SDSU to host climate change expert

Courtesy of Richard Somerville

On the night that Al Gore accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, he shared the spotlight with 2,500 unnamed scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A lead author for the IPCC report, Dr. Richard Somerville will be coming to San Diego State today to discuss an inconvenient truth of his own.

Somerville will talk about his award winning book “The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change,” which is his own unique addition to the climate change discussion.

With the subject of climate change never hotter, Somerville is considered an important voice in the debate, professor and Chair for the Department of Mathematics and Statistics Samuel Shen said. Shen called the event a great opportunity to engage the subject of global warming with a man who has been on its front line for many years.

Questions abound concerning climate change, and Somerville’s talk entitled “Global Warming: What Do We Know and What Should We Do?” will go straight to the heart of the issue.

“I want to give a nutshell summary of what scientists have learned about climate change — what we know, what we don’t know and so on,” Somerville said. “After that I want to talk a bit about the policy options, what can we do, what should we do.”

Somerville’s work as a theoretical meteorologist focuses on computer simulations in the atmosphere. Somerville is the professor emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. Somerville earned his Ph.D. in meteorology from New York University.

While local and state governments have instituted climate change initiatives, Somerville described the federal government as “foot dragging” on the issue. Somerville credits the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize with bringing world attention to climate change, also emphasizing the importance of young people becoming informed about climate change.

“I think it is critical,” Somerville said. “There are things that the world can do and should do to reduce the dangers of future climate change. The question is ‘can the world muster enough political will to make a decision?’ Whether (the world) decides to take action … that is really in the hands of young people.”

The first edition of Somerville’s book was published in 1998 and is now widely used in colleges around the United States. Somerville said he has waived the royalties and all profits will go to benefit the American Meteorological Society.

The event is scheduled for today in Love Library Room 430. An afternoon reception will be held at 3 p.m. and Somerville’s lecture will begin at 4 p.m, followed by a book signing at 5 p.m.