Speaker 1: More than fifty million people were killed between eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: five and eighteen seventy eight. The period is now remembered
Speaker 1: as the Great Famine, and one of the primary causes
Speaker 1: behind the famine was a naturally occurring phenomenon called El Nino.
Speaker 1: In fact, the eighteen seventy seven El Nino is the
Speaker 1: strongest ever recorded. As of June, we have entered another
Speaker 1: El Nino event, and scientists are expecting this one to
Speaker 1: be very strong. Some call it a super El Nino,
Speaker 1: or even a Godzilla El Nino. So are we better prepared?
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty six? There are, after all, five times
Speaker 1: as many people as in eighteen seventy seven, and the
Speaker 1: planet is one point four degrees celsius orter. This is
Speaker 1: zero I am Akshatrati this week understanding a monster. Since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy our appetite four fossil fuels has been increasing
Speaker 1: global average temperatures by about zero point two degrees celsius
Speaker 1: every decade. That is typically how much a single Al
Speaker 1: Nino event raises global average temperatures by, and it does
Speaker 1: so by releasing vast amounts of heat from the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: So this El Ninio will not just cause disasters around
Speaker 1: the world, but it will also give us a taste
Speaker 1: of what climate change could look like in twenty thirty
Speaker 1: five if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the
Speaker 1: same rate. To understand the al Ninia phenomenon, I'm joined
Speaker 1: today by Ming Functing, Professor of Climate at Columbia University.
Speaker 1: We talk about the science of al Nino, how prepared
Speaker 1: the world is, and how scientists are responding to the
Speaker 1: increased political attacks on an overheating planet. Professor Main Functing,
Speaker 1: Welcome to zero.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So we are about to enter what people are calling
Speaker 1: a super el Nino. Before we start to talk about
Speaker 1: the superpart, can you just woc us through the very
Speaker 1: basics of what an el nino is.
Speaker 3: El Nino is one of the most influential climate pattern
Speaker 3: It the impacts not only the local region where it starts,
Speaker 3: which is the tropical Pacific, but it also impacts regions
Speaker 3: far from that region through something we call teleconnection, and
Speaker 3: it can cause droughts in some parts of the world
Speaker 3: and flooding in other parts, or you know, hurricanes and
Speaker 3: other activities. So el Nino is a natural phenomena. And
Speaker 3: to understand why only occurs, we have to start from
Speaker 3: the normal state. So during the normal state of the
Speaker 3: tropical Pacific, we have these steady trade winds that blows
Speaker 3: from the east toward the west, which basically pushes warm
Speaker 3: surface water that is exposed to the sunlight toward the
Speaker 3: west and forming something we call the Pacific Western Pacific
Speaker 3: warm pool. And the warm water there then fuels precipitation,
Speaker 3: the rainfall, you know, convection and rainfall that leads to
Speaker 3: rainy climate in regions like you know Indonesia, you know,
Speaker 3: Northern Australia, and relatively cool climate in the eastern part
Speaker 3: of the Pacific like the coast of Peru. And it
Speaker 3: also the cooling you know, the water walmart being moved away.
Speaker 3: It also allows the deep, cold and rich water come
Speaker 3: to the surface. That also helps the ecosystem there, allows
Speaker 3: you know, fish to flourish in that region. Uh during
Speaker 3: a Nino, which is a disruption of normal cycle, and
Speaker 3: what happens there is the wind tends to weaken, the
Speaker 3: trade winds tend to weaken, and that allows the warm
Speaker 3: water that is pushed toward the west to spread back
Speaker 3: toward the east. Covering pretty much the majority of the
Speaker 3: Tropical Pacific. The Tropical Pacific is a huge basin, so
Speaker 3: that allows a lot of the heat from the surface
Speaker 3: to be sent back to the atmosphere, increases the global
Speaker 3: mean surface temperature and you know, causing convection changes that
Speaker 3: alters the atmospheric circulation, which means high pressure low pressure
Speaker 3: in different regions. So that then leads to anomalous climate
Speaker 3: linked to surface temperature as well as precipitation, droughts, and
Speaker 3: other other phenomena.
