August 17, 2024 • 30 mins
Ryan Gorman hosts an iHeartRadio nationwide special featuring Marine Scientist Dr. Ellen Prager & Meteorologist Dave Jones, authors of Megalodons, Mermaids & Climate Change: Answers To Your Ocean & Atmosphere Questions. Dr. Prager and Dave Jones discuss the extreme weather events we’ve been experiencing, global conservation efforts for marine life, and separate fact from fiction on the issue of climate change.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on
the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman.
Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities.
I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have an important conversation lined
up for you. My guests for this episode are marine
scientists and Storm Center Communications Chief scientist doctor Ellen Prager,
(00:22):
and meteorologist and CEO of Storm Center Communications Dave Jones,
authors of the new book Megaladon's Mermaids and Climate Change
Answers to your Ocean and Atmosphere Questions, which you can
pre order now on Amazon. Doctor Prager, Dave, thank you
so much for ticket a few minutes to come on
the show. And Doctor Prager, let me start with you.
Can you give us a summary of what you tackle
(00:44):
in this new book.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So we wrote the book in thinking about a lot
of the misinformation and misunderstandings that are out there about
the ocean, the atmosphere, hurricanes, climate change, and we thought, gosh,
you know, be great to combat that with real science.
But we didn't want to just write a textbook or
you know, put a bunch of data out there. So
(01:06):
we thought we would take the approach of using frequently
asked and sort of any questions that we and our
colleagues get related to those topics and use that as
the approach for the book. In addition, we got this
great graphic illustrator to cartoon like illustrations related to the
(01:27):
book and topics.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And Dave, what were some of the topics that you
felt it was important to address in this book.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Sure, well, I you know, I come from the weather side,
being a meteorologist, and I used to work for NBC
four in Washington, DC as a broadcast meteorologist through the nineties,
and so I would get a lot of very interesting
questions from viewers after I would finish the weather on.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
One such question was a lady, I think it was January.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I got off the air, and you know, I answered
the phone. She said, Dave, could you tell me I
watch you all the time. You guys are so accurate.
My daughter's getting married in July. Could you tell me
what weather you have scheduled?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Needless to say, we don't schedule the weather. So that's
one of them.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
And you know there are others, like when people look
up and see those contrails in the sky. Many people
think that they're not contrails. They're called chem trails, and
they're releasing spray to cloud our minds. So we think
a certain way, and it's something that the government is behind,
(02:37):
and that is certainly not the case.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Contrails are just condensation.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Clouds behind warm jet engines, and so we talk about
that as well.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And we have other topics like hurricanes and lightning, and
on my end, we have dangerous marine life. Of course,
you know all the questions about sharks and the deep.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Sea and core reefs.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And for me, one of my favorites is when I
give talks people. You know, one kid said, real smart
kids said, so you just said that we've only explored
something like ten percent of the ocean. How do you know,
meglodons are not still down there. So we come up,
we explained, sort of with a little bit of fun,
how we know they're not still alive. And I just
(03:23):
give you an example. Sharks produced about forty thousand teeth
every year and they, you know, they shed them, and
so that's why we find a lot of shark teeth.
And if there was still a giant shark with teeth
that were three inches long roaming around in the shallow seas,
because that's probably where they were eating. We would find
(03:43):
some of those teeth, but we've never found any megalodon
teeth that were not fossilized over a million years old,
So it's one way we know they're not swimming around
down there.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Let me follow up on that for a second, because
I think this is really interesting. Sometimes it feels like
we know more about outer space in the universe than
we do about our own oceans here on Earth. How
much do we know, especially the deeper and deeper you
get in our major oceans.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So that's a great question, and you know that you
here often here people say we've mapped more of the
Moon than our own oceans, and the estimate is in
and out. It's maybe maybe you know, five to ten
percent have we have, you know, it's the only amount
that we've explored, But if you actually look at how
much we've seen firsthand, it's like point, I can't remember,
(04:34):
it's not like one percent. So using robots and side scan,
so owner, sure we have seen, you know, less than
ten percent of the ocean, but if you look at
how much we've actually seen in person, it's even less.
