It’s President Barack Obama’s last full day in office, before his successor, Donald Trump, formally takes over the reigns of power tomorrow.
Obama’s eight years in office have been beset by partisan rows and tensions between Democrats and Republicans, frustrating the outgoing President’s efforts to push through reforms.
So what might be Obama’s biggest regrets as he leaves office?
Clouds could be given a helpful jolt of electric charge to increase much-needed rainfall in dry parts of the world, thanks to an award-winning research proposal by scientists at the University of Reading.
The new study will investigate how charge modifies the growth of tiny water droplets into larger drops that fall as rain. It will use a supercomputer to simulate the cloud processes in detail, with specially developed robotic aircraft to sample and charge the clouds.
The Reading team was one of three groups awarded funding in this year’s US $5-million-dollar United Arab Emirates (UAE) Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science, at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 17 January. Reading will receive US $1.5m.
The story has been given wide coverage in the region’s media. Read news story in ‘The National‘
Professor Giles Harrison is interviewed at the ceremony in Abu Dhabi
Giles Harrison, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Reading, said: “Our project is about changing the balance of charges on the tiniest cloud droplets, a neglected aspect of clouds which could revolutionise our ability to manipulate rainfall in areas that need it most.
“The UAE’s programme is ambitious and imaginative, and has already brought many international scientists together on this important topic.”
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The new research proposal was based on a study published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society in May 2015.
By Professor Catriona McKinnon (Director, Leverhulme Programme in Climate Justice)
Later this week, a climate denier will become the President of the United States. Donald Trump claims that ‘nobody really knows’ whether climate change is happening, and has asserted in the past that climate change is a hoax. To make things worse, Trump has filled his cabinet with several climate deniers, and his transition team have raised fears of a ‘witch hunt’ of climate experts in the Department for Energy.
Today, a letter to the Prime Minister Theresa May, signed by leading figures in the UK climate research community – including some at the University of Reading – expressed fears about what this could do to the evidence base for global climate policy making. If the new Trump administration follows up on his campaign pledges to tear up existing US climate policies, the future could be bleak for the Paris Agreement, which may be the best and last hope for global action on climate change.
Many people in the climate research community are appalled by the climate denial of Trump and his incoming cabinet. But what, exactly, is wrong with it?
The climate denial of Trump and his cabinet is not bad science: it is not science at all
One thought might be that Trump’s climate denial is outrageously bad science. The essence of science is contestation and disagreement, and science in a state of health makes space for mavericks who strike out with bold new hypotheses, sometimes enabling great leaps forward. Should we be horrified by Trump’s denial because he does not fit this mould? This would be a serious mistake. The climate denial of Trump and his cabinet is not bad science: it is not science at all.
Such views have grown from a set of organised, well-funded, strategic, deceptive, ideological practices undertaken by a range of conservative think tanks in the US, funded by those with fossil fuel interests, and which have perverted climate legislation in America. The tactics these deniers employ include claims of conspiracy among climate scientists, appeal to fake experts, cherry-picking data, and outright deception.
High stakes of climate risks
So he says he doesn’t believe the experts. So what? To understand why Trump’s climate denial is so heinous we must be alive to the severity of the climate crisis and how little time is left to take meaningful action to contain it.