March 30, 2007

CASE WESTERN RESERVE RESEARCHER, INTERNATIONAL TEAM CALLS FOR BETTER GLOBAL WARMING FORECASTING

Case Western Reserve University faculty member Matthew Sobel has joined a team of international scientists calling for better forecasting methods in predicting how climate changes will impact the earth’s plant and animal species. They have reported eight ways to improve biodiversity forecasting in the BioScience article, "Forecasting the Effects of Global Warming on Biodiversity."

Sobel, the William E. Umstattd Professor at the Weatherhead School of Management, began consciously tithing a portion of his research time 40 years ago to critical environmental concerns at time when those issues were not fashionable in most of academia.

In addition to predictions about global changes, the researchers also want better forecasting to unravel "the Quaternary conundrum," which is evidence suggesting that many of the estimated 1.5 million species on earth are in danger of extinction from global warming, yet over the past 2.5 million years little extinction is documented in the fossil record.

"The simultaneous widespread and justified alarm over global warming and changes in biodiversity has induced both outstanding scientific research and deplorable pseudoscientific work," said Sobel.

Sobel raises concerns about the "blurring" of scientific fact with public advocacy and wants public discussions to center around sound environmental facts.

"Where the science has limitations that should be noted, too," added Sobel.

His concern is that misinformation or poorly constructed forecasts may divert and reduce resources that could be better spent in other areas.

Limits of scientific knowledge exist with current forecasting models, according to Sobel, and these need to be acknowledged when reporting global warming.

The concern for accurate information and reporting resulted in the article’s lead authors—Daniel Botkin from the University of California at Santa Barbara and Henrik Saxe from the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen—to convene a meeting of scientists from the United States, Spain, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Australia in 2004 in Denmark.

Instead of engaging in "a war of words" to set the record straight where misconceptions exist in the global warming discussion, Sobel said the group reached a consensus to come up with prediction tools that "do it right."

In the BioScience article, the researchers call for eight steps to better forecasting

Select one of the many meanings associated with the complex concept of biodiversity and target that meaning as the parameters in a specific forecast

 Evaluate and validate forecasting methods before applying them to general forecasts

Consider the various factors that might impact biodiversity from climate change to pressures from humans on the native habitat of a species

Obtain adequate information before making predictions about future outcomes

Examine fossil records to aid in understanding how some plant and animal species have adapted to changes in their environments

Improve four widely used techniques in forecasting that model individuals, groups, integration of species and environmental factors and lastly groups or species based on theories

Embed ecological principles in the forecasts based on air, water and animal and plant life.

Develop better models that improve upon modeling forecasts called species-area curves that are based on specific number of species in relation to their habitat and how climate changes can modify the environment

Sobel’s interest in the environment stems from his work with the U. S. Public Health Service in the 1960s when he worked on a project that followed a proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers to close off the Delaware River when tidal surges from hurricanes threatened the water systems of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Practices developed from that project have since been adopted worldwide.

After earning his doctorate degree from Stanford University, he carried that passion for environment with him to Yale University where as a junior faculty member in the 1960s he launched his teaching and research career.

"I felt from the very beginning that as much as I delighted in improving the efficiencies and effectiveness of operations in business, public agencies and nonprofit organizations, it was not enough for me," said Sobel.

He said he felt not only an obligation to do environmental research but gained "great satisfaction" from doing it.

It was at Yale that environmental discussions with Botkin started and continued during carpool rides to the New Haven campus during the 1973 oil embargo.

When the two researchers set out to improve the environment, the topic was not accepted as a legitimate research area on college campuses.

"The situation has changed dramatically, and it is legitimate in academia now," explained Sobel. It has even threaded its way and is accepted as a focus of study in his research areas of operations research and operations management.

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Contact:

Susan Griffith
Case Western Reserve University
216-368-1004
susan.griffith@case.edu

This text derived from:
http://www.case.edu/

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