Summary: Welcome back to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith with a variety show this week. SHOW SUMMARY We talk with the scientist with the biggest climate news of 2014. Dr. Steve Sherwood in Australia made a breakthrough on the future of clouds. It's not good news: we are headed over the climate cliff to a world at least 4 degrees Centigrade hotter. But sometimes the doom talk goes too far. Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen says the West Coast is not highly radioactive from Fukushima, no matter what Net newbies tell you. Are you concerned about all the pesticides and other chemicals getting into your body? Bruce Lourie has a new book out about toxic stuff getting into us, how to get it out, and which detox methods really work. While big national governments are failing miserably on climate change, local city governments are trying to make themselves more sustainable. Are we headed in the right direction? Daniel Kammen has advised the White House and the World Bank. He's got some advice for all of us, here on Radio Ecoshock. Four voices from a turbulent world. You'll find lots of links to follow up below. Let's get started. Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (54 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) FEWER CLOUDS = HOTTER WORLD - SCIENTIST STEVE SHERWOOD Dr. Steve Sherwood, University of New South Wales, Australia. We may double the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 2100. More likely we'll triple them. Scientists have been divided about what that means. Will the temperature go up a liveable 1 or 2 degrees above pre-industrial times or will it be 4 degrees or beyond? A key unknown has been the behavior of clouds in a hotter world. If the future is cloudier, more sun will be blocked, helping cool the earth. But fewer clouds mean more solar energy will be soaked up by land and sea. Now, thanks to cutting edge new research out of Australia, some of that undercertainty has been cleared up. The future has never looked hotter. We reached the lead author in this new study, Professor Steve Sherwood at the University of New South Wales, in Australia. Download/Listen to this 15 minute interview with Steve Sherwood here. Steve's new paper "Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing" was just published in the journal Nature. It's caused a stir in the media and climate science, by predicting much more heating than we expected, due to changes in cloud formation. Paper abstract here. A video talk by Sherwood on You tube (49 minute talk June 18 2013) "Fundamentals of Modelling the Atmosphere". For another look at the Steve Sherwood et al paper, check this entry at realclimate.org Find a video featuring Sherwood talking about the science and its implications here. Steve's bio on "The Conversation" As participants in the comments section outline, water vapor that is not drawn high enough to develop into clouds may become atmospheric rivers of moisture instead. That is what flooded Boulder Colorado - not a cloud-driven storm, but an atmospheric river precipitating out rapidly. I'll be talking more about "atmospheric rivers" next week with Dr. David Lavers, who published a paper showing intense rainfall events will increase in the United Kingdom (and likely the world) as the climate warms. Listen in for that (and my analysis of a super-storm that could wipe out California agriculture and cities). CALIFORNIA IS NOT WILDLY RADIOACTIVE FROM FUKUSHIMA! ARNIE GUNDERSEN Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds It seems like every week there is a storm of new rumors about Fukushima. The Russians secretly report underground explosions beneath the reactors. Reactor three is blowing like an atomic bomb. Get out of California these obscure bloggers and fake journalists say. I've lived in California, Radio Ecoshock plays on a half dozen stations there, and I'm sick of fear-mongers frightening people there when it simply isn't true. Yes there are worries about Fukushima radiation, especially in sea food. Yes, some very weak radiation
