Societal stability, in the face of the rapidly changing climate, depends on the accurate quantitative forecasts of risk. Yet it is of vital importance to reflect on the fact that events rather than scientific advances, have increasingly dominated our collective recognition of the risks associated with rapid, irreversible changes to the Earth’s climate structure. The years 2020 and 2021 present important examples: Risk from the increasing frequency and geographic extent of wildfires; Risks from the increasing intensity and frequency of hurricanes and other severe storms; Risks from irreversible changes to the large-scale dynamical structure of the atmosphere that permanently alter the geographic position of arid regions that trigger water shortages, food shortages that in turn drive mass refugee flow; and Risks from increasing ultraviolet radiation over the central United States in summer caused by loss of stratospheric ozone resulting from the climate-driven increasing intensity of convective storms that inject water vapor into the stratosphere triggering the same chemical reactions that destroy ozone over the polar regions in winter. Of key strategic importance for societal stability is that the rate at which these climate impacts escalated in 2020 and 2021 was not quantitatively forecast. Nor do we have the required quantitative forecasts to determine climate driven escalation of wildfires, hurricanes, and glacial disintegration next year or the years thereafter. There is a fundamental scientific reason why tested and trusted quantitative forecasts of the rate of escalation of severe climate impacts are unavailable: simultaneous, high spatial and temporal resolution observations of the variables that control the mechanistically coupled climate system constitute the foundation required to establish the physical and chemical processes that dictate the response of the climate system to continued use of fossil fuels. A New Climate Observatory is presented that engages a strategy to directly address this issue.

Quantitative forecasts of risk triggered by climate change resulting from fossil fuel use

ACS Spring 2022

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