Speaker 1: And the opposite happens in a La Ninia phase where
Speaker 1: instead of the heat being released from the Pacific, more
Speaker 1: heat is stored in the Pacific right.
Speaker 3: Exactly, So there is an opposite phase of the Nino
Speaker 3: site sudden we call it, and so Southern oscillation cycle.
Speaker 3: And the opposite phase is the intensification of trade winds.
Speaker 3: So the wind actually becomes a but normally strong that
Speaker 3: pushes warm water further.
Speaker 2: To the west.
Speaker 3: That allows a warm warm to shrink, and that causes
Speaker 3: more or less opposite kind of impact to a lot
Speaker 3: of the global phenomena climate phenomena, but not exactly. You know,
Speaker 3: there are some some asymmetriies between the two.
Speaker 1: And just so we understand. Obviously, the Pacific Ocean is
Speaker 1: the largest ocean by quite some distance, and when the
Speaker 1: heat from the Pacific Ocean is released or absorbed in
Speaker 1: these two phases, it has these global impacts because it
Speaker 1: can make a big global difference to average temperatures. Right,
Speaker 1: what is the range in which typically global average temperatures
Speaker 1: increase or decrease during an Alninio versus in Coloninia?
Speaker 2: Very good question. Yes.
Speaker 3: One of the things Elnino does is that, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: that the surface water becomes warm across the type Pacific,
Speaker 3: so that it allows more heat to be transferred from
Speaker 3: the ocean toward the atmosphere through this warm surface water.
Speaker 3: As you pointed out, it's Pacific, it's the largest ocean,
Speaker 3: so once it's all covered by warm water, that is
Speaker 3: a very big source of heat to the atmosphere, and
Speaker 3: that actually increases the global mean surface temperature by the
Speaker 3: order of something like point five degree across you know,
Speaker 3: globally averaged. This is what happened in.
Speaker 1: Some sense, pidegree celsius celsius.
Speaker 3: Yes, half degree celsius. This is what happened in twenty three,
Speaker 3: twenty four. The most recent Nini. If you recall there
Speaker 3: was this a spike in the global means offace temperature.
Speaker 1: And now scientists are talking about a super el Nino.
Speaker 1: What is this definition of weak normal, big super al nino?
Speaker 1: How is it measured exactly?
Speaker 3: The strength of the al nino is measured by what
Speaker 3: we call nino indexes induses. There are multiple indices. We
Speaker 3: basically average the surface temperature over a certain region of
Speaker 3: the tropical Pacific where we get the largest anomaly. So
Speaker 3: a normal nino is one that indexes above point five
Speaker 3: degrees over a certain period of time, and a strong
Speaker 3: al nino would be above one degree, and a super
Speaker 3: al nino would be something like above two degrees celsius,
Speaker 3: all of them celsius.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and right now there's a discussion that this is
Speaker 1: a super el ninos. It's it's is do we know
Speaker 1: how much is the anomaly? Is it two degrees celsius
Speaker 1: or more?
Speaker 3: Right now, the probability in all of the forecasts are probabilistic.
Speaker 3: We based on multi model, So we estimate using statistical
Speaker 3: methods of what is the likelihood of this aneno happening
Speaker 3: and what is likelihood of it reaching certain strands so
Speaker 3: currently the model forecasts, based on multiple models across the world,
Speaker 3: is that there is one hundred percent chance theo will
Speaker 3: be happening, and it's in fact already exists the conditions
Speaker 3: we're already seeing it. But even back in you know, April,
Speaker 3: we knew quite high high likelihood this all news happening.
Speaker 3: And currently the chance of a superl Nino is about
Speaker 3: sixty three percent. So it's about sixty percent.
Speaker 1: And in terms of trying to understand the Almineo system's
Speaker 1: strength and weakness, what causes certain alninos to be bigger
Speaker 1: than other al ninos.
