The Snowball Effect: Why Climatology Matters

In early 2014, former Gov. Deval Patrick proposed the creation of an office of the state climatologist, to be housed at the Northeast Climate Science Center at UMass Amherst. By July, when Patrick signed the fiscal 2015 budget, the funding for that office stood at $200,000, half of which would pay the position’s salary.

Then in November, Patrick cut this funding down to $75,000. And early last month, Gov. Charlie Baker nixed the funding completely as part of his efforts to balance a $768 million defect in the state budget. Now, Massachusetts is one of only two states in the country — alongside Tennessee — without a climatologist appointed on the state level.

Is this bad news? Well, it’s not the end of the world.

In large part, Baker’s work on the budget makes good sense, and his aim to focus cuts on programs that have not yet launched has merit. It’s also true that a number of the responsibilities typically taken up by a state climatologist — mainly research, data collection, and reporting on climate conditions — are already being handled by scientific and academic staff across the state, including at the UMass center.

But it’s 2015 — almost 10 years since Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth. The planet continues to warm in accelerated and surprising ways. And the conversation, as usual, is rotted through with short-sighted hang-ups about money and politics. Last week, a documentary by journalist Chai Jing on China’s pollution crisis went viral, collecting 200 million views over the course of a few days. On Friday, Chinese Internet censors scrubbed the country’s top sites of the video.

The state of the American conversation about climate change is just as troubling and bizarre. In late February, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe carried a snowball onto the floor of the Senate. He’d been told many times that 2014 was the warmest year on record — but, he demanded: “You know what this is? It’s a snowball. And that’s just from outside here. So it’s very, very cold out.” This is from the chair of the Environmental and Public Works Committee. Senator Inhofe might as well have called world hunger a myth because he’d just eaten a big lunch.

State and federal spending is not always the solution, and it’s no surprise that voices were raised against the proposed climatology office in Massachusetts. As Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr put it last winter: “So, now the state is going to hire itself a $100,000-a-year weatherman.” But Carr is conflating two very different fields of study: weather and climate. The weather happens to you, and it happens today. The climate happens to everyone, and it happens over the course of months, years, and centuries. It’s big data. It’s longterm. And even though we don’t always have the money to create the ideal positions to study it, we have to take climate change much, much more seriously.

In Massachusetts and elsewhere, higher rates of extreme winter weather distract from the fact that annual temperatures are rising, spring is arriving earlier, and overall snow cover is decreasing. We face higher risks of coastal flooding and damage to wetlands and delicate coastal wildlife habitats. According to the New England Climate Coalition, the average temperature in Amherst has increased two degrees over the past century; by 2100, the average is expected to rise another four or five degrees.

Dennis Todey, a climatology professor at South Dakota State University who serves on the board of the American Association of State Climatologists, says he is concerned with how climate change is affecting the risk of drought in his state. He expressed disappointment that Massachusetts’ funding fell through.

He is not, he insisted, a weatherman. Climatologists ask bigger questions — not just about what’s happening with the climate, but about how scientists gather the data to measure it, use that data to make predictions, and advise public officials on policy decisions.

“When we declared a drought emergency a few years ago, our governor called me at lunch with some questions,” Todey said. “He needed to tell the public whether the drought was going to continue, and he wanted input from me. That’s what the position is — you’re a go-to person for data and education.”

Steve Goodwin, the dean of the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst, gave another reason why a state would want a climate change chief: predicting severe flooding. An office of the state climatologist would be able to provide Gov. Baker with information on how climate change impacts the likelihood of overflow from culverts onto roadways in specific communities. “When there’s extreme flooding, we’d be better able to see which locations are at the most risk,” he said.

Goodwin was among those who first pitched the idea for a state climatologist to the secretary of energy and environmental affairs. He hasn’t yet read Baker’s revised budget in full, he said. “But this is a really important position. I think there’s a lot of goodwill to ensure that we find a way to bring it into existence.” Let’s hope so. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average salary of meteorologists nationwide is $90,860. So, maybe investing in one more science-forward, civically-engaged “$100,000 weatherman” is a wise move after all.

Sen. Inhofe clearly enjoyed his chance to sling a handful of lies on the floor of Congress. But like that doomed snowball, his argument is all wet.•

Hunter Styles can be contacted at hstyles@valleyadvocate.com.