Running helps create worldwide climate index

Steve Running, Regents Professor of Ecology at The University of Montana, was a key player in creating a new worldwide climate change index unveiled Dec. 9 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
 

The new index distills the complexity of the Earth’s climate down to one number, much like the Dow Jones industrial average condenses volumes of data from the business world into a single figure. The index uses key indicators of global change – carbon dioxide, temperature, sea level and sea ice – to obtain its results.
 

“Some people still question whether the Earth’s climate is changing as rapidly and profoundly as the majority of climate scientists suggest,” Running said. “I think this index will help nonscientists understand why people in my line of work are so concerned about the major planetary-scale changes taking place."
 

The index was produced by a group Running is affiliated with, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, which studies climate change phenomenon. IGBP is headquartered with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, and Running was among a core group of eight who developed the idea.
 

Running said the index gives an annual snapshot of how the planet’s complex systems – the ice, the oceans, the land surface and the atmosphere – are responding to changing climate. The index rises steadily from 1980, the earliest date the index has been calculated, dipping only in 1982, 1992 and 1996 – years when the world experienced major volcanic eruptions.
 

He said the index provides an excellent visual tool that shows how external events can have rapid planetary-scale effects. The climbing cumulative index also highlights the extent human activities are affecting the planet’s climate system.
 

Each parameter is normalized between -100 and +100. Zero is no annual change. One hundred is the maximum recorded annual change since 1980. The normalized parameters are averaged. This gives the index for the year. The value for each year is added to that of the previous year to show the cumulative effect of annual change.
 

Running said IGBP scientists may develop other indexes relating to global change such as land use, fisheries exploitation, population, fire and extreme events, as well as backdating the new index. The overall index will be updated annually.
 

Running is a professor in UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation and directs the University’s Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, which has written software for NASA environmental satellites. He was a lead author for the North American section of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, and his IPCC committee shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore that year.