Speaker 3: That's a very good question, which is something that we
Speaker 3: are still researching. We know the mechanism of how AINO happens,
Speaker 3: which is when you have the heat. You know, during
Speaker 3: the normal time, you have the heat being pushed toward
Speaker 3: the west, and that heat is pushed toward ocean in
Speaker 3: the La Nina phase you know, including the normal phase,
Speaker 3: that the heat is stored into the ocean, and that
Speaker 3: ocean will be accumulating heat and taking a lot of
Speaker 3: heat from the atmosphere and eventually it reaches a state
Speaker 3: that it can release that heat back into the atmosphere
Speaker 3: and that is where Nino will happen. Now, when exactly
Speaker 3: it releases that heat and what triggers it, we know
Speaker 3: a lot about it, but it's not like you know,
Speaker 3: so there's a random chance like the Westley what we
Speaker 3: call Westley wind bursts is the reason. You know, it
Speaker 3: weakens the trade wings, and the question of how strong
Speaker 3: it will be depends on the amount of heat that
Speaker 3: is stored and other ocean conditions, ocean dynamics, and the
Speaker 3: release process. So what we know for sure is the
Speaker 3: model takes into account all of these conditions and was
Speaker 3: able to predict how strong it might become.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so this La Ninia and Ninia phase the
Speaker 1: cycle between two and seven years roughly and do this
Speaker 1: process of absorbing the heat and then releasing the heat.
Speaker 1: This is a natural phenomenon that has been happening on
Speaker 1: the planet for a very long time now. Of course,
Speaker 1: over the last two hundred years, we have been heating
Speaker 1: up the planet by burning fossil fuels and adding to
Speaker 1: the greenhouse gas blanket, which is heating up the planet,
Speaker 1: but it's also heating up the ocean because when you're
Speaker 1: heating the atmosphere, this La Nina alminio system, and of
Speaker 1: course the other oceans are absorbing the heat that's in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. Yes, Is it then that climate change, because
Speaker 1: of the heat being built up in the atmosphere, is
Speaker 1: supercharging the al nino.
Speaker 3: There are certainly possibilities that is happening, But currently the
Speaker 3: models are not showing us for sure that the climate change,
Speaker 3: the global warming for sulfiel induced, the global warming is
Speaker 3: actually changing the behavior of the alnino itself. So anino
Speaker 3: is still happening on a natural basis. It's an ocean
Speaker 3: atmosphere interaction in the tropical Pacific. But what you said,
Speaker 3: you know, that is something that we are all thinking about.
Speaker 3: How much of it could be contributed by the fact
Speaker 3: that the oceans taking up more heat.
Speaker 1: Yes, the strongest al ninion record is known to be
Speaker 1: between eighteen seventy seven and eighteen seventy eight, and there
Speaker 1: are various impacts that came from that al nino and
Speaker 1: that were quite severe. You know, the world was much
Speaker 1: poorer a place back then. Something like fifty million people
Speaker 1: were killed across India, China, Brazil. That's about three to
Speaker 1: four percent of the global population at the time because
Speaker 1: of the droughts that happened in the famine that was caused.
Speaker 1: Now we are going into a strong super al ninio.
Speaker 1: Are we better prepared? Do you think in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: twenty seven with eight billion people on the planet.
Speaker 3: I hope so, I suddenly hope so.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Eighteen seventy six seventy eight is what we call a
Speaker 3: great farming period caused you know, severe drought across the globe,
Speaker 3: as you already mentioned India, China, Africa as well as
Speaker 3: Brazil as well Brazil, and those droughts obviously affected the
Speaker 3: crop yield, so crop failed in many, many regions. And
Speaker 3: one of the things I would say, the farming is
Speaker 3: obviously not directly caused by just crop yield drop. That's contributed,
Speaker 3: but a lot of it is policy as well. So
Speaker 3: people didn't know we are going to get into this
Speaker 3: period of you know, droughts in multiple regions. So for
Speaker 3: example India, you know, the crop trading at the time
Speaker 3: was continuing like normal. So one of the things I
Speaker 3: would hope now we know is that we know exactly
Speaker 3: what's going to happen. I mean, not exactly. I am
Speaker 3: very high likelihood we are going into a supernien yo,
Speaker 3: so we can be better prepared in terms of what
Speaker 3: we can do about it. By the way, I should
Speaker 3: mention India rainfalls already reduced this year. We're already seeing
Speaker 3: the impact of this El Nino, and I believe the
Speaker 3: onset of monsoon's delayed, which partially also led to some
Speaker 3: of the you know, contributed to the to the heat
Speaker 3: waves there earlier pre monsoon heat waves.
