Few scientists will publicly tell you how dire things are , but Nick Humphrey is not one to shy away from the truth. ML : Can you give us a brief summary of your background and why you became interested in studying the detrimental effects of climate change? NH : My background is in meteorology, geosciences and interdisciplinary studies.
I also have a background in global climatology. I did undergraduate research into human decision-making in response to tornado warnings and graduate research in tropical cyclone impacts. I have been following news and research into climate change for about the past decade. However, I became more intensive in my personal research as a result of an apparent acceleration in climate impacts in the past yrs.
My study took me to look into the research of scientists such as Dr. Natalia Shakhova, Dr. James White, Dr. Peter Wadhams, Dr. James Lovelock, and Paul Beckwith. I also looked into the interdisciplinary connections between ecological and environmental variables by Dr.
Guy McPherson. ML : What is the most disturbing aspect of anthropogenic global warming that you are seeing today and what are its implications for the future? NH : To me, the most disturbing aspect is the destruction of ice on the planet.
This means in natural climate change, there is typically a significant lag between what is happening in the atmosphere rise in greenhouse emissions and climate response warming of the planet , forcing a more gradual temperature rise. Meaning it does not contribute to temperature, but to melting heat gain or freezing heat loss of ice. So it has a double impact. As the planet loses ice because of warming temperatures, there is less total ice to melt and more heat goes into warming the oceans, land and atmosphere.
