The fretful theoretical physicist,
A ‘worried’ climate scientist describes the inevitability of rising seas and lost culture
Climate science seems increasingly apocalyptic.
In a new study published last week, three scientists studying rising sea levels calculated that more than 400 American cities and towns, and potentially millions of people, could one day be submerged. And there is no hope for Miami or New Orleans, even if we halt greenhouse gas emissions today.
Anders Levermann is a co-author of the study. He is also the lead author of the Sea Level Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
You are the guy who tells people that their homes, with gorgeous ocean views, will drown. That can’t possibly be a pleasant job.
I was trained as theoretical physicist and I’m searching for catastrophes on the planet, in a sense. I enjoy the physics so much. I’ve written on how the monsoon system can tip (behave abnormally), I’m searching for instabilities on the Antarctica ice sheet, I’m exploring the evolution of global sea level. There is a lot happening at the moment and that is bad for society. I know there is never good news but while you are doing the science, you don’t think about those things . . . you don’t see the tragedies.
But my work is to inform the society so we can find a way to avoid the unmanageable. In the end, the society has to decide.
Climate-change despair is actually becoming a thing among scientists . . .
I’m not depressed. It’s exciting to do the science; I really enjoy being a scientist.
You have said repeatedly that we don’t have to be afraid of rising sea levels.
Yes, I keep saying that. You don’t have to be afraid, you have to be worried. It isn’t killing people. It’s slow, it’s eating up land, it’s eating up our cultural heritage. It’s a thing to worry about, to tackle. It will cost a lot of money . . .
Let’s talk about the impending loss of cultural heritage. Very few people talk about sea-level rise in those terms.
Some people think of cultural heritage as really old stuff that was built in the past, way past. But we are currently building cultural heritage. People bring life to cities. Cities like New York, New Orleans, Shanghai — it is the cultural heritage of the future. But at the same time, we are also committing them to the sea by more and more emissions.
For every degree of warming, eventually we get a sea level rise of two metres or more. Two metres is what our models say now, but if you look into the past, it could be more. So, basically, we could lose the cultural heritage we are building right now.
Your recent paper created quite a stir: yet another study that said Miami is doomed. But what was striking was how much we have already committed to long-term sea-level rise.
The emissions that we produce now will impact climate in about 15 to 20 years. Whatever (outgoing prime minister) Stephen Harper is deciding now is relevant for his grandkids.
We are still determining what our kids and grandkids will experience. We are the last generation that can do something. I thought at one point that it would be enough to educate the next generation to solve the problem, but we have to solve it.
Why is it still hard to predict the rate of sea-level rise? (The study estimates a rise of 2.3 metres over 2,000 years, but it could occur more quickly.)
If I put a cube of ice on this table, we will all agree that it will vanish but we will not agree when. And that is exactly the problem here.
What worries you the most?
I know the most about sea-level rise, but I worry a lot about how society will deal with abrupt climate change and weather extremities.
Societies aren’t necessarily as stable as we like to believe. Abrupt climate change and weather extremities put tension on a society and change its wellbeing, and that may lead to a tipping (point) for societies, even in the industrialized world.
What is your hope for the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris in December?
If society wants to stay below two-degree warming, which we have agreed to, the most important thing is a message to all emitters that we will become a renewableenergy world in the next decades and nothing will prevent that. Nothing can prevent that. It isn’t necessarily politics that will decide how fast this (move to renewable energy) will have to go.
Once you have said ‘It is going to happen,’ I think the economies of the world have always been faster than anything we dreamt of. Remember the transition from typewriters to computers? It wasn’t a catastrophe.