So there is still so much to be explored in
the ocean. And remember it's a three D environment. It's
(04:55):
not just the sea floor, it's also what you get
what's in the water from the seafloor up to the ocean.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined now by marine scientists and Storm
Center Communications Chief Scientist, doctor Allen Praeger, and meteorologists and
CEO of Storm Center Communications Dave Jones, author of the
new book Megalodon's Mermaids and Climate Change, answers to your
ocean and atmosphere questions. So one more question on this topic.
Do we think there's a lot of activity deep in
(05:23):
our oceans or is most of it happening closer to
the shore.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Sre We know that the near the coastline is probably
the most productive areas in the ocean, and that's why
that's why you find most of the fish. That's why
we think megaladons we're feeding near shorcus. It's the most productive.
But what we've also discovered is that even in the
deep sea there are places that are highly productive, like
at the deep sea hydro thermal events, where unfortunately whales
(05:51):
might dians sink down. That's a hotbed of activity. So
even in the deep ocean, there are places where it
is very active active. Then for many, many years we
even thought.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
About Dave, let me turn to you, how often did
you get asked the question as a meteorologist. You know,
you said, it's a thirty percent chance of rain. It
didn't rain where I was, and what is that percentage?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
What?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Yeah, that's a great question when there's a lot of
people want to know, should I take my umbrella or
shouldn't I?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And you know, my advice was always, hey, look.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
If you're gonna be embarrassed because you got caught by
a rain shower and you didn't take it, then take it.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Uh, make sure you have it in your car.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
But when you have a thirty percent chance of rain,
it basically means that, you know, if if you're given
a one hundred square mile area, then there is a
thirty percent chance it's going to rain in that area, right,
So so it's not a big chance, it's just a
smaller chance. If you have a fifty percent chance of rain,
(06:56):
then you'll see rain in half of those areas. So
it really is you know, the challenging thing is that
folks at the National Weather Service are are providing much
more of their data in such a way that it
can be described in percentage fashion, which I think might
(07:19):
get a little bit more complicated for people to understand,
because you know, the measure of uncertainty is what we
want to communicate.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Right, nothing is exact.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I can't tell you what the high temperature is going
to be three days from now to the tenth of
a degree because it varies all around every city.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
You know, the temperature.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Varies, and one change in one place has big impact
somewhere else. You know. One of the things we talk
about in the book are weather apps. Dave, do you
have anything to say about those those weather apps that.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
People weather apps?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Well, you know, weather apps are very what we call deterministic.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
They'll tell you exactly what the when the rain is
going to start.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
It's going to start at four twenty one, you know,
two days from now, and that's all based on modeling
models that those private weather companies might have or whatever.
But it does it's not accurate, right, So when you
look look at those weather apps, it makes you feel
(08:26):
like things are much more accurate out the five and
seven days and ten days, but it's really not. And
that's why people still turn to their local meteorologists on
television or look at the National Weather Service forecast because
it's much it's explained a lot better.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Is there another aspect of the day to day weather
forecast the meteorologists deliver to us that you find is
often misunderstood by those consuming that information.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Well, there's always the uh, is it going to be
partly cloudy or partly sunny?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
That's something that people don't quite understand.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
To make it easy, I always use partly sunny during
the day if there's going to be you know, some
clouds around and partly cloudy at night. But you know,
even if we as we get you know, more serious
about extreme weather, there's a lot of work that needs
to be done in making people respond to threats that
are approaching, like hurricanes, storm surge, extreme rainfall where people
(09:33):
need to move out of the way when these storms
are getting close to land. That is something that is
still work under progress, and a lot of social science
is being brought into that picture.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And on that note, because we are in hurricane season
right now and unfortunate Lamp had to cover so many
over the years. The key thing to remember and please
correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I have
this right. You want to run from the water and
hide from the wind in terms of evacuations.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, that's right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
And we're saying because of a changing climate, higher sea levels,
they're rising in some cases faster than we thought that
it makes those coastlines more vulnerable, and flooding is happening
more frequently, and it's reaching further inland.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
We're joined right now by doctor Ellen Prager, marine scientist
and chief scientists at Storm Center Communications, and meteorologist Dave Jones,
CEO of Storm Center Communications. They're the authors of the
new book Megalodons, Mermaids and Climate Change Answers to Your
Ocean and Atmosphere Questions, which you can pre order now
on Amazon or wherever you get your books. Now, doctor Prager,
(10:57):
since they've just mentioned climate change, let's get to that.
