"WOMAN:" "It's increased, and it's continuing to increase." "MAN:" "It's sort of a race." "Can the organisms evolve rapidly enough to keep pace with climate change?" "MAN 2:" "What's emerging is this amazing picture of global connections." "they are going to be beyond their tolerance." "MAN 4:" "If these kind of things with the weather continue, the future don't look too bright." "MAN 3:" "It's like something out of science fiction." "Unsettling transformations are sweeping across the planet." "And clue by clue, investigators are assembling a new picture of Earth." "They suspect we've entered a time of faster global change than any human being has ever witnessed." "Where are we headed?" "What can we do to alter the course?" "In this confusing era, only one thing is certain:" "These are strange days on planet Earth." "When you're trying to solve a mystery, the case can break when you first see the connections among seemingly unrelated clues." "Consider these." "Dust clouds are building high over the Atlantic like menacing phantoms." "An entire population of animals is dropping in the north, while other species are pushed to the limits of their physical survival in the oceans." "An illness once rare among Caribbean children is now suddenly common." "Amazingly, researchers now believe that all of these disparate phenomena are connected to our use of energy, which is leading to a slow, planet-wide transformation." "Climate change." "In 2001, an international team of scientists concluded what many had long feared." "By burning carbon fuels, we have raised Earth's average temperature one degree Fahrenheit in the last century." "This report largely brought to an end the old scientific debates of, "Is it real?" and "Who done it?"" "Now there are deeper mysteries and new debates." "How could such a small change have had such a huge and diverse effect around the globe?" "And more importantly, what can we do about it?" "As heat accumulates in the global climate system, some places are getting more than their share." "Like the Western Arctic" "Alaska and the northwest corner of Canada." "This is one of the front lines in life's struggle with global climate change." "The average temperature has increased in some places by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit." "This vast, rugged wilderness has never been an easy place to live." "(wind whipping)" "In the winter, the wind chill can drop to minus 70 Fahrenheit." "(snorting)" "The creatures that live here evolved adaptations to handle extremes a long time ago." "(whistling)" "Now, the region's warming." "You'd think that might make life a little easier." "So, are species like caribou-- which have been here for more than a million years-- finding it easier to survive?" "?" "?" "?" "?" "One of the region's biggest herds is the Porcupine River herd." "Each year these caribou cover about 1,500 miles." "This migration is one of the dominant rhythms of life here." "In late spring, the animals assemble on Alaska's north coast." "This is where life begins for caribou of the Porcupine herd." "Given how robust these animals are and the new warmer temperatures, it's hard to believe that they might be vulnerable." "But signs are emerging that the region's rising temperature is affecting the herd in ways both subtle and severe." "The gathering of the herd on the calving grounds is the one time of year when biologists can conduct a head count." "It's done by taking hundreds of aerial photographs, and then painstakingly counting every animal on each one." "317 cows and 191 calves." "No bulls, just cows and calves." "Next one." "NORTON:" "It's work that can't be hurried." "You see, in the other photos, they were moving..." "But if you do it carefully over a period of decades, you can discover trends that would otherwise be invisible." "That's what's happened here." "Should be the next batch." "STEVE ARTHUR:" "The Porcupine Caribou herd reached its maximum level" "Since then, it's declined at a fairly steady rate, and now there's only about 120,000." "NORTON:" "60,000 animals-- vanished." "Enough to form a herd themselves-- a ghost herd." "The question is, what are these ghosts trying to tell us?" "Is their disappearance part of some natural cycle?" "Or is it evidence of a species struggling with rising temperatures?" "For a lot of people up here, the notion of caribou in trouble raises unsettling questions about their own future." "Darius Elias, a conservation officer, is a member of the Gwich'n First Nation." "For over 10,000 years, the Gwich'n have survived in this forbidding climate by taking what they can from the land." "From these forests, they harvest moose and wild sheep and ducks, and they take fish from the river." "But it's the Porcupine Caribou they really depend on." "ELIAS:" "The blood when you grow in your mother's womb-- a lot of that nutrition comes from the caribou." "So that's where it starts." "You grow up on it." "We eat dry meat and bone grease, and it keeps us warm, it keeps us healthy." "NORTON:" "Twice a year, spring and fall, the