Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, Vermont’s state climatologist, took to the virtual stage at COP26, the global United Nations climate summit, on Monday to talk about the current state of climate science.
For 12 days starting Oct. 31, leaders from around the world are gathering at COP26 — the 26th Conference of the Parties — in Glasgow, Scotland, to negotiate actions that would reduce the threat of climate change.
On Monday, several hours after President Joe Biden told those gathered that “climate change is already ravaging the world,” a panel of seven scientists from various parts of the United States, including Dupigny-Giroux, provided context about the science used to study climate change.
Dupigny-Giroux, a professor at the University of Vermont and the current president of the American Association of State Climatologists, was recently chosen to author a portion of the fifth National Climate Assessment, focused on water. She co-authored the Vermont Climate Assessment, the results of which are set to be published next week, and she’s a member of the Vermont Climate Council.
In a series of live videos broadcast on the COP26 YouTube page, Dupigny-Giroux and other experts explained in an educational panel how the scientific process is used to make climate predictions, compare the modern climate with other periods of geologic time, and respond to climate change.
Dupigny-Giroux, who presented fourth, followed Christina Ravelo, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Ravelo spoke about her work studying historical instances of climate change, and used an example from the Pliocene Epoch, which took place around 3 million to 5 million years ago and was the last geologic time period when carbon dioxide concentrations were similar to today. It was about 2.5 degrees Celsius warmer than today’s global temperatures, she said, and she estimated that sea levels were 65 feet higher than present levels.
“If the Pliocene presents an accurate picture of sea-level change, we have committed ourselves to a world where eventually all of our coastlines will be different, and all of our coastal cities will be flooded,” she said.
Dupigny-Giroux focused on how the long-term scientific record helps scientists understand the present climate.
It’s important, for example, because it shows “that the rates of change that we thought were going to occur are actually occurring faster than they were projected to occur,” Dupigny-Giroux said.
Long-term records allow scientists “to see changes in variability, and what that means for vulnerability for us as human beings,” she said. It improves scientists’ ability to “constantly improve, validate, and look at future climate changes.”
The large collection of data helps scientists see the world in terms of systems, Dupigny-Giroux said, which is important as they factor in “all of the various types of natural hazards that are at play, whether it’s wildfires, or droughts, or floods, or changes in air quality, and the ways in which, again, these affect us as human beings.”
Dupigny-Giroux told VTDigger that she felt honored to be able to participate in the conference.
“My participation was remote, but it was a tremendous experience to be able to try to encapsulate the state of present-day climate science in a few minutes,” she wrote in an email.
COP26 follows the Paris Climate Change Conference, COP21, where 196 countries set a goal of keeping global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and preferably below 1.5 degrees compared with pre-industrial levels.
The United Nations recently released a report showing that, even if countries meet their promised emission reduction targets, the global temperature may still rise by 2.7 degrees Celsius, which experts broadly say would have devastating effects on humanity and the natural world.
Scientists and environmentalists around the world have called for nations to commit to stronger action at COP26.
Dupigny-Giroux told VTDigger she would like the conference to be a “watershed moment in which all peoples, environments, systems and ways of knowing are brought together at one table so that no one or no place is left behind as we address how to mitigate against and adapt to climate change.”
