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Local resident and Kutztown Faculty member, Michael Davis spoke to Emmaus Rotary on Thursday, November 7, 2019, about the "Science of Climate Change". He noted that Eunice Foote wrote the first Greenhouse Effect research paper in 1856, but at the time she was not allowed to read her paper because of her gender, so an Irish male Scientist read her work and got the recognition. He showed slides of the Keeling Curve which shows the upward rise of carbon dioxide; the Michael Mann "hockey stick graph" which plots proxy date including ice core samples and tree rings, and the Earth Sytems Model developed by Dr. Hansen, formerly of NASA. Hansen has written a book Davis recommends entitled "Storms of My Grandchildren". Hansen says "we are failing miserably" to meet the challenge of the climate crisis. Davis asked his listeners to recall the 62 inches of rain which fell on Houston during Hurricane Harvey two years ago. NE USA is getting wetter as the rest of the country is getting drier. Davis noted that the heat produced by the greenhouse effect is decreasing the volume of sea ice and going into the oceans which are energy sinks. These produce a sea-level rise which may be from 3 to 8 inches by the end of the century. He also reviewed the process of scientific inquiry and the value of peer-reviewed work and ended by noting that 98% of scientists see this alarming trend. .) |
