme snowfall, especially in the high latitude land areas. So yeah, that and that should all increase that there’s really no reason to expect it to to turn around anytime soon, especially as we see the concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere continue to go up.
Nick Breeze 07:11
Okay? And you have commented that these kinds of findings are a good signal for policy makers that they should be taking these things on board. What would you like to see as a sort of response from policy makers to this kind of research of what you’re trying to communicate?
Dr Jennifer Francis 07:28
So this is another piece of the greenhouse gas warming puzzle, if you will. We are measuring just many, many pieces of evidence that are all pointing to the impacts of these increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. So, you know, here’s just another one to add to the very large list that we have now. And if they’re all very consistent, it’s all very much expected. So we scientists have been talking about these sorts of impacts for decades now, so there’s really no controversy about these. You know, very serious impacts of the warming glow the Arctic is part of that. And I mean, we just have to figure out how to stop emitting carbon contain gasses, so especially carbon dioxide and methane, because we have to turn around this warming trend, and that’s the only way these impacts are going to lessen. If we don’t, they’re going to get worse and worse. So policymakers, need to act fast. You need to act boldly. We need to get this done. We’ve got the tools. We’re just lacking the political will at this point. Okay,
Nick Breeze 08:45
cop 29 is on the horizon in Azerbaijan, and the cop President isn’t particularly shy about the fact that they’re increasing their sales of gas around the world, and so is everyone else, quite frankly. So I mean, one topic I noticed last year at the cop that was much more prominent, and we’ve talked about it before, is geoengineering. There’s actually one area called refreezing the art could be relevant here. It’s a hot topic at the cops, because there’s no political change, basically. Are these conversations that you ever engage with Is it becoming more tempting to engage with them? What’s your what’s your current view?
Dr Jennifer Francis 09:26
I am not a proponent of geoengineering. I feel like we’ve messed up our climate system plenty already, and the last thing you need to do is waste resources in inviting Mother Nature, really, and putting a band aid on this, this cancer that we’ve caused in the climate system, namely, all these greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Yes, there’s increasing pressure, I would say, on policymakers to embrace these ideas of geoengineering in the Arctic. Some of those include trying to make clouds. Is thicker and brighter, so it reflects more solar energy back to outer space. Some of the other ones are somehow brightening the surface of the sea ice so that it is whiter and reflecting more sun back to outer space also. So that’s all about how to reflect more more sunshine back to space in a small scale, they’re very straightforward, at least the brightening the surface idea. But when it comes to brightening Arctic clouds, which is probably the one that you hear about the most, it makes absolutely no sense to me, because the season when the sun is out in the Arctic, which is when you’d want to have those brighter clouds there to reflect more sunshine. It’s already almost 100% cloudy all the time, and so shooting a bunch of particles in the air to try to make those clouds brighter, you’re looking at, you know, a tiny percent change in those clouds, and it’s and you’d have to do it at such a widespread scale, it would be a massive effort. You’d have to do it constantly to have any impact on the Arctic itself, and without having a really large change in the effect of that of those brighter clouds, it’s you’re not going to even notice it when you look at the global change in temperature. So I just think it’s futile. I think it’s wasting resources when it comes to trying to brighten the surface. They’re talking about sprinkling these little glass beads, basically on the sea ice. And we know how microplastics have had a big impact on the ecosystem. Animals are going to ingest these things. You know, maybe they’re not toxic, although that hasn’t been shown to be absolutely true. But you know, certainly they’re going to get into the marine food web, and especially the small organisms these beads will be large to them. So I think there’s so many unknowns about some of the inadvertent negative consequences and impacts on the ecosystem that I just think it’s frankly, a terrible idea. Okay? And
Nick Breeze 12:11
there’s a piece in The New York Times with American researcher saying that there’s a lot of interest now in full solar geoengineering for the whole planet views on that.