First of all, what is the difference between climate and weather?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So weather is what's happening.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
We'll make sure, day will.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I'm going to look at Dave and see if he's
nodding like I'm right.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Okay, you're right so far, yeah, so far.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
But weather is what happens day to day. So the
easy way to think about it, and climate is typically
longer term and on the order of like thirty years
or what are the trends? So it's not about how
hot summer is today, it's how much hotter it is
today than it's been in the past. That's what climate is.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
And you can also you can also think of it
too that climate is what you expect and weather is
what you get.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So what have we seen in terms of the trend
line and has there been a good track record in
predicting where we are today or have some of those
past predictions and projections turned out to be so accurate?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Well jointly answered this one. I'll start and then I'll
pass it over to Dave. Very clearly, the trends are
matching what the models predicted in terms of increasing temperatures
across the globe and in seawater temperature. So they have
gotten that right, and they've actually done studies to assess
the accuracy now so they can get the trends. Those
(12:24):
models can't predict when we're going to have an extreme
rainfall or what the strength of a hurricane is going
to be. I will tell you that in talking to
a lot of scientists who have been studying things like
the melting of the glaciers and ice caps, and I
think the thing that people have maybe gotten wrong in
the past is that it's happening faster than they thought
(12:47):
it would.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
You know, the research and researchers typically in the environment
climate area are fairly conservative. They don't want to talk
about any big extremes happening down the road. But what
we're saying is that that sea levels are rising faster.
You know, Greenland is losing a whole bunch of ice
(13:10):
every year. It's rushing down into the ocean. And one
of the things that you know, when we were writing
the book I thought was very fascinating was, you know,
many many years ago in the seventies, scientists, there was
a Time magazine article. On the cover of the Time magazine,
it said something about the.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Global Warming Survival Guide.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Global Warming Survival Guide. But what happened is someone doctored
the cover and called it the Global Cooling Survival Guide,
and that is what got media's attention. And so when
you look back, and this is some of the research
(13:55):
that we did. When you look back, it was only
a few media organizations that that put that out.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But that is what's stuck. And when you hear people saying, hey.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
You know forty fifty years ago, remember when they were
saying everything was cooling, that was actually not correct. That
was not the consensus out there. The consensus has always
been that we're going to see warming of the atmosphere
because of excessive CO two being put in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So we're seeing warming here on planet Earth. What are
some of the different impacts that we experience because of
that trend line?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So I'll start.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
We got lots there. I'll start in the ocean.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
We are seeing much higher seawater temperatures than in the past,
and it's having huge impacts. I'm sure your listeners have
heard about the crisis of coral reefs around the world
are facing coral bleaching and mass mortality events, and they're happening.
That thing is they happen and then sometimes the corals recover,
(15:03):
But if they keep happening over time, the corals have
less than and lesson of chance to recover. And it's
that chronic stress that has been really devastating coral reefs.
So coral reefs, the oceaning is becoming more acidic, you
are more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gets absorbed into
the ocean, it becomes more acidic, and that affects the
(15:24):
ability of organisms in the ocean to create skeletons of
calcium carbonate and just sort of the physical processes of
living like respiration and reproduction. So we're seeing a lot
of impacts in the ocean and see obviously sea level
rise from the melting of the land based glaciers and
(15:45):
ice caps is a huge issue, but there's also issues
of having a warmer atmosphere. One more that we'll go
to that is the thing that drives hurricanes or fuels them. Remember,
is ocean heat ocean heat content. The warmer the ocean,
the more intense that the hurricanes can get. And so Dave,
(16:05):
I'll I'll leave my passover to you.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
And the other thing that I'll add is to what
Ellen was saying about ocean heat content, and it also
goes down in the water column. So if you have
warmer sea surface temperatures, but that warm water goes down further,
it provides much more energy for high test fuel, if
you will, for hurricanes to feed upon. You know, in
(16:30):
the past, we could be pretty confident when a hurricane
would form and let's just say it slowed down near
the Bahamas or somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, it
would spin up and churn up cooler water underneath of
the storm if it moves slow. Well, what we're seeing
today is that the sea temperatures are so warm down
(16:52):
to a certain depth that the hurricane doesn't have time
to churn up cooler water and it just can con
tinues to strengthen. And one of the big impacts we're
seeing because of those sea surface temperatures being so warm.
