Go Green

By John Sutter

Scientists can say the earth is warming with great certainty, but when it comes to climate change in Oklahoma, or Oklahoma City, they’re essentially making guesses.

As my guest on this week’s Environment Podcast says, that could change, if the government would make an investment in super computers and monitoring sites that would be needed to make local-level climate predictions.

Such predictions are important for Oklahoma farmers, who need to know when to plant their crops, he said. It’s important for state leaders who are trying to come up with a water plan. It’s important for all of us, in a sense, because warmer temperatures could mean more diseases, including those only seen now in the tropics.

Listen to my conversation with Dr. John Snow, dean of the OU college of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, to learn more about how climate change could affect you here in Oklahoma — and what he says would be needed to properly advance the field of climatology.

Here are details of the proposal for increased funding of climate science. It was submitted to Congress by eight weather groups, and calls for nearly a doubling of investment in such research — a $9 billion increase over the next five years.

Also read the Oklahoma Climatological Survey’s statement on climate change in Oklahoma. They expect more frequent and severe droughts, longer summer seasons and possibly more severe weather. Those predictions would get much more specific and certain with further study, Snow says.