paths of people and caribou cross, when the migrating herd fords the Porcupine River." "ELIAS:" "When they cross, everybody in the village gets excited." "Caribou's crossing, get ready." "All the men get ready." "(gunshot)" "The women fix their ground cache, meat cache." "People are excited, because we're going to replenish ourself again." "Replenish that relationship that we've had with the caribou for thousands and thousands of years." "So it's important that they come past our country." "(bird calling)" "NORTON:" "The Gwich'n are keen observers of the natural world." "They've noted the decline of the herd, and they see it as part of a troubling mosaic of change." "ELIAS:" "You know, I talk to lots of elders and... they talk about how things were in the '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s." "Now it's different." "Now we got to worry about raining in December." "The climate is changing so fast, the elders are really worried, the animals won't be able to adapt quick enough, and they're gonna..." "they're gonna perish." "Without them, we're not gonna be here, so it's that simple." "(engine turning over)" "ARTHUR:" "We're continually being asked for predictions." "You know." "How long is this herd going to decline?" "When are they going to turn around?" "When are they going to go back up?" "And we just don't know." "NORTON:" "Caribou aren't the easiest animals to study." "Biologists like Arthur spend a lot of time just catching up with them." "But when they do, the encounter can be indelible." "ARTHUR:" "The sight of a herd of a 130,000 caribou migrating across the tundra has got to be one of the real wonders of the natural world, and it's one of the few that's still here in North America." "It's almost a primeval sort of feeling." "It just takes you back to a time when the natural environment hadn't been altered to the extent that it has been today." "NORTON:" "Few changes would have a deeper impact in the Western Arctic than the loss of the caribou." "Which is why Arthur is so eager to determine if the region's rising temperature is contributing to the Porcupine herd's decline." "In recent summers, he's often found valleys full of rich forage abandoned." "Curiously, the herd can often be found high up on rocky hillsides and ridges, even though the grazing there is poor, and the climb takes a lot of effort." "So why give up a good thing?" "Arthur suspects the caribou are on the run from the creatures that these little larvae grow into." "Creatures some call Alaska's true state bird." "Mosquitoes." "Mosquitoes can suck about a tablespoon of blood a day from a caribou." "To escape these tiny tormentors, caribou literally head for the hills, looking for a strong enough breeze to keep the bugs at bay." "ARTHUR:" "The life of a caribou up here in the summer is a trade-off between time spent evading insects and time spent feeding or resting, and the more time they spend evading insects, the more energy they expend and the less energy they take in by way of feeding." "(mosquitoes buzzing)" "NORTON:" "What's the link to rising temperatures?" "Warmer days mean a longer insect breeding season." "And the resulting larger swarms of mosquitoes are a real threat to caribou." "ARTHUR:" "You reduce the amount of fat they put on during the summertime, and you reduce the number of calves that they'll produce, and you increase the number of adults that will die." "And both of those things could contribute towards a declining population." "NORTON:" "Finding enough food in winter is also getting harder, because rising temperatures bring more snow." "Caribou dig dozens of snow craters a day searching for the lichen that sustains them." "More precipitation means every meal is buried deeper." "(grunting)" "?" "?" "Deeper snow also makes it harder to avoid predators like wolves." "(wolves howling)" "Warmer winters also mean rain, once rare in this season." "ELIAS:" "A couple of years now, it rained, just before Christmas, I believe, and around the country, when we travel around, especially with the caribou and the moose, you see blood trails through the... through the snow, 'cause there's a crust" "that the rain formed on top of the snow, when..." "And then it got cold again." "So when they walk through that crust, it cut their..." "It cut their legs." "NORTON:" "And when winter rain gets under the snow and freezes on the ground below, it can form an almost impenetrable barrier between the caribou and its food." "(panting)" "When a winter of short rations follows a summer of dodging mosquitoes, caribou end up weak and run down." "They then lack the reserves to cope with another predicted consequence of warming temperatures:" "an increase in violent and unseasonable storms." "(wind whipping)" "Twice in recent years, huge spring blizzards took a heavy toll on the Porcupine herd." "ARTHUR:" "Migration was delayed, and calves were born while the caribou were still migrating." "(wind howling)" "ELIAS:" "All of us were trying to get those baby calves on this side of the river, bring them over here