Word: climatologist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...roughly 21% of the atmosphere for 200 million years, Lovelock asserts, whereas they should have fluctuated wildly, according to some geochemical models of the atmosphere. Were oxygen levels to rise above 25%, spontaneous fires would break out; if they dropped below 15%, many higher life-forms would suffocate. Climatologist Tyler Volk of New York University argues that life controls earth's temperature as well. In a study recently published in the British journal Nature, he and colleague David Schwartzman asserted that, without the cooling effects of living things, earth would be 80 degrees F warmer...
...then, do scientists trust them? How do they assess their accuracy? "You compare them with reality," explains Princeton Climatologist Syukuro Manabe. "How well do they reproduce the movement of the jet stream, the geographical and seasonal distribution of rainfall and temperature? You can also reproduce climate changes from the past. Eighteen thousand years ago, there was a massive continental ice sheet. Given the conditions that we know existed, can we reproduce accurately the distribution of sea-surface temperatures then? The answer is, We can do this very well. It gives you some confidence." Large-scale phenomena can be modeled more...
...days in Sioux Falls, S. Dak., three days in St. Louis. Much of the South suffered the most devastating cold in 20 years, and in the Great Plains and Midwest, weather historians saw parallels with dreadful pioneer winters. "This is decidedly the coldest December in Iowa," said State Climatologist Paul Waite. "It looks like it will beat 1876." Said National Weather Service Meteorologist Kenneth Bergman: "When the records are all in, this may be the worst December in 100 years for the whole...
...will get salt ier, its freezing point will drop, and the icecap will begin to melt, possibly starting a global warming trend. Other scientists fear that just the opposite may occur: as the flow of warmer fresh water is reduced, the polar ice may expand. In any case, British Climatologist Michael Kelly of the University of East Anglia sees an ironic consequence: changes in polar winds and currents might reduce rainfall in the very regions to benefit from the river...
...have real reason for worry. Last summer's drought left the subsoil in the lower wheat-growing states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas seriously dehydrated. Another dry summer would cut yields in these areas significantly, and the outlook for rain is not good. Says Iowa's agricultural climatologist Paul Waite: "When a dry spell goes over a year, it is likely to run on to two years...