Speaker 2: So my hope is that.
Speaker 3: You know, people will be actually prepared in the sense
Speaker 3: of delayed planting for example, for agriculture side of things,
Speaker 3: and also not to uh you know, export crops. You know,
Speaker 3: when when farming is, when when drugs coming uh So, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of ways and technology
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in the recent decades when we have had
Speaker 1: technology both to make predictions about al NIU and then
Speaker 1: ideally make some policy changes. What are the recent strong
Speaker 1: El Ninos that have happened and what kind of impacts
Speaker 1: have they led to.
Speaker 3: The most recent one is twenty three twenty four yo.
Speaker 3: That one's actually really unusual. It's not a superos, it's
Speaker 3: a strong eno. It's reached index reached one point five
Speaker 3: degrees celsius so it is a strong on year, but
Speaker 3: it's not a super one. One consequence of that nino
Speaker 3: was the actual concurrent heat waves we experienced, you know,
Speaker 3: in July twenty three, you know, the sum of twenty
Speaker 3: three and both some of twenty three and twenty four.
Speaker 3: In fact, we had lots and lots of heat waves
Speaker 3: happening across different continents, and I think that is you know,
Speaker 3: as we talked earlier, it is contributed partially by the
Speaker 3: increase in global surface temperature on top of already gradually
Speaker 3: increasing temperature.
Speaker 1: Right the heat waves we are experiencing are the alineo
Speaker 1: point two degree celsius temperature increase on top of the
Speaker 1: one point two or one point four degrees celsius of
Speaker 1: climate change that we have caused, and that makes the
Speaker 1: heat waves even more extreme than they would have been
Speaker 1: it we not cause climate change, yes, exactly. And in
Speaker 1: that case, then is it accurate to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: when we see this al ninio phase, we are sort
Speaker 1: of getting a flavor of what extreme weather would look
Speaker 1: like in five or ten years as we continue to
Speaker 1: burn fossil fuels and heat up the planet.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean, we are definitely seeing the temperatures continue
Speaker 3: to rise. So on top of that, if we have
Speaker 3: another super onion you're like this upcoming one, then that
Speaker 3: that adds to another additional heat into the atmosphere.
Speaker 2: So that kind of you know, higher.
Speaker 3: Global meanings surface temperature. Obviously, the global meaning when we say,
Speaker 3: you know, the point five point two point point five
Speaker 3: degrees celsius is in the global mean, it's regionally it
Speaker 3: can be much higher. So they're not evenly distributed, so
Speaker 3: some regions may be up to you know, one degree
Speaker 3: two degrees, right, So that is a substantial amount being added.
Speaker 3: So we can definitely expect to see a lot more
Speaker 3: of concurrent heat when that happens, which means basically you
Speaker 3: are seeing heat wave happening across different regions at the
Speaker 3: same time.
Speaker 1: And let's just talk through some of the impacts we've mentioned.
Speaker 1: In the eighteen seventy seven a linear the strongest ever,
Speaker 1: there were famines. But the thing that Alinea does is
Speaker 1: increases droughts in certain regions but also increases flooding in
Speaker 1: other regions. It just changes rainfall patterns in multiple places,
Speaker 1: and both can have impact on agricultural yields. But as
Speaker 1: we've also become much more urban in the last two century.
Speaker 1: It can have massive impacts on cities and people. The
Speaker 1: twenty three twenty four al Ninio, for example, had catastrophic
Speaker 1: floods in Kenya. And then there are other impacts from
Speaker 1: Alninius that can come through. So the twenty fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen al NINII is known for having caused a lot
Speaker 1: of coal bleaching, especially in the Great Barrier reef in Australia.
Speaker 1: What other impacts should people be aware of?
