FieldSound in the Field: AGU24 in Washington, D.C. with Sarah Doherty

The UW College of the Environment connected with the global Earth and space science community and showcased the incredible work of our researchers, students and staff at the American Geophysical Union’s Annual Meeting 2024 (AGU24) in Washington, D.C., December 9-13, 2024. The annual gathering of more than 25,000 scientists from over 100 countries is the largest in the world, and gives researchers the opportunity to share their work and connect with friends and colleagues. 

Department of Earth and Space Sciences PhD Candidate Haskelle White-Gianella also hosted interviews for FieldSound, our official podcast. Check out Haskelle's interview with Sarah Doherty, Senior Research Scientist at UW's Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies.

https://environment.uw.edu/podcast

Transcript

00:00:00:11 - 00:00:04:07
From the

00:00:04:07 - 00:00:07:07
University of Washington College of the Environment.

00:00:07:11 - 00:00:08:18
This is FieldSound.

00:00:11:03 - 00:00:15:20
Hello everyone this is Haskelle again this is AGU day 4

00:00:15:22 - 00:00:16:05
and today I’m with Sarah Doherty

00:00:16:05 - 00:00:19:05
a senior research scientist in the Atmospheric Sciences Department.

00:00:19:09 - 00:00:20:22
And today I will be interviewing her

00:00:20:22 - 00:00:22:23
about some of the work she said in her overall experience.

00:00:22:23 - 00:00:24:19
at AGU. So without further ado.

00:00:24:19 - 00:00:27:01
Yeah, tell me about your recent project here.

00:00:27:01 - 00:00:27:08
Yeah.

00:00:27:08 - 00:00:30:21
So we're working on studying how particulate pollution affects

00:00:31:03 - 00:00:33:06
sunlight reflection by clouds.

00:00:33:06 - 00:00:36:04
And so this is something that's happening in the climate system right now.

00:00:36:04 - 00:00:38:00
It's in effect that's offsetting

00:00:38:00 - 00:00:41:17
about a quarter of climate warming from greenhouse gases.

00:00:41:19 - 00:00:45:13
And so our observations of that happening in the atmosphere have triggered

00:00:45:13 - 00:00:49:10
the idea of whether you could possibly do that intentionally

00:00:49:11 - 00:00:53:11
if the climate system warms up to too dangerous of a level

00:00:53:13 - 00:00:56:20
and instead of doing it with pollution, we were doing it with sea salt aerosols

00:00:56:20 - 00:01:02:13
from the ocean, specifically targeting, brightening low clouds over the ocean.

00:01:02:14 - 00:01:03:16
That's incredible.

00:01:03:16 - 00:01:07:12
Do you have a direct path to how this work can potentially help

00:01:07:12 - 00:01:09:10
the community, local or globally?

00:01:09:10 - 00:01:12:19
Because climate change and these issues are definitely prevalent.

00:01:12:20 - 00:01:13:12
Yeah. Yeah.

00:01:13:12 - 00:01:14:07
So the idea with marine cloud brightening is, you wouldn’t be, it’s not a solution

00:01:14:07 - 00:01:17:07
 to the climate problem,

00:01:17:13 - 00:01:20:05
but it's a way of addressing sort of the pathway through

00:01:20:05 - 00:01:22:15
which climate impacts are mostly felt, which is through

00:01:22:15 - 00:01:26:11
having too much energy in the climate system, too much heat.

00:01:26:13 - 00:01:29:14
So with Marine cloud brightening, the idea is that you be reducing

00:01:29:14 - 00:01:33:03
the amount of heat in the climate system by increasing sunlight reflection.

00:01:33:03 - 00:01:36:01
So reducing the amount of energy that comes into the Earth's system.

00:01:36:01 - 00:01:40:11
So we had sort of the pathway to helping you address

00:01:40:11 - 00:01:43:11
the climate problem is reducing heat in the climate system.

00:01:43:12 - 00:01:46:04
And, you know, we're not advocating for doing this.

00:01:46:04 - 00:01:48:00
What we're doing is trying to research whether it's

00:01:48:00 - 00:01:49:22
even something that feasibly could be done.

00:01:49:22 - 00:01:53:18
Could you predictably and reliably brighten low marine clouds at a scale

00:01:53:18 - 00:01:55:10
that would actually cool climate?

00:01:55:10 - 00:01:58:02
And if you did it, where could you do it and by how much?