As a matter of fact, there was a buoy in
the Gulf of Mexico that recorded a ninety five degree
water temperature not too long ago.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's just crazy.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I mean, when you get into the water and you think, wow,
this feels like a hot tub. It is extending all
the way out into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico,
which is just providing a ton of fuel energy for
these storms to form. But what we're also seeing and
what we're really concerned about, is that hurricanes can form
(17:36):
very quickly. And if you look back at the last
five Category four and five storms that hit made landfall
in the United States, they weren't even existing three days
ahead of time. They weren't a tropical storm, and they
weren't a tropical depression.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
They were just a mass of thunderstorms.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And three days later they're a Category four or Category
five hurricane.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And it's very, very difficult.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
You know, if you want to evacuate New Orleans, you
need seventy two hours to evacuate the city of New Orleans.
So when you have rapid, intensifying storms close to the coast,
that's a real that's a real nightmare.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And just to add to that, one of the other
things that's really important for people to understand is that
a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. And we've been seeing
all across the globe these incredible precipitation events and mass
quantis of water falling from the sky and then creating
these outrageous flooding events, and it's because the atmosphere is warmer.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by doctor Ellen Praeger, marine scientist
and chief Scientists at Storm Center Communications, and meteorologist Dave Jones,
CEO of Storm Center Communications. They are authors of the
new book Megalodon's Mermaids and Climate Change. Answers to your
ocean and atmosphere questions, which you can pre order now
on Amazon. So we just talked about rainfall, hurricanes, things
(19:06):
like that. Well, we're also seeing these droughts in different
places around the world, including different parts of the US.
How does that factor into all of this.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Yeah, that's a great question too, because droughts. As a
matter of fact, we're located in the Mid Atlantic area
in Annapolis. Just this past June, we had a wet June,
a wet first week of June, and then the last
three weeks and through July we hit a drought and
it's known as a flash drought where you have temperatures
(19:38):
that go up to one hundred degrees. We had four
days in a row in the Washington DC area of
temperatures at or above one hundred and one degrees.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
This isn't heat index, that's the actual temperature. Rain and
no rain, no rains.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
So that really stresses out a lot of the crops
and everything. And so what the droughts and heat waves
With a changing climate, we see that dry areas will
become drier, and wet areas are tending to become even wetter,
and so those people who have droughts, you know, in
(20:15):
the Southwest there, they already have a water crisis going on.
It looks like things are going to get even drier,
so they're going to have to work on serious conservation.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
I'm not sure how many golf.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Courses they're going to be able to to keep going
out there in the future.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Well, and one of the really interesting questions we sort
of answered in the book is what is the most
dangerous weather? And I think people are going to be
really surprised, but it's not you know, you would think, oh, hurricanes,
you know, snowstorms, wind, No, it's extreme heat. Extreme heat
(20:52):
kills thousands of people and it is now the most
dangerous weather sort of that for people, and it's getting worse.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And here's the thing about extreme heat.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
It is not on FEMA's list of reimbursable costs when
it impacts a city. So if we had temperatures of
one hundred like they did in Las Vegas, they hit
one hundred and twenty degrees for a high temperature a
couple of days in a row this year, and people
are seriously stressed, air conditioners break and there's just a
(21:29):
big impact. There is no way for the governor of
a state to declare a state of emergency for heat
and get federal reimbursement for how those cities can respond.
So that is something that we're hoping FEMA includes in
the future for a reimbursable costs.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
One thing that we've also seen, and you'll hear some
people say, the polar opposite of what we were just
talking about. Okay, the planet is getting warmer. We sometimes
during the winter we have these major snowstorms and cold spells.
How does that add up?
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah, that's that's a great question too.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And you know, I remember, I think a couple of
years ago, it was one of the senators.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
It was one of the senators in on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
We brought an ice snowball into Congress, into the Senate
and said, yeah, show me tell let's talk about global
warming here as he's throwing a snowball up and down. Well,
it gets back to your previous question, what's weather and
what's climate. So weather, we're always going to have weather
that means snowstorms, means hailstorms means snow flurries, it means
(22:46):
snow changing the rain and rain changing to snow. But
over the long term, we're having less snow, we might
have big events. So remember what Ellen said before, warmer
atmosphere holds more moisture. Well, if it happens to be
cold enough, it's going to dump a big snowstorm, and
(23:07):
that snow is tending not to stick around longer. Ski
resorts are having issues with keeping snow for their ski season.
And even though we have a warming atmosphere, we do
have parts of the globe that are very cold, like
up around the North Pole. It's although they've been warm
(23:29):
lately in the winter, it's very cold and the warm
air can squeeze up in the northern hemisphere up towards
the North Pole can squeeze and force a blob of
cold air southward. And that's why a couple of years ago,
I think the term polar vortex kind of hit the news.
(23:51):
That's because warm air replaced the cold air at the
North Pole and forced the polar vortex south and that's
why southern Canada much of the northeast US had temperatures
well below zero for many, many days and then until
it could recover and go back up towards the North Pole.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Doctor Prager, you mentioned the coral reefs earlier in terms
of the temperatures of the oceans, what about the rest
of the ecosystem, how is that impacted by what we're experiencing,
and what about their ability to adapt to these changes.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Adapt The question of adaptation for wildlife and humans is
a really good one because one of the questions we
get is how can we just can't adapt to it?
So for the animals in the ocean and for humans alike,
it's happening so quickly that organisms that can typically adapt
(24:53):
over time can't, including us. But in the ocean, what's happened.
What we're seeing is migrations of some animals. Animals that
can move from warmer into coil waters are already doing that.
But the problem is the animals like corals, that are
stuck on the bottom. They can't move, and that's where
you're seeing a big impact. And the expectations are they
(25:13):
we're going to see some extinctions, you know, massive extinctions
of those animals that can't move into different zones. And
in terms of humans, think about it. Our infrastructure and
the way we live has been built for a climate
that we no longer have, so you know, we are
we've run out of time to fix that and so
(25:33):
now we have to we have to adapt, mitigate, and
respond all at the same time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
What about conservation efforts While we're talking about our marine life,
how have we done there over the past couple of
decades protecting certain species including and people love Shark Week,
but there was a time where sharks were in a
very vulnerable state.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, unfortunately, there's still in a very vulnerable state. The
biggest issue with sharks is overfishing and incidental catches. In bycatch,
when people use huge nets and they basically are catching
everything in them, often you get sharks. It's called bycatch,
and so bycatch and overfishing is still decimating shark populations.
(26:20):
So the ocean wildlife is a huge risk from climate change,
the heat, but still from humans, I mean still from overfishing, pollution.
I'm sure you've seen all the stuff about microplastics in
the ocean and organisms that are swallowing plastics. These, you know,
these are all issues that compound on one another, one
of the you know, some you might hear some people
(26:42):
saying that we need to fix pollution and overfishing because
it makes the ocean less resilient to climate change.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Well, we have to fix them all.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You know, those are all huge problems.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Final question for you, obviously, climate change and everything connected
to it can become very political. Explain how you managed
to avoid that while making your case in this book.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So let me just say we left politics out of it. Well,
that's not what we're talking about here. We want to
talk about the science we talk about in the book
about the importance of asking questions and looking for data.
We're happy to debate with people, but they better bring
data to the table because that's what you need to
(27:26):
rely on and.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Not Uncle Joe.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And the data is very clear that the Earth is warming,
and it's warming at an accelerated pace due to increasing
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and some of the things.
People also ask us, what about volcanoes, you know, maybe
they're causing it. The data shows it's not volcanoes. What
about sun? Is it increased solar activity? And there's data
(27:55):
out there that shows in fact that if it was
the sun, the solar activity is actually decreasing over time,
and if it was just because the Sun, we would
be cooling. So, Brian, it's all about the data, and
what the data shows is that the Earth is warming
due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and it's warming
(28:19):
at accelerated pace.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And I'll just add to that Ryan as well, that
you know, when we're seeing these changes happening, and people
normally that probably wouldn't talk about the changes are talking
about it. They're saying, man, we're seeing all these wildfires
out west, and I don't remember it being this hot
(28:42):
for so long in the summer. You know, we're not
being We're our crops are impacted and things like that.