so their mother could find them." "You know?" "Try to help any little way we could." "NORTON:" "Thousands of caribou lost their lives." "If bad-weather years become more common, the herd may never recover." "ARTHUR:" "There's quite a bit of evidence to show that caribou herds tend to increase relatively slowly when times are good, and they crash relatively quickly when times are bad." "Um, and the reason they get by is that the bad times occur only sporadically." "But if you increase the frequency of those bad years, you may reach a point where the time in between the bad years is no longer long enough for the caribou herds to rebound from those periodic declines." "It's possible we could be looking at a threshold, where caribou could no longer recover." "ELIAS:" "There are places on Earth that if some way if they were gone, it would impoverish mankind." "The Gwich'n culture, the oldest culture in the Americas-- the relationship with the ecosystem here that's thousands and thousands of years old-- if that's gone, to me, that will impoverish mankind." "MAN:" "I think the whole caribou thing is something that we should look into, but I don't think that we should waste too much time or too much energy on..." "WOMAN:" "I don't think people are that concerned about what goes on in the Arctic." "People are basically interested in themselves and their families, and surviving." "MAN 2:" "Uh, I don't view it as a big problem." "I think it's something we can definitely deal with and possibly solve, yes." "WOMAN 2:" "I really haven't thought about it, because it's been very cold lately so," "(laughs) you know..." "WOMAN 3:" "I certainly wouldn't want somebody telling me that I can only drive every other day, or I cannot use my aerosol cans any longer..." "MAN 3:" "As long as we're still relying upon electricity and cars and things like that, we're not going to get away from it." "WOMAN 4:" "I don't know what I can do to change the situation, because it's such a..." "a global problem." "NORTON:" "For most of us, the idea that the Earth's temperature is rising remains abstract." "We're not actually feeling the heat." "But the amount of CO2 in the Atmosphere is increasing, and unless we act, it will continue to grow." "That's why experts predict that the Earth's average temperature will rise three to ten times more in the next century than it did during the last." "And that the survival of entire communities of plants and animals could be threatened by such a change." "How would this happen?" "Well, look at it this way." "Every system has a point at which it becomes unstable." "A little push, like a small rise in temperature, can have insignificant effect." "But a few pushes in a row can trigger a major system crash." "That's the tipping point." "There may be one coming soon to an ocean near you." "Over 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water." "The Pacific Ocean accounts for almost half of that." "Here, creatures are often on the move in their quest for life's non-negotiable necessities-- food, mates, a refuge from enemies." "Migrations are just as much a part of life in this realm as on the land." "Arguably the most remarkable is the daily up-and-down movement of zooplankton." "Some of the ocean's smallest and most diverse creatures." "Most zooplankton feed on tiny plant-like cells and algae that grow in the sunlit upper layers of the ocean." "But foraging in broad daylight is risky." "Just about everything out here eats zooplankton... or eats something that does." "So, most zooplankton wait until dark before leaving the relative safety of deeper, darker waters." "Their daily journey up and back is the greatest movement of life on the planet." "Billions of individuals join the commute, some traveling the human equivalent of more than 250 miles." "Given how central zooplankton are in the entire ocean food web, it's no surprise that marine biologists such as Bill Peterson find them irresistible." "Tonight, Peterson and his team are after one of the larger zooplankton: krill, which scientists call "euphausiids."" "PETERSON:" "They're interesting animals." "They form schools, and they have eyes that can see what's going on around them, and you got to be crafty to catch these darn things." "All right, we're ready to take down the top safety line and deploy." "PETERSON:" "They avoid our plankton nets in the daytime, so we have to sample at night." "Oh, boy." "And we actually use nets that are dyed black, so they can't see the nets coming at them." "Okay, you ready?" "t." "Deep breath." "Okay, here we go, all righ" "NORTON:" "Getting these little creatures out of the nets and into collection buckets is a soggy business." "PETERSON:" "These are mostly juvenile euphausiids." "These were probably born about maybe four or five months ago, and then, the larger ones are probably, maybe, actually a year old by now." "NORTON:" "In the '80s and early '90s," "Peterson watched with dismay as the euphausiid population off America's west coast plummeted." "PETERSON:" "Plankton levels were down to, like, 20 percent of what they were back in the 1950s." "There was nothing in the water almost, so people were getting really concerned." "NORTON:" "Some researchers, worried that this entire food web would unravel, started urgent speculation about causes." "PETERSON:" "One of the ideas that we had in the early '90s was that maybe this was the harbinger of global warming, and so we were all operating on the assumption that we were seeing it." "NORTON:" "But then in the late '90s, things abruptly turned around." "It was like, "Holy cow, there's my friends again." "They're all back," so I was pretty excited about that." "NORTON:" "Now both a crash and a recovery needed explanation." "Global warming was still in force, so it couldn't be the cause." "What was?" "Scientists now believe the rise and fall of zooplankton numbers is tied to sudden rearrangements of huge regions of warm and cold water." "Every two or three decades, the Pacific does a flip-flop, which scientists call a "regime shift"." "When the waters off Oregon are cold, zooplankton there do well." "When the waters are warmer, their numbers fall." "And why do these regime shifts have such a great impact on zooplankton?" "Because they can disrupt the food supply, the currents that draw nutrient-rich water up from the depths." "(surf roaring)" "(seabirds crying)" "When the warm water layer at the ocean's surface gets thicker, this flow of deep nutrients is cut off." "That's what was happening through the '80s and early '90s." "These temperature shifts in the Pacific have been going on unnoted for a long time, but now they're taking place in the context of rising global temperature." "That puts a new spin on everything." "PETERSON:" "This cool cycle will end, and it'll go into a warm cycle, but it won't be like the warm cycle that we had the last time, because we do have this global warming thing going on all the time." "NORTON:" "Some researchers worry that rising temperature on top below some threshold or tipping point so that their populations would be unable to recover." "If this comes to pass, marine biologists may have trouble finding anything living in these waters." "The impact of rising temperature closer to shore is already being measured." "In California tide pools, the mix of species is changing as some animals are driven north by warming." "But not every creature can relocate." "Physiologists George Somero and Jonathan Stillman wondered what fate awaits those that stay." "SOMERO:" "Boy, it was a hot week." "That was the hottest week I think we've had here." "NORTON:" "Could some of these animals already be living at the edge near some temperature endurance limit?" "SOMERO:" "When we entered this field of study, we were sort of in the dark as to exactly when does an organism start to feel the pain, as it were, as-as warming is occurring, and the question as to whether or not a single degree change" "in temperature can be that stressful, I think, was a question we didn't have the data to answer." "NORTON:" "The residents of these tide pools are by and large a pretty hardy bunch." "They have to be." "It's a challenging environment." "?" "?" "Life here is an endless series of batterings from the waves, and thanks to the coming and going of the tide, huge daily temperature shifts." "SOMERO:" "Some of these poor things are at ten degrees one moment, and the tide goes down, and the sun comes out-- they're up at 35 degrees." "It's an extremely variable environment, in terms of the physical conditions that the organisms see." "NORTON:" "But even an organism that can handle a wide range of temperatures has limits." "SOMERO:" "We've been recording some extraordinarily high body temperatures, and that's got to be stressful to the organisms." "NORTON:" "Intrigued, Somero and Stillman decided to see just how much heat these animals can take." "In one experiment, Stillman collected several varieties of small crabs that live in Pacific tide pools." "He hooked them up to a heart rate monitor, immersed them in water, and gradually increased the temperature." "STILLMAN:" "What we're looking for is the point where their heart rate kind of goes up and up and up with temperature and then it crashes and falls off." "NORTON:" "To his surprise, Stillman discovered that the crabs that are currently experiencing the biggest daily temperature swings are already just about at their limit." "Their hearts stop beating in water only two degrees Fahrenheit warmer than what they currently experience in the wild." "STILLMAN:" "If it gets just a little bit hotter, they're going to be beyond their tolerance limit." "NORTON:" "And when they're gone, creatures that feed on them will be threatened." "That's the nature of a food web;" "change at any point tends to ripple through the whole." "As Earth continues to warm, some will win and some will lose." "We're just now learning who the losers may be and how widely their loss will be felt." "So, how are people a hundred years from now going to feel about our response today to the issue of climate change?" "That's a