By Eirin Combs, news corespondent
Ellen Marie Douglas, a hydrology professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, gave a lecture Sept. 14 at the New England Aquarium to discuss observations of climate change and how communities should be adapting to these changes.
To open her lecture, called “Climate Change and Extreme Events,” Douglas addressed the relationship between climate change and natural disasters.
“Isn’t it all just natural climate variability?” said one of her opening powerpoint slides.
Douglas’ talk aimed to prove the answer is no. She said the primary reason for these shifts in the climate is due to excess carbon dioxide emissions. She demonstrated how small changes in temperature trends are related to extreme weather events using normal distribution graphs.
“Distribution shifts in favor of more hot weather due to a shift in average value of temperatures,” Douglas said. “Small changes in an average value can result in larger changes in extremes.”
Weather extremes and natural disasters have devastated many communities, especially recently with Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. Harvey affected the regions of the Caribbean, Latin America and the southern United States between Aug. 17 and Sept. 3. Irma affected Florida and islands in the Caribbean.
Douglas said as depressing as climate research can be, the public should remain hopeful because the acknowledgement of climate change and humankind’s part in it is causing many people to take action.
“Previous disasters have forced government agencies to coordinate disaster responses […] and building codes have greatly improved in Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” Douglas said.
Douglas referenced various organizations and initiatives within Boston that are doing their part in order to plan and adapt to our changing climate. The Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008 is one initiative put in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below the emissions seen in 1990. As of now, the initiative is seeing a reduction of 21 percent and is now working toward reducing greenhouse gases by at least 80 percent by 2050.
The School of Environment at UMass Boston met with residents of low-income communities in the area that were more vulnerable to natural disasters. They created a dialogue in which they discussed feasible options for protection and accommodation in case of future weather extremes and natural disasters.
Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute (GRI) works toward helping communities recover and adapt from recent natural disasters. It has a Post-Disaster Assessment and Advisory Team in place that partners with emergency responders and plans to deploy a team to Houston in the coming months to provide aid, according to Phil Anderson, associate director of research and innovation at GRI.
“They look at the recovery phase with an eye of adaptability to move forward,” Anderson said of his team and their efforts.
Douglas discussed this idea of adapting and moving forward throughout her lecture. She stressed that the more communities can adapt to changes in our climate, the better they will be able to handle and recover from future weather extremes and natural disasters.
This is the ultimate goal of the New England Aquarium in hosting these public lectures regarding climate change: to create a dialogue about relevant issues and instill a desire to take action.
“The relevance of this is becoming real to people everyday,” LaCasse said. “Planning is relevant in terms of the economic health of Boston beyond our own interest we should be having in the environmental health of the planet.”
