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Face Earth's Future TIMOTHY J. BRALOWER, P. GEOFFREY FEISS, AND CATHRYN A. MANDUCA Preparing a New Generation of Face Earth’s Future HOW MUCH will global temperatures rise over must establish its place in college curricula to the next century? How fast will ice sheets on ensure that a new generation of citizens and Antarctica and Greenland melt and raise scientists is prepared to meet future challenges. global sea level? Will rising temperature and To earth scientists, all of this is self-evident. acidification of the oceans extinguish corals But it is not always so within the broader com- and other endangered marine ecosystems? munities of the academy. We hear, for example, Will global warming cause hurricanes more that the twenty-first century will be the “Cen- powerful than Andrew and Katrina? What tury of Biology.” Earth science courses, faculty, triggers the massive earthquakes that cause and departments are often the first casualties of large tsunamis such as the devastating 2004 financial exigency and budget insufficiency. Is Indian Ocean event? These questions of hab- it possible that in 2050 we will find ourselves FEATURED TOPIC itability, sustainability, and survival are dri- wrestling with an earth system we only partially ving a surge of understand as human impacts tip us toward cli- research in earth sys- mate, ecosystem, and resource crises of literally tem science, a field that incorporates atmos- life-threatening or apocalyptic dimensions? Earth system pheric science, earth science, ecology, and We posit that strong research in earth sys- science must oceanography. Moreover, they are transform- tem science and equally strong investments in ing the field from one that focused on the past both teaching the earth sciences and training establish its place to one that is increasingly forward-looking, a new generation of earth system scientists are in college curricula aided by major advances in instrumentation not optional but essential. The handwriting is and computational power. on the wall: we have only one earth; we are As the research interests and the focus of engaged in a dangerous experiment that in- traditional earth scientists are transformed, so volves altering the dynamics of earth systems too must education in earth system science at upon which we are wholly dependent; we do colleges and universities across the country not fully understand how the system works, change. The required change involved not and we are only beginning to be able to predict only the methods we use to teach this new sci- our effect on that system. ence, but also the essential place of the earth sciences in the panoply of disciplines as tradi- Global crises tionally ordered by our academic colleagues. Without doubt, earth system science is the ben- With growing public and political awareness eficiary of global misfortune. This science is vital of the significant environmental problems fac- to understanding crucial global threats in the ing the earth in the coming decades, and the coming century: shortages of water (potable and realization that issues such as global warming otherwise), declining availability of fossil fuels, require action on the part of individuals as coastal inundation, the literal collapse of eco- well as governments, earth system science systems, and of course, global warming—to name the obvious. Global warming threatens to TIMOTHY J. BRALOWER is department head and wreak havoc with global agriculture, with par- professor of geosciences at the Pennsylvania State ticularly strong impacts in tropical and subtrop- University, P. GEOFFREY FEISS is provost at the ical regions that include a large portion of the College of William and Mary, and CATHRYN A. developing world. The combination of scarce MANDUCA is director of the Science Education natural resources and population increase is Resource Center at Carleton College. not sustainable. Overpopulation, largely in 20 L IBERAL E DUCATION S PRING 2008 f Citizens and Scientists to Carleton College developing countries and especially in Africa on the earth system. Just as gene sequencing and Southeast Asia, places people directly in has allowed the biosciences to understand harm’s way as towns and cities are built in areas genetics and molecular processes in living prone to natural disasters. The 2007 report of systems, advances in the earth sciences give the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate us the ability to employ remote systems to Change (IPCC) projects that, by 2080, one acquire powerful data sets for prediction and hundred million people will be affected each for understanding planetary systems. year by rising sea levels. These issues are not For example, EarthScope, funded by the simply matters of scientific interest; they will National Science Foundation, includes a vast fundamentally drive national and interna- and highly sensitive global positioning–system FEATURED TOPIC tional politics in the twenty-first century. array that can measure tiny motions of the plate Consider a specific example. There is probably boundary along the San Andreas Fault. This ar- no greater threat to global stability and human ray will help us understand the buildup of health than that posed by limits to available forces in the earth’s crust that will ultimately supplies of clean drinking water. The horror of trigger the next large earthquake in California. Darfur is certainly about politics, but it is also Incredibly sensitive optical remote sensing data about water. As the United Nations said in a (Light Detecting and Ranging, or “LIDAR”), recent report, “exponential population growth collected by satellites or from aircraft and and related environmental stress have created championed by NASA and the United States the conditions for conflicts to be triggered and Geological Survey, can determine changes in sustained by political, tribal or ethnic differences coastal zone elevation on the order of a centi- [in Darfur]” (Polgreen 2007). Recent discoveries meter. These data can help geologists forecast of huge subsurface water resources in western the long-term effects of future storms on the Sudan suddenly alter the political equation in coastal zone. Ice-penetrating radar and seismic Darfur. Yet, recent news articles and op-eds are experiments have the potential to determine uncertain as to whether this will be a curse or a the basal conditions of the large ice sheets of blessing to the victims of conflict in the Sudan. Greenland and Antarctica, which are needed Is this one small example, or is it the harbin- to predict large melting events that can lead to ger of our future? Estimates suggest that with sharp rises in sea level. the global population likely doubling by 2050, New advances in computing and informatics, current supplies of clean drinking water will be in many cases driven by questions asked by earth overwhelmed and demand for water for agri- system scientists, are allowing detailed modeling culture and industry will compete directly with and rapid analysis of earth events. For example, the supply of water for human consumption. major studies of the seismology of the 2004 We will have to develop new ways to clean Indian Ocean earthquake and the meteorology contaminated water or convert large volumes of Hurricane Katrina were conducted within of nonpotable water from other sources (sea- months of these events. The same new tech- water, for example) in an economical fashion. nology, informatics, and visualization that This is earth system science. It is science that allow researchers to understand earth events is not only exciting to students, but that also within days, sometimes even hours, of their has deep and complex ramifications for pub- occurrence also enable exciting, authentic, lic policy that will demand a workforce and active learning based on real-time data. Within citizenry well-educated about the earth. days of the Indian Ocean quake and Katrina, faculty were integrating data from both events Advances in technology, computing, into courses throughout the curriculum. and informatics Earth system science research is increasingly There are some who argue that the earth sci- focused on forecast models that are fundamental ences—especially geology—are relicts of to policy making and political decision making. nineteenth-century modes of inquiry, that For example, general circulation models of the they belong to an era of discovery and classifi- climate (GCMs) can be applied to simulate the cation. Nothing could be further from the effect of rising carbon dioxide levels on surface truth. Major advances in technology and a temperatures and precipitation patterns, allow- surge in computational capacity and speed ing researchers to understand the likely impact have provided an enormous boost to research on agriculture and weather in specific areas. 22 L IBERAL E DUCATION S PRING 2008 The day of Importantly, the models also “rocks for jocks” to introduce students to scien- allow researchers to explore is past tific thinking, the complex be- the validity of their results. havior of natural systems, and The recent IPCC report on problem solving, preparing climate change shows that the confidence of them to make the individual and collective de- prediction of temperature increase is signifi- cisions that affect our environment. cantly greater than that of sea level rise; mod- Given the increasing societal importance of els can predict warming as a result of carbon earth system research and the growing need dioxide increase with far more certainty than for scientists to tackle environmental
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