- About the Lecture
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About the Lecture
If you’d asked Ronald Prinn a decade ago whether human activity played a significant part in global warming, he would have given you an “equivocal” answer. Today, he is no longer straddling the line, and indeed, has amassed forceful evidence that post-industrial society has brought about enormous change in earth systems, and may cause irreparable damage as this century progresses.
Prinn provides a short lesson on radiative forcing -- the process by which the earth absorbs solar radiation and gives off energy by emitting infrared radiation. These processes, which should be in balance, increasingly are not, due to manmade activities that trap the heat from the sun, and drive up the earth’s temperature. Prinn comes armed with MIT’s Integrated Global System Model, which helps show how human industry, agriculture and consumption feed into the delicate, interconnected physical and biological workings of atmosphere, ocean and earth. Forecasting the climate into the future, says Prinn, “is no longer a job for the natural sciences, but for a combination of natural and social sciences.”
Prinn’s illustrations depicting how human activity and earth systems interact are almost comically complex, and he acknowledges that his models must take into account major uncertainties. Clouds, ocean mixing and aerosols act as wild cards in terms of radiative forcing. However, observation of earth’s climate over millennia, and the running of computer simulations hundreds of times, have yielded some probabilities that Prinn believes policy makers must contend with.
Even assuming that civilization can limit its carbon dioxide emissions to twice preindustrial levels (550 parts per million), some very dramatic shifts will happen (or have already begun): the poles will heat up much faster than other parts of the world, melting ice and raising sea levels. Arctic tundra and soil will thaw and release methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas even than carbon dioxide. Another possibility: The ocean will reach its limit in absorbing atmospheric CO2, and, to put it bluntly, begin to die.
There are things we can and should do, says Prinn, if we want to avoid playing roulette with life on earth, and these actions are not priced beyond our means. We can make our transportation and building energy costs more efficient. We can continue to use coal if we figure out how to capture and store carbon underground. We’ll need to develop biofuels. Bills in Congress seeking to achieve 50-80% reductions in carbon emissions below 1990 levels won’t cripple our economy, Prinn’s models show. “Bottom line, we can afford this.”
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- About the Speaker
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About the Speaker
Ronald G. Prinn SCD '71
TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Director, Center for Global Change Science; Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Ronald Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change.
He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three-dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes, especially those processes involving the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Prinn is also working extensively with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. He has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change.
Prinn is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He co-authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric-Biospheric Chemistry. Prinn received his Sc.D. in 1971 from MIT; and his M.S. and B.S. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. - About the Host
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About the Host
Center for Global Change Science
The MIT Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) addresses fundamental questions about the environment and the natural processes and mechanisms that control the Earth's climate. The Center's goal is to improve the ability to accurate predict changes in the global environment. Two major activities of the CGCS are the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative and the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
Video Player
Anthropogenic Climate Change: Science, Economics and Policy
- Ronald G. Prinn SCD '71
- October 9, 2007
- Running Time:
