#79 | Kevin Trenberth: The Consequences Of Denial & The Storms Of Climate Change

The guest for this episode, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, is a Distinguished Senior Scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. 

Kevin explains the effect anthropogenic climate change is having on our weather systems, in reference to the catastrophic record-breaking flooding in Houston this month, as well as the Category 5 Hurricane Irma that wrecked havoc on the islands off the coast of Florida, the Florida Keys, as well the Florida Peninsula itself. This summer, tens of millions of people across Asia have been displaced due to massive flooding, and practically the entire Pacific Northwest of North America has been on fire.

Regarding the flooding in Houston, what has been the response from the Trump Administration? What actions have been taken to adapt to the rapidly changing climate system, resulting in more extreme weather? We get into this and more.

Bio:

Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth is a Distinguished Senior Scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. From New Zealand, he obtained his Sc. D. in meteorology in 1972 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 Scientific Assessment of Climate Change reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize which went to the IPCC. He served from 1999 to 2006 on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and he chaired the WCRP Observation and Assimilation Panel from 2004 to 2010 and chaired the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) scientific steering group from 2010-2013 (member 2007-14); and chaired the 2014 7th International Scientific Conference on the Global Water and Energy Cycle Committee. He has also served on many national committees. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 2000 he received the Jule G. Charney award from the AMS; in 2003 he was given the NCAR Distinguished Achievement Award; in 2013 he was awarded the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, and he received the Climate Communication Prize from AGU. He edited a 788 page book Climate System Modeling, published in 1992 and has published 543 scientific articles or papers, including 62 books or book chapters, and over 257 refereed journal articles. On Google Scholar, there are over 54,295 citations and an H index of 100 (100 papers have over 100 citations). He has given many invited scientific talks as well as appearing in a number of television, radio programs and newspaper articles. He is listed among the top 20 authors in highest citations in all of geophysics.

Episode Notes:

- "A profile of award-winning climate scientist Kevin Trenberth" in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jul/27/a-profile-of-award-winning-climate-scientist-kevin-trenberth

- Music by my talented friend Nick Archibald.