heavy - duty question." ") (chuckling ... Um" "." "Well, that's.." "I-I'm sure they will blame us on-on being... not friendly... being not friendly to the environment, 'cause..." "I really don't know." "I hope that they will look at us and say, "Well, you tried your best."" "And..." "I think there should be a lot of anger in retrospect." "MAN:" "Uh, terrible things could happen." "If-if-if we have huge storms or also, uh, long periods of drought, it will be dangerous, definitely." "... We obviously have to address it;" "I mean-- it's-it's a" "." "On a risk-reward as a businessman, it's a lot to risk" "But, um, hopefully, we will do something about it, e." "and hopefully, u m, the problem will not get any wors" "So, what should we give up today to make ourselves and the planet better off in a few decades?" "It's a tough question." "But it's not unlike choices we face every day." "Whenever we put money in a home or, say, in a savings account for a child's education, we're weighing a sacrifice today for something precious in the near future." "Global warming is different." "It may take decades of effort to put the brakes on rising temperatures." "One other difference:" "What I put into the atmosphere affects you." "What you do affects me." "The Earth's climate is one big interconnected system, and some of the links are fascinating, unexpected and worrisome." "(children laughing and shouting)" "The problem of increasing temperatures may not feel vivid on the beaches of the Caribbean." "After all, this region is only marginally warmer." "But strange developments are connecting these islands to a climate change event thousands of miles away." "The story begins with the surprising rise of two diseases." "Physician Michele Monteil has long felt her home island of Trinidad is a great place to grow up." "But lately, she's begun having doubts." "Every day, she confronts a medical mystery that hangs like a shadow over the entire region." "For growing numbers of children here, the simple act of breathing is becoming a challenge." "What time did you have to use the Ventolin?" "What time?" "It was this mornin g when I got up." "Oh, this morning." "And what time you got up this morning?" "Got up 7:00." "Okay." "All right." "And are you using a spacer with our meicine?" "MONTEIL:" "Growing up in the Caribbean," "I didn't know very many asthmatic kids." "It was not on the radar screen at all." "I cannot remember having any asthmatic friends." "I cannot remember any children in my schools having inhalers." "Okay, so put the thing in your mouth..." "Nowadays, I would say it's a common problem, and that is the perception of the medical fraternity here in Trinidad... that it's increased, and it's continuing to increase." "NORTON:" "Confronted by the suffering asthma was causing," "Monteil dedicated herself to investigating this growing epidemic." "MONTEIL:" "I found there was almost nothing written about asthma or allergic diseases in Trinidad." "So, as a result, I embarked on my research in this area." "NORTON:" "Monteil would soon discover that she wasn't the only researcher in the Caribbean puzzling over an unexplained outbreak of disease." "Marine biologist Ginger Garrison first fell in love with the region's coral reefs more than two decades ago." "They were colorful... overrun with fish." "A visual wonderland." "But over the years, these reefs have been transformed by a wide range of assaults, including the emergence of mysterious diseases." "Sea fans, a kind of coral, are looking ragged." "GARRISON:" "It's been very disheartening to be noticing the changes." "I feel as if my work has been documenting the declines of reefs." "And it's a painful thing to see, with less coral, fewer fishes less color." "And it's, uh... it's a loss." "NORTON:" "The decline of Caribbean sea fans, like the region's rising asthma rates, was baffling." "What was causing these diseases?" "And why were the outbreaks occurring now?" "Incredibly, a link would emerge tying these mysteries together." "It would involve something the region has known for thousands of years:" "dust." "Dust from thousands of miles away." "ANNOUNCER (on radio):" "Looks like we're going to have some hot and sunny skies over the next couple of days into the weekend." "But early into next week, forecasters are predicting a Saharan dust event coming our way." "Dry weather, hazy skies in the forecast." "Up next, some new music." "?" "?" "NORTON:" "50 years ago, Lake Chad was one of Africa's great lakes." "Water stretched as far as the eye could see." "But a decades-long drought reduced Lake Chad to one- twentieth of its former area." "The Lake's retreat has been so swift, more than a few valuable assets were left high and dry." "This fishing boat once represented a family's hopes for a better future." "Today it is a monument to nature's power to turn human dreams to dust." "MARI MADU:" "When I first came here 35 years ago, this place was beautiful." "This is the shoreline of the Lake Chad, and looking this side right through, uh, it was full of water." "And