I work for NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center. Earth science is a huge part of what we do as a NASA center. For the past seven years or so, I have been working on ICESat-2, a mission to measure changes in the Earth's ice sheets and sea ice. We're a piece of the climate science puzzle. One of the cool things about working on these kinds of projects is getting to listen to the scientists talk about their work and sit in on their presentations. I get to know them as people and hear about what they've learned and what they still hope to learn. It's pretty awesome. I hadn't been on ICESat-2 for very long before I ran into what I have come to call "The Scary Chart."
A version of The Scary Chart is shown above. The graph shows, in crude terms, "amount of sea ice" on the vertical axis versus "year" on the bottom axis. The blue area shows how different models have been predicting the decline of sea ice over time. I think there are a little over a dozen models represented. The black line is the average of all those models. The red line shows the actual observations of how sea ice has been declining (some of that data provided from our predecessor mission, the first ICESat).
What makes this chart so scary? It's not just that sea ice is decreasing. No, it turns out all of the climate models we have are underestimating how fast the planet is losing sea ice. This climate change thing is real, and the more data we get, the worse things look.
Of course, there's always variations of the "hockey stick" graph, which probably get more airplay as scary charts:
But for some reason The Scary Chart about sea ice gets me more. I think it's the "we can't even be sure yet that it's only this bad" aspect of it. Also maybe because I first experienced it in a personal setting, presented to me by people that I knew personally and trusted, people who have integrity and are damn-smart scientists.
Now, this is by no means intended to be a post in which I use data and well-reasoned arguments to illustrate the reality of climate change. Smarter people do that much better elsewhere on the web, and besides, that's not what this blog is about. My real point is to relay a personal experience: the first time I saw The Scary Chart, I thought to myself, "holy crap." Climate change has been a much bigger concern of mine ever since.
Since being exposed to The Scary Chart, I have stopped driving my car to work. I take the train and bus instead. I have become a vegetarian, in no small part because it reduces my carbon footprint (look it up: www.pbjcampaign.org). I recycle more. I compost. I eat more organic/sustainably-grown foods.
And now I'm going to bike 300 miles in Climate Ride. This is why I ride.
One easy thing that you could do is help me ride. All donations to Climate Ride are tax-deductible and go toward organizations that promote sustainable solutions for the planet. You can donate toward my goal (http://climateride.donordrive.com/participant/jamiebritt) or Amy's (http://climateride.donordrive.com/participant/amybritt) or both.
Special shout-outs to Waleed Abdalati, Jay Zwally, Thorsten Markus, and Tom Neumann, the ICESat-2 scientists who have taught me most of what I know about cryospheric science (that's "science about the icy parts of the world", for those of us non-scientists).
