HOLIVAR2006 Abstracts
Future climate change: the need for a past perspective.
Ray Bradley
Climate System Research Center, Department of Geosciences, Massachusetts, MA 01003, USA
Contact: Ray Bradley (rbradley@geo.umass.edu)
Whatever anthropogenic climate changes occur in the future, they will be superimposed on a background of natural variability. Therefore, to anticipate future changes, we must understand how and why climates varied in the past. Relying on instrumental data to understand the spectrum of climate variability is completely inadequate; paleoclimate data are essential to place limited instrumental records in perspective and to assess the importance of forcing factors. Although there has been an understandable emphasis on global temperature reconstructions (past and future), regional hydrological variability is likely to be of most concern in the future. The Holocene record of climate variability is replete with examples of (largely unexplained) hydrological instability. Multidecadal- to multicentury-length droughts often started abruptly, were unprecedented (in the experience of societies at the time) and thus were highly disruptive to their agricultural, economic, and social foundations. Future changes, that involve both natural and anthropogenic forcing, are likely to be just as disruptive if not more so. Furthermore, these changes will affect a world population that is expected to increase from ~6 billion people today to ~9-10 billion by 2060. In spite of technological advances, most of these people will continue to be subsistence or small-scale market agriculturalists, and will be just as vulnerable to climatic fluctuations as late prehistoric/early historic societies were. In an increasingly crowded world, moving on to greener pastures is not an option, making conflicts more likely. Paleoclimatologists have a responsibility to ensure that the public, and politicians they elect, fully understand these issues so that they can better appreciate the consequences of inaction over controlling greenhouse gas emissions.
Ray Bradley is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences and Director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He did his graduate work at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder. His research interests are in climatology and paleoclimatology, with a particular focus on the Holocene (the last 12,000 years). He has written or edited eleven books on climatic change, and authored more than 120 articles on the topic. His main field research area is in the Canadian High Arctic. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Arctic Institute of North America and the Royal Meteorological Society. In 2003, he received a DSc from Southampton University, England for his contributions to paleoclimatology. Ray Bradley has been an advisor to various government and international agencies, including the US, Swiss, Swedish, German, and UK National Science Foundations, NOAA, the National Research Council, the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the US-Russia Working Group on Environmental Protection, and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). He was particularly active in PAGES –the IGBP program on “Past Global Changes”, where he chaired the Scientific Steering Committee.