CE Seminar Series: Global Climate Change: A solvable but wicked Problem

CE SEMINAR SERIES
Everyone is encouraged to attend!
Friday, November 16th, 2018
12:10 – 1:00 pm | TFLO 133
Dr. Steve Ghan
Climate Scientist,
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
Global Climate Change:
A Solvable but Wicked Problem
Abstract
Fossil fuels have played a major role in lifting humans out of poverty, but the carbon dioxide
emitted to the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned is driving global changes in the
climate system that threaten that prosperity. In this seminar, Dr. Ghan will show how the
global changes depend primarily on the total carbon emitted and the time for the changes
to manifest. He will then summarize the various technologies readily available to replace
fossil fuels, and the barriers to adopting them. He will finish with a message of hope,
describing effective and durable political action that can overcome those barriers.
Bio
Steven Ghan was a climate scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory from 1990
to 2018 and PNNL Lab Fellow since 2011, following five years at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory and receiving his bachelors degree in Atmospheric Sciences from the University
of Washington in 1979 and his doctorate in Meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in 1988. He is internationally recognized for his expertise in representing
aerosol particles and their affects on clouds and climate in global climate models. He has
authored more than 180 publications in scientific journals, is cited in the top 1% of all earth
scientists, and served as an editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres
from 2007 to 2016 and as Editor-in-Chief from 2012 to 2016. He has contributed to three
climate change assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in
2008 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the assessments. He is a Fellow of the American
Geophysical Union.