Ackerman discusses climate change issues
Dr. Tom Ackerman
Is the climate changing and what do we know about climate changes that may happen over the next 50 years? Or the next 100 years? And how will it impact the Pacific Northwest? The one thing that is certain is that even a small change in climate will have a big impact on people.
Dr. Tom Ackerman, an atmospheric scientist and a Battelle Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, addressed some of the principal uncertainties about climate change as the lecturer at the Community Science and Technology Seminar Series sponsored by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Columbia Basin College. The event was held November 15.
Ackerman discussed questions frequently asked by the public: Is the climate changing and will changing the carbon dioxide concentration affect the climate? He also described what changes may occur in our climate over the next 50 years as a result of increases in the carbon dioxide concentration.
Ackerman is Chief Scientist of the U. S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. The ARM program is DOE's highest priority global change research project aimed at collecting climate data on clouds and the earth radiation energy over a 10-year span. PNNL is providing the scientific leadership and participating with other national laboratories and universities throughout the country in collecting and analyzing climate data using state-of-the-art instruments situated throughout the world.
"The overall result of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program's efforts will improve scientists' ability to predict how much the Earth's climate might change, how fast that change could occur and what the regional effects of that change might be--information needed by national and world leaders to make important energy and economic policy decisions," Ackerman says.
Ackerman long has been involved in answering questions relating to heating and cooling of the Earth's atmosphere and climate change. He is a graduate in physics from Calvin College and received his master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Washington in physics and atmospheric sciences in 1971 and 1976, respectively. Ackerman was a professor at Penn State University prior to joining PNNL.
The lecture series is supported by the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science and Technology and by the local chapter of Sigma Xi, the international honor society of scientific and engineering research.