Speaker 3: Impact like wilderfires is wildfires is very severe. As we know,
Speaker 3: global warming already are causing dry, drier conditions in many
Speaker 3: regions like California for example, southwestern US, and so that
Speaker 3: already increased wildfire risk. So in this Caseino is very
Speaker 3: well known to be linked to increase the wildfire risk
Speaker 3: in regions like Indonesia, Northern Australia, Eastern Australia where the
Speaker 3: suppressed the rainfall happens. You know, when the rainfall shifts
Speaker 3: toward the Central Pacific, the warm water moves toward the east,
Speaker 3: the rainfall also moves with it. So that is causing
Speaker 3: a lot of the drying conditions there and a lot
Speaker 3: of fires. One of them. As you pointed out, Flooding
Speaker 3: is another common risk associated with El Nino in regions
Speaker 3: like the California West south southern US and some part
Speaker 3: of proving you know, coast regions there can be really
Speaker 3: severe flooding that can lead to landslides for example, hazards
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: One way in which one of the scientists explained to
Speaker 1: me the super part of the al nino was to
Speaker 1: think about the things that put heat into the ocean
Speaker 1: which then eventually comes out. So one is, because of
Speaker 1: human cross climate change, we are heating up the planet.
Speaker 1: Some of that heat is being transferred into the ocean.
Speaker 1: The other is the La Ninia phase, which is a
Speaker 1: phase where there is more than normal heat that is
Speaker 1: absorbed by the oceans and then it gets stored in
Speaker 1: the Pacific. And typically an el nino follows a La
Speaker 1: Ninia and so you get sort of a battery that
Speaker 1: is being charged, then that gets released in the El nino.
Speaker 1: And then there are other factors that we are still
Speaker 1: to understand. And of course this is a very complex phenomenon,
Speaker 1: so all the factors are not yet understood. But is
Speaker 1: there any other factor that we should be thinking about
Speaker 1: on how much more heat is released in an al nino.
Speaker 3: I think you have covered most of it. You're understanding
Speaker 3: is so complete. I can't think of any additional factor
Speaker 3: that we haven't talked about. I think, you know, yes,
Speaker 3: ultimately we are still trying to understand better. One of
Speaker 3: the things you mentioned is La Nina before al Nino,
Speaker 3: which is a phase that heat is me put into
Speaker 3: the ocean storage phase. So there were studies indicating the
Speaker 3: longer the La Nina. Laanina seems, you know, tend to
Speaker 3: be lasting longer, not this time, this time. You know,
Speaker 3: after the twenty three twenty four al Nino, we entered
Speaker 3: the Laina phase and pretty much just ended right before
Speaker 3: this al Nino, so it wasn't a super long Laina's
Speaker 3: you know, heat storage phase. So there are studies indicating
Speaker 3: the longer Laanina phase could lead to stronger al Ninho,
Speaker 3: but I don't think that is being widely accepted as
Speaker 3: a valid mechanism because we don't see that in data.
Speaker 3: So that could be one, you know, it's how La
Speaker 3: Nina behaves right before El Nino that could determine the
Speaker 3: intensity of the following nino. But ultimately, I think we
Speaker 3: still have a lot up to to understand.
Speaker 1: And then one of the scientists I was listening to said,
Speaker 1: no two el ninos are the same. What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Right? So first of all, not yes, exactly, it means
Speaker 3: none of the No two. You can you can try
Speaker 3: to find the exact replica of you know, theinos.
Speaker 2: They always differ in some ways.
Speaker 3: But I think what it means more is that even
Speaker 3: if you have identical al Ninho, the impact will never
Speaker 3: be exactly the same. I think that is more of
Speaker 3: what you know we usually mean in the sense that
Speaker 3: Ninho is putting, you know again the weight to the
Speaker 3: you know, the the dice. So it's not the only factor.
Speaker 3: Rainfall patterns here and there, you know, droughts and all
Speaker 3: of that that can be impacted by multiple factors in
Speaker 3: the climate system. Nino is just adding a weight to
Speaker 3: one direction. So depending on how the climate, the weather
Speaker 3: pattern itself evolves in the under a Certainino condition, you
Speaker 3: can get a very different impact in different regions.
Speaker 1: After the break, I ask Professor Ming Functing how climate
Speaker 1: scientists are responding in the phase of increased political attacks.