And so we don't just jump on them and say, Aha,
it's climate change. We talk to them about how are
they being impacted by these changes in the west that
they're seeing, and then what are they doing about it?
(29:04):
Some of them are changing crops totally. Other people who
are out west that experienced the wildfire nearby, now they're
vulnerable to flash floods because when it rains on those burnscars,
you have mudflows and debris flows, and it really impacts
an entire community.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Marine scientists and chief scientists. That's Storm Center Communications doctor
Ellen Prager and meteorologist Dave Jones, CEO of Storm Center Communications.
They are authors of the new book Megalodons, Mermaids and
Climate change answers to your ocean and atmosphere questions, which
you can pre order now on Amazon and elsewhere. Doctor Prager,
(29:42):
Dave Jones, thank you so much for taking a few
minutes to come on. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Thank you anytime.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
That's going to do it for this edition of Ihearidio Communities.
I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to you again
real soon.
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on
the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman.
Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities.
I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have an important conversation lined
up for you. My guests for this episode are marine
scientists and Storm Center Communications Chief scientist doctor Ellen Prager,
(00:22):
and meteorologist and CEO of Storm Center Communications Dave Jones,
authors of the new book Megaladon's Mermaids and Climate Change
Answers to your Ocean and Atmosphere Questions, which you can
pre order now on Amazon. Doctor Prager, Dave, thank you
so much for ticket a few minutes to come on
the show. And Doctor Prager, let me start with you.
Can you give us a summary of what you tackle
(00:44):
in this new book.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So we wrote the book in thinking about a lot
of the misinformation and misunderstandings that are out there about
the ocean, the atmosphere, hurricanes, climate change, and we thought, gosh,
you know, be great to combat that with real science.
But we didn't want to just write a textbook or
you know, put a bunch of data out there. So
(01:06):
we thought we would take the approach of using frequently
asked and sort of any questions that we and our
colleagues get related to those topics and use that as
the approach for the book. In addition, we got this
great graphic illustrator to cartoon like illustrations related to the
(01:27):
book and topics.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And Dave, what were some of the topics that you
felt it was important to address in this book.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Sure, well, I you know, I come from the weather side,
being a meteorologist, and I used to work for NBC
four in Washington, DC as a broadcast meteorologist through the nineties,
and so I would get a lot of very interesting
questions from viewers after I would finish the weather on.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
One such question was a lady, I think it was January.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I got off the air, and you know, I answered
the phone. She said, Dave, could you tell me I
watch you all the time. You guys are so accurate.
My daughter's getting married in July. Could you tell me
what weather you have scheduled?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Needless to say, we don't schedule the weather. So that's
one of them.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
And you know there are others, like when people look
up and see those contrails in the sky. Many people
think that they're not contrails. They're called chem trails, and
they're releasing spray to cloud our minds. So we think
a certain way, and it's something that the government is behind,
(02:37):
and that is certainly not the case.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Contrails are just condensation.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Clouds behind warm jet engines, and so we talk about
that as well.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And we have other topics like hurricanes and lightning, and
on my end, we have dangerous marine life. Of course,
you know all the questions about sharks and the deep.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Sea and core reefs.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And for me, one of my favorites is when I
give talks people. You know, one kid said, real smart
kids said, so you just said that we've only explored
something like ten percent of the ocean. How do you know,
meglodons are not still down there. So we come up,
we explained, sort of with a little bit of fun,
how we know they're not still alive. And I just
(03:23):
give you an example. Sharks produced about forty thousand teeth
every year and they, you know, they shed them, and
so that's why we find a lot of shark teeth.
And if there was still a giant shark with teeth
that were three inches long roaming around in the shallow seas,
because that's probably where they were eating. We would find
(03:43):
some of those teeth, but we've never found any megalodon
teeth that were not fossilized over a million years old,
So it's one way we know they're not swimming around
down there.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Let me follow up on that for a second, because
I think this is really interesting. Sometimes it feels like
we know more about outer space in the universe than
we do about our own oceans here on Earth. How
much do we know, especially the deeper and deeper you
get in our major oceans.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So that's a great question, and you know that you
here often here people say we've mapped more of the
Moon than our own oceans, and the estimate is in
and out. It's maybe maybe you know, five to ten
percent have we have, you know, it's the only amount
that we've explored, But if you actually look at how
much we've seen firsthand, it's like point, I can't remember,
(04:34):
it's not like one percent. So using robots and side scan,
so owner, sure we have seen, you know, less than
ten percent of the ocean, but if you look at
how much we've actually seen in person, it's even less.