Dr Jennifer Francis 12:21
You know, it’s the same. I mean, I think the effort and expense would be huge. You’d have to keep it going constantly. Otherwise, if you’re not, you know, decreasing the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere simultaneously. I mean, this, the whole idea here is to buy time, but if you were ever to stop, you know, doing whatever you’re doing these geoengineering techniques, the warming would come back with a slam. You know, it makes no sense to me to continue to try to manipulate the climate system this this time, it would be a deliberate one. I just feel like we’ve messed it up enough. What we really need to focus on are the techniques that we know work, switching over to renewable energy, decreasing the amount of emissions into the atmosphere, and bringing those concentrations of greenhouse gasses down. That is the solution to the disease itself. And so these band aids that people are talking about are very uncertain. They’re expensive, they have many potential bad consequences that we don’t understand very well. So I’m all in favor of researching those, because it could be that some country or organization decides to just try it and go for it, and so we need to know in advance what we think those impacts might be. So I am definitely not a fan of going down that road, of doing it before we really understand it Okay, or at all really,
Nick Breeze 13:55
by just curious, because, I mean, obviously you’ve been pumping out this research which continually points to the same thing for a long time, and emissions have continued to rise. We go to these cops which are almost just this sort of tracking the failure of policy, basically, and and now there’s much more of these options are popping up, and more interest, is even from young people and global south people, because they see that their futures are being pretty much eradicated. It becomes almost like a an easy policy decision not to actually do it successfully, but just to say, yeah, we’ll do that, because it’s business as usual, right? And we’re getting into this sort of mess where it looks like we’re heading in that direction, and just trying to think how we how do the voices that have been consistently saying we just need to tackle the root cause, become more of a change setter in all of this? So
Dr Jennifer Francis 14:55
I think that’s where the research could come in to understand the impact. Costs, and, you know, being able to demonstrate that, yes, if you do this, we’re going to see more drought here, or more flooding there or here. Here’s some of the impacts that we don’t want. So, you know, I think that’s where the research could really help, is raise the certainty levels of how the inadvertent parts of it might play out, and also the costs you know, making those costs really clear, comparing it to using that money for further switching to renewable energy, which we know works very well and is already increasing rapidly, but also in communication to the public, so that they understand why this is potentially a bad idea and why we need to switch over to renewable energy even more, even faster, and education. So building it into educating our young people, so that this is just part of their, you know, learning experience all through their education. So I think the money could be much more effectively spent. But, you know, laying that out, I think could help policymakers see why that path towards geoengineering really doesn’t make any sense, and it’s a waste of money. As
Nick Breeze 16:14
we sort of look forward into 2024 other other things that you’re working on either related to the Arctic or general that should be on our climate radar, aside from the 2024 US election, perhaps.
Dr Jennifer Francis 16:31
Yeah, well, 2024 has already given us plenty of ammunition in terms of extreme weather events to to look at and understand how climate change played a role in making them happen. Of course, the heat waves have been devastating. It’s looking much more likely now that we’re probably going to break the global temperature record yet again. This would be, you know, we did it last year. We’re going to continue to see, you know, hurricanes that are rapidly intensifying, and all these extreme events that we’ve seen happen this year and previous recent years are just going to happen much more often. We’re going to understand better the fraction of their intensity that was directly related to the climate crisis. But specifically what we’re looking at in terms of research is, I think there’s a lot to be learned still about how the Stratospheric Polar Vortex is playing a role in this. So we’re working on that. We’re also looking at more ways where the rapid Arctic warming, which is, you know, some something like four times the global average, is the warming in the Arctic, how that is disrupting the whole temperature distribution in the in the northern hemisphere, and how that affects the jet stream, and therefore weather patterns and extreme weather patterns. So there’s always much more to be learned about that so, and we’ve got a lot of colleagues working on it now too, so we’re making good progress
Nick Breeze 18:12
again. Will we be seeing more work published on that this year?
Dr Jennifer Francis 18:17
Hope so. Yeah, it takes a while. You know, it’s a slow process to get research completed, written up, and then get get it through the publication process. So by the time you actually get it out on the street, it’s like, almost two years old. It’s just just how it works. But
Nick Breeze 18:35
are there positives that you see from the work that you and your colleagues are publishing. Do you see it trickle down into any policy structural changes that give you a sort of an upbeat because we often talk about the yeah in the sand stuff, yeah.
Dr Jennifer Francis 18:53
So I do think the sort of simple message that messing with the climate system is causing these extreme weather events to happen more often and be more intense. I think that message has been received, and it’s happening to people everywhere, and so there’s just a much higher awareness and acceptance of the role of climate change in affecting people’s lives and affecting agriculture, food supplies, you know, a whole range of societal impacts so that people are now. It’s, I mean, especially in the United States, and we’re running behind Europe. I’d say in that urgency, I think the urgency is now much higher now. And so it’s it’s a topic that is on the front burner of our upcoming election, rather than the back burner. And so I think that’s all helping to push policy in the right direction,