Speaker 1: If you've learned something new from zero, please do give
Speaker 1: us a rating on your favorite podcast app. It helps
Speaker 1: new listeners find the show. Now, this is all happening
Speaker 1: at a time where, at least in the US, there
Speaker 1: are attacks from governments, from political actors on climate science itself. Now,
Speaker 1: climate science is not new to political attacks. These have
Speaker 1: happened over the past three decades in many different ways,
Speaker 1: and the climate scientists community, including yourself, have worked to
Speaker 1: try and figure out what is the best way to
Speaker 1: showcase the work that you're doing, why it helps people,
Speaker 1: what are the facts, and how it allows us to
Speaker 1: prepare for a better world. But particularly in this period,
Speaker 1: you know, there are direct impacts that can come through
Speaker 1: on people's lived experiences. So there was a recent proposal
Speaker 1: from the Trump administration to dismantle the ocean monitoring system
Speaker 1: that you talked about, which can help us predict and
Speaker 1: al Ninio. Of course, Congress has stopped that from happening,
Speaker 1: and so the ocean monitoring system will continue to support
Speaker 1: El Nino work for much longer. As a climate scientist,
Speaker 1: how have you been affected?
Speaker 3: We are all affected in different ways. One of the
Speaker 3: biggest impact is the funding itself. So you know, you
Speaker 3: we are all our works depend on funding. You know,
Speaker 3: our graduate students, post docs, uh, you know, at other
Speaker 3: facilities that we need to to to do the work. Myself,
Speaker 3: I'm not an observational climate scientist in the sense that
Speaker 3: I don't go out and collect data, but as you
Speaker 3: pointed out, that is a super important part of our
Speaker 3: research because we rely on data and my work is
Speaker 3: mostly rely on model so that needs supercomputer infrastructure like
Speaker 3: that to help us continue our research. So one of
Speaker 3: the things I wanted to bring up is, you know,
Speaker 3: climate science itself, it's a physical science, it's not really political.
Speaker 3: But I think we we can communicate better in the sense,
Speaker 3: you know, it is a kind of like you know,
Speaker 3: you're thinking about throw a dice, you're really saying you're
Speaker 3: putting weight on certain high numbers climate changes. That is
Speaker 3: basically doing that. You know you're not equal chance of
Speaker 3: getting all the numbers, but rather now you're getting the
Speaker 3: extremes more likely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and thinking about life in probability terms is very
Speaker 1: difficult for people in general, even for people who understand
Speaker 1: probability and who are working on statistical methods, and so
Speaker 1: that becomes a difficult issue to communicate. But one field
Speaker 1: that is emerging that is trying to make this communication
Speaker 1: simpler to say, not all extreme weather is caused by
Speaker 1: climate change, but some we can clearly show the link
Speaker 1: to climate change, and that science is extreme weather attribution science.
Speaker 1: Can you just walk us through what extreme weather attribution
Speaker 1: work looks like.
Speaker 2: Yes, Uh, this is a very mature science. Now.
Speaker 3: We're basically using models to help us understand what is likely, Uh,
Speaker 3: this event happened. Let's say europeanky wave currently where we're
Speaker 3: all talking about it. So how likely this event would
Speaker 3: happen in a world without fossil fuel versus with fossil fuel.
Speaker 3: We run model runs with those two conditions and then
Speaker 3: get a probable probability of this kind of event happening.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you've heard, you know, read
Speaker 2: the news report.
Speaker 3: The weather World Weather Attribution Group has already done that
Speaker 3: and they're always, you know, really fast in producing that.
Speaker 3: And the conclusion there is that it's very unlikely, uh,
Speaker 3: this event would happen without fossil fuel contribution into the
Speaker 3: climate warming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're recording this episode during the heat wave in
Speaker 1: Europe in June, and the study says that this is
Speaker 1: the worst recorded heat wave in Europe and that it
Speaker 1: would be virtually impossible without human cost climate change. Having
Speaker 1: run this model, and one of the scientists who was
Speaker 1: involved in the study put it very plainly. It's Frederica Otto,
Speaker 1: she's a professor at Imperial College London, and she said, yes,
Speaker 1: this is climate change. Yes it is us causing this
Speaker 1: climate change. No, it's not el Ninio that is making
Speaker 1: this extreme heat wave worse. And then she adds, we
Speaker 1: have the solutions and we are not implementing them fast enough.