00:01:58:02 - 00:01:59:17
And if you then did that

00:01:59:17 - 00:02:03:21
like brighten clouds in specific regions, how would that affect climate risks?

00:02:03:23 - 00:02:06:23
What would be the risks of doing this in terms of the climate patterns

00:02:06:23 - 00:02:07:16
that would result?

00:02:07:16 - 00:02:09:11
What would be the benefits

00:02:09:11 - 00:02:10:23
so that we can provide that information

00:02:10:23 - 00:02:13:23
to decision makers and they can decide in the future

00:02:13:23 - 00:02:16:19
if we're really hitting dangerous levels of climate warming.

00:02:16:19 - 00:02:20:10
Would this be something that you could, you know, use to try and mitigate

00:02:20:10 - 00:02:24:11
those risks while we're bringing greenhouse gases down to safer levels.

00:02:24:13 - 00:02:25:16
Okay. That's awesome.

00:02:25:16 - 00:02:29:13
So this would be really beneficial for policymakers, The IPCC.

00:02:29:15 - 00:02:31:10
Yeah. Groups like IPCC.

00:02:31:10 - 00:02:34:18
Other decision making bodies that would really for deciding

00:02:34:18 - 00:02:36:13
to use things like marine cloud brightening,

00:02:36:13 - 00:02:39:18
which are climate interventions, not mitigation,

00:02:39:20 - 00:02:43:04
there’d really need to be a pretty robust decision process that would involve,

00:02:43:04 - 00:02:46:22
you know, a global conversation, because if you did this at a scale

00:02:46:22 - 00:02:49:01
that would cool climate anywhere in the world,

00:02:49:01 - 00:02:53:08
it would probably have effects everywhere in the world.

00:02:53:10 - 00:02:54:04
Yeah, Yeah.

00:02:54:04 - 00:02:55:18
So we're really, really just trying

00:02:55:18 - 00:02:59:16
to provide the information to policymakers, help in those discussions

00:02:59:17 - 00:03:03:09
that would need to also include considerations around ethics,

00:03:03:11 - 00:03:07:21
you know, international law and all kinds of other policy aspects.

00:03:07:23 - 00:03:10:14
Incredible. So how is your AGU experience been?

00:03:10:14 - 00:03:11:20
Have you been presenting this work?

00:03:11:20 - 00:03:14:20
Have you been networking around with this with this information?

00:03:15:01 - 00:03:16:04
Yes. And yes.

00:03:16:04 - 00:03:19:13
We have a pretty big team of people working on the program now at University

00:03:19:13 - 00:03:23:19
of Washington and also collaborators at a bunch of institutions.

00:03:23:21 - 00:03:26:10
And they've been presenting the work here,

00:03:26:10 - 00:03:30:07
much of it in just the sessions that are about climate science in general,

00:03:30:09 - 00:03:33:08
about how particles affect clouds in general.

00:03:33:11 - 00:03:35:19
And so it's always exciting to get to come to AGU

00:03:35:19 - 00:03:37:14
because there's such a huge community of people

00:03:37:14 - 00:03:41:05
working on this that we can learn from and talk with and network with.

00:03:41:05 - 00:03:44:17
And yeah, we're starting, you know, always have conversations

00:03:44:17 - 00:03:47:00
where we end up setting up new collaborations.

00:03:47:00 - 00:03:48:00
Yeah. Yeah.

00:03:48:00 - 00:03:50:13
And I guess my last question on the topic of collaboration,

00:03:50:13 - 00:03:53:03
can students be involved with your projects and your work?

00:03:53:03 - 00:03:56:13
Yes, we have actually a bunch of students working on our project

00:03:56:15 - 00:04:01:03
graduate students in particular are doing a lot of modeling work.

00:04:01:05 - 00:04:02:14
Yeah, on the on the program.

00:04:02:14 - 00:04:04:11
So it's a very integrated part of, in,

00:04:04:11 - 00:04:06:21
particular the atmospheric science department.

00:04:06:21 - 00:04:07:08
Yeah.

00:04:07:08 - 00:04:10:01
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for and for the interview today.

00:04:10:01 - 00:04:12:20
I really appreciate it. And best of luck with your future endeavors.

00:04:12:20 - 00:04:16:03
And I really hope that this work can be meaningful and continue

00:04:16:03 - 00:04:17:21
to help improve the climate situation.