So there is still so much to be explored in
the ocean. And remember it's a three D environment. It's
(04:55):
not just the sea floor, it's also what you get
what's in the water from the seafloor up to the ocean.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined now by marine scientists and Storm
Center Communications Chief Scientist, doctor Allen Praeger, and meteorologists and
CEO of Storm Center Communications Dave Jones, author of the
new book Megalodon's Mermaids and Climate Change, answers to your
ocean and atmosphere questions. So one more question on this topic.
Do we think there's a lot of activity deep in
(05:23):
our oceans or is most of it happening closer to
the shore.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Sre We know that the near the coastline is probably
the most productive areas in the ocean, and that's why
that's why you find most of the fish. That's why
we think megaladons we're feeding near shorcus. It's the most productive.
But what we've also discovered is that even in the
deep sea there are places that are highly productive, like
at the deep sea hydro thermal events, where unfortunately whales
(05:51):
might dians sink down. That's a hotbed of activity. So
even in the deep ocean, there are places where it
is very active active. Then for many, many years we
even thought.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
About Dave, let me turn to you, how often did
you get asked the question as a meteorologist. You know,
you said, it's a thirty percent chance of rain. It
didn't rain where I was, and what is that percentage?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
What?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Yeah, that's a great question when there's a lot of
people want to know, should I take my umbrella or
shouldn't I?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And you know, my advice was always, hey, look.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
If you're gonna be embarrassed because you got caught by
a rain shower and you didn't take it, then take it.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Uh, make sure you have it in your car.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
But when you have a thirty percent chance of rain,
it basically means that, you know, if if you're given
a one hundred square mile area, then there is a
thirty percent chance it's going to rain in that area, right,
So so it's not a big chance, it's just a
smaller chance. If you have a fifty percent chance of rain,
(06:56):
then you'll see rain in half of those areas. So
it really is you know, the challenging thing is that
folks at the National Weather Service are are providing much
more of their data in such a way that it
can be described in percentage fashion, which I think might
(07:19):
get a little bit more complicated for people to understand,
because you know, the measure of uncertainty is what we
want to communicate.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Right, nothing is exact.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I can't tell you what the high temperature is going
to be three days from now to the tenth of
a degree because it varies all around every city.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
You know, the temperature.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Varies, and one change in one place has big impact
somewhere else. You know. One of the things we talk
about in the book are weather apps. Dave, do you
have anything to say about those those weather apps that.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
People weather apps?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Well, you know, weather apps are very what we call deterministic.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
They'll tell you exactly what the when the rain is
going to start.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
It's going to start at four twenty one, you know,
two days from now, and that's all based on modeling
models that those private weather companies might have or whatever.
But it does it's not accurate, right, So when you
look look at those weather apps, it makes you feel
(08:26):
like things are much more accurate out the five and
seven days and ten days, but it's really not. And
that's why people still turn to their local meteorologists on
television or look at the National Weather Service forecast because
it's much it's explained a lot better.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Is there another aspect of the day to day weather
forecast the meteorologists deliver to us that you find is
often misunderstood by those consuming that information.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Well, there's always the uh, is it going to be
partly cloudy or partly sunny?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
That's something that people don't quite understand.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
To make it easy, I always use partly sunny during
the day if there's going to be you know, some
clouds around and partly cloudy at night. But you know,
even if we as we get you know, more serious
about extreme weather, there's a lot of work that needs
to be done in making people respond to threats that
are approaching, like hurricanes, storm surge, extreme rainfall where people
(09:33):
need to move out of the way when these storms
are getting close to land. That is something that is
still work under progress, and a lot of social science
is being brought into that picture.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And on that note, because we are in hurricane season
right now and unfortunate Lamp had to cover so many
over the years. The key thing to remember and please
correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I have
this right. You want to run from the water and
hide from the wind in terms of evacuations.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, that's right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
