Dr Robert Cahalan (NASA) Interview

#146 Great.com Talks With... NASA's Dr Robert Cahalan

Besides nuclear war, global warming is the most threatening challenge for the planet and human species. Although the disastrous effects of climate change may seem fast-looming and uncontrollable, we must realise that we are responsible on a personal and global level to instigate effectual change now. Dr Robert Cahalan is a scientific researcher from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland. He has researched and published papers focusing on climate, energy, radiative transfer, remote sensing, and he contributed to several Assessment Reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Dr Cahalan describes NASA’s 35 missions which monitor the Earth as “taking the pulse of the planet’. These studies monitor populations, desert formations, ice levels and weather trends. They currently have 25 missions regarding the Sun, and it is through these studies that NASA was able to conclude that, though the Sun influences Earth’s climate over very long time scales, due to changes in Earth’s orbit and in the Sun’s evolution, and though it warms and then cools Earth during the Sun’s 11-year cycle, yet the Sun's 11-year cycle of brightening and cooling has no measurable trend, and so is not influencing Earth’s recent multi-decadal climate warming trend. 

These solar observations provide evidence that the increases of carbon in the atmosphere, due to increasing use of fossil fuels by humans, are in fact the driving cause of Earth’s global warming. Just like the Sun’s 11-year cycle, the levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere have an annual cycle, but unlike the Sun, the atmospheric carbon dioxide has an upward multi-decadal trend, which in turn leads to an upward trend in the levels of water vapour (H2O) in the atmosphere. Dr Cahalan began studying these trends 40 years ago and can report that, despite the CO2 fluctuations which vary yearly, ‘as the Earth breathes’, the lowest point in each annual cycle has been steadily rising from one year to the next.  This is what is shown in the famous “Keeling Curve” that began in 1957, and has been confirmed in some geographic detail by satellite measurements of CO2.

Dr Cahalan explains that the Earth experienced a period of decadal cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s, and since then--due to the increasing trend of CO2 in the atmosphere--we have seen temperatures gradually rise. Earth has now set several warming records since the 1970s, with the warmest year on record being 2016. Dr Cahalan notes that the global annual average temperature of the year just past, 2020, actually equaled that of 2016, and that nine out of the ten warmest years on record are within the last decade. (These are 2016, 2020, 2019, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2013, with 2013 tied with 2005.)

Revealing the Reasons for Hope in Hopeless Times

This is what climate change activists are doing all around the world, trying to visually represent and inform people of the devastating destruction that is already happening to our planet. As Dr Cahalan highlights, there isn’t one single aspect to focus on in order to decrease the effects of global warming; there are instead 100 things which interweave and lead in the right direction of solving climate change. You can refer to DrawDown for a list of multiple solutions. 

Part of the problem regarding inaction stems from the sheer scale of the climate crisis, wherein people feel overwhelmed and powerless in the face of the issue at hand. What Dr Cahalan tries to instill in his influence and outlook are the many reasons to remain hopeful. We know so much more than we did 100 years ago, and part of this knowledge is the humbling realisation that we still have so much to discover and explore. 

There is five times as much matter in the universe than matter built from elements included in the periodic table of elements, and this was only realised in recent years. We still have a lot of learning to do and Dr Cahalan firmly believes that if we continue educating ourselves then we will solve these gigantic issues which seem unsolvable today.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” John F. Kennedy, 1962

If you’d like to learn more about climate change, you can read NASA’s manga book series which Dr Cahalan features in: ‘Learning Earth Science with MIRUBO’. You can also keep up-to-date with NASA’s latest news and current missions.

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