lots of fishermen were here." "NORTON:" "Lake Chad once produced so many fish, the Nigerian government built a research lab on its shores." "It's now a crumbling reminder of the prosperity the lake once provided." "For almost two decades," "Kaka Mustafa worked here as a senior lab technician." "Often he would walk outside to watch his children playing in the shallows." "Now his son is grown." "Unlike his father, he has few memories of the lake." "It matters little to him that the structure he climbs to call his goats was once used to measure the depth of the water here." "(speaking native language)" "(clicking tongue)" "As the shoreline has retreated, entire communities have pursued it, regularly rebuilding on the edges of the shallow channels that remain." "(engine revving)" "(motor boat approaching)" "MARI:" "Their lives were much better." "They had a lot of income." "Basically, the people now depend on, uh, livestock keeping and, uh, agriculture." "That is basically rainy season agriculture." "NORTON:" "This part of the world has always had cycles of drought." "But this one's been especially harsh." "No one is sure if global climate change-- or some other factor-- is driving it." "Whatever the cause, the result is more dust." "And lately more and more of this dust is getting swept into the air and blown toward the Americas thousands of miles away." "Back in Trinidad," "Saharan dust is now a prime suspect in Michele Monteil's investigation into the rise of childhood asthma." "MONTEIL:" "Patients with asthma would say to me, "You know, Doctor, my symptoms are worse when there's dust in the air."" "Okay, here's some more patient files." "So, I certainly wanted to investigate whether there was any correlation between dust cloud cover over Trinidad, and asthma admissions." "Those would be good inclusion criteria." "a Sharad, what about the Sahara dust visibility dat and some of the climatic factors...?" "NORTON:" "With the help of some of her medical students," "Monteil spent hours analyzing case records, searching for a link between asthma admissions and African dust." "In the end, they found a significant pattern." "MONTEIL:" "We have found that, in fact, when we have" "Sahara dust cover, there is an increase in the number of asthmatic children coming to the Accident and Emergency Departments with worsened asthma a day after the events." "NORTON:" "Ginger Garrison's investigation into sea fan disease was also focusing on Saharan dust." "She and some of her colleagues had begun to suspect that the large range of the illness was a clue that they should look for some kind of infectious agent that could be carried in the air." "Perhaps the dust was carrying an unidentified but harmful pathogen." "As she was mastering the fine art of dust collection, an American microbiologist made an announcement that convinced Garrison that she was on the right path." "He had fingered a soil fungus called Aspergillus as a likely culprit in sea fan disease." "Garrison immediately contacted him and asked if he would analyze her samples." "He agreed, and Garrison, anticipating a lengthy investigation, shipped her first batch for testing." "GARRISON:" "And in the very first sample of the atmosphere of the Virgin Islands that I took during an African dust event, he found the pathogenic strain of Aspergillus sadowi, which causes sea fan disease." "And we were absolutely astonished, because we did not expect in our wildest dreams that he would find it in the first sample." "NORTON:" "Garrison is now intensifying her efforts to uncover the full sweep of health effects caused by Saharan dust in the Americas." "She's training local residents on a number of islands to collect air samples." "She hopes to get samples from Africa soon, too." "And Garrison is now starting to look for a wider range of harmful agents in the dust." "And so we're talking about endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, mutagens, um... trying to see what kind of nasty stuff there is." "It's dusty today, and we need as much samples as we can get." "NORTON:" "But as the case linking Saharan dust with Caribbean diseases gets stronger, a nagging question remains." "Dust has been blowing over the Atlantic for millennia, so why are we seeing these problems now?" "Surprisingly, some of the best work on that question is taking place in Colorado." "That's where Jim Hurrell spends his time." "Hurrell is one of those people who are always looking for links and connections." "It's the kind of trait that produces great conspiracy theorists." "But it's not political intrigues that fascinate Hurrell." "He's obsessed with the inner workings of the global climate system especially a remarkable feature of the atmosphere that sits over the Atlantic:" "two gigantic air masses, one high pressure, the other low." "It's called the North Atlantic Oscillation because the high and the low fluctuate in strength season to season and year to year." "Together, these two air masses propel Atlantic storms across the sea." "(whooshing and whipping)" "When the system's