Speaker 1: And that clear communication is of course coming from a
Speaker 1: base of, as you said, a mature science. But there's
Speaker 1: already a layer of politics getting involved.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: The US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine are
Speaker 1: conducting a study to look at attribution science. They did
Speaker 1: so a decade ago, and now methods have improved and
Speaker 1: become more precise, and so they are doing another study
Speaker 1: to look at effectiveness of these methods. And there is
Speaker 1: an effort from political actors, some in the governments, some
Speaker 1: in think tanks, who want to weaken attribution science's value
Speaker 1: because they worry that it will be used in courts
Speaker 1: to try and hold powerful actors like governments or corporations
Speaker 1: to account. What can scientists do to ensure that attribution
Speaker 1: science doesn't come under these kinds of political attack.
Speaker 3: Again, you know, attribution science itself is a science. So
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not familiar with this new attribution study
Speaker 3: conducting under National Science econdom of Science. But even if
Speaker 3: they redo it, they'll be using the best model available,
Speaker 3: and I can't imagine scientists would claim otherwise the results
Speaker 3: are going to be what it is. But it is probabilistic,
Speaker 3: so it's you know, even though it is virtually impossible,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean it's completely impossible. This could happen without
Speaker 3: climate change, so you know, communication like you know, adding
Speaker 3: some kind of emphasis, you know, compared to nineteen seventies
Speaker 3: I think in their study they've already done that, compared
Speaker 3: to nineteen seventies condition where fossil fuel has already you know,
Speaker 3: been burning for a while, and it's about two hundred
Speaker 3: times less likely in the nineteen seventies condition. So I
Speaker 3: think put out more numbers like this could help. So
Speaker 3: this is not you know, something we just come, you know,
Speaker 3: the sort of grab out of the same air. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, I believe in scientists in category. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, if people are truly believing. You know, they
Speaker 3: are exploring possibilities. The conclusions drawn by one group may
Speaker 3: not be accurate. I'm totally for it. I think the
Speaker 3: more the better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And two hundred times more likely or less likely
Speaker 1: is a huge number. Right. If suddenly somewhere were to
Speaker 1: tell me, if you cross the road today, there's a
Speaker 1: two hundred times more likelihood that you'll get hit by
Speaker 1: a car, I would be scared. I would take care
Speaker 1: about crossing the road. I would make sure that the
Speaker 1: traffic light is red and not crossover without that same
Speaker 1: thing with you know, taking a plane or a car.
Speaker 1: If you are going to die, then the probability increases
Speaker 1: by two hundred times.
Speaker 2: Yes, you would be.
Speaker 1: Very careful and so absolute. People must heed what the
Speaker 1: statistics are telling us.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think another example we can talk about it
Speaker 3: is smoking. You know a lot of people believe smoking
Speaker 3: increases the chance of getting lung cancer.
Speaker 2: And I hope a lot of.
Speaker 3: Young people, you know, learn that and not not stop
Speaker 3: smoking because they know the probability shift, right, that the
Speaker 3: odds change.
Speaker 2: So absolutely, I agree with you.
Speaker 3: The two hundred times is huge number, and we definitely
Speaker 3: should heat to to that, you know, change our behavior
Speaker 3: in some ways.
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: And thank you for listening to Zero. Now for the
Speaker 1: sound of the week. That is the sound of Lover
Speaker 1: flowing from the most recent option of Mount Etna, which
Speaker 1: happened on the twenty sixth of June on the Italian
Speaker 1: island of Sicily. If you liked this episode, please take
Speaker 1: a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and Spotify. This episode was produced by Sommersadi and Oscar
Speaker 1: boyd Our. Theme music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks
Speaker 1: to Blake Maples, Laura Milan and Alissa McDonald. I am
Speaker 1: Akshatrati Back soon.