in high gear, it draws those storms far to the north, changing temperature and precipitation patterns over much of Northern Europe and Eurasia." "At the same time, the winds around the southern edge of the high propel African dust toward the Americas." "s and climate scientists propel African dust toward talikeericas.Sailor have long considered this system unpredictable." "But lately, a pattern has emerged, one that caught the eye of this atmospheric scientist." "During the 1980s and the 1990s, that random aspect basically disappeared, and we started to see that the North Atlantic Oscillation tended to be in the very intense phase for one winter after the next, and it's persisted that way" "for much of the last 20 or 30 years." "NORTON:" "Hurrell figured something must have jammed this system, but what?" "He retreated into the world of computer climate models to seek an answer." "He had a prime suspect:" "Earth's rising temperature, caused by the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere." "When he included that build-up, his model faithfully reproduced the fixed configuration of the past few decades." "When he removed it, the model showed ups and downs:" "the old fluctuations." "HURRELL:" "What we find is that the North Atlantic Oscillation does not behave the way it's been behaving over the last 20 or 30 years." "The only way that you can get that behavior is by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." "NORTON:" "Somehow, Earth's rising temperature is affecting the year-to-year behavior of this massive atmospheric system, but how?" "In solving one mystery," "Jim Hurrell had uncovered another." "Back he went to his models." "He began to focus on one area of the world where average temperature has been rising particularly fast:" "the Indian Ocean." "When he added the rise in Indian Ocean temperatures to his model, the fixed pattern in the North Atlantic suddenly reappeared." "Hurrell thinks he knows how the warming of this distant ocean could affect the atmosphere over the North Atlantic." "HURRELL:" "As the tropical oceans warm, it produces more rainfall over the tropical Indian Ocean." "This is really a burst of heat energy to the atmosphere that can perturb the atmospheric flow for thousands of miles downstream from the Indian Ocean." "NORTON:" "This energy ripples through the atmosphere like a wave in a pool." "When it reaches the North Atlantic, it reinforces the energy of the North Atlantic Oscillation, producing the pattern we've seen in recent decades and driving more African dust to the Americas." "What's emerging is this amazing picture of global connections, where one part of the globe can be connected to another thousands of miles away." "The complexity and the large-scale linkages that are global, um..." "that are involved in this entire process are mind-boggling to me:" "...the warming of the Indian Ocean... and then how that affects the North Atlantic Oscillation and that affects how the dust gets mobilized in the Sahara... then you get a lot of dust in the air getting blown over to the Caribbean." "(distant chatter and laughter)" "MONTEIL:" "I think that what my foray into this area has really done for me is that it has really brought out to me how we are really just one globe." "We are one... one world in how events from one part of the world can impact so forcibly on you in a totally different part of the world." "I've never visited Africa." "I've never visited Africa." "It seems a million miles away, but, in fact, changes there are affecting us here in the Caribbean." "?" "?" "NORTON:" "Without realizing it, we've turned up the planetary thermostat." "Our world's getting warmer, and it's going to keep getting warmer." "How much warmer will depend in part... on us... on how soon and how seriously we take up the challenge of trying to control climate change." "The good news is that people everywhere seem ready to do just that." "I actually think..." "I think there is reason for hope." "I think the chan ge definitely begin s individually." "We-we simply have to do more." "We can all contribute something." "k." "The small things do count, I thin" "It'll add up and help a lot." "NORTON:" "While the things we can do now don't always seem so significant, if enough people start reducing their energy consumption, it will make a real difference." "As we learn more about our impact on climate and the effects of climate change on all of life, the pressure on industries and governments to do their part will also grow." "How are you?" "Good to see you." "Ideas have tipping points, too." "MAN:" "The one thing you can control is your energy consumption." "You can do it as a good citizen, and you can do it as a good businessman, as an entrepreneur." "NORTON:" "Think of it as buying our children and grandchildren insurance against future climate disasters." "It may prove to be one of the best investments we can make for them." "How should this new view of Earth change the way you live?" "I can't tell you that." "That choice is up to you." "Text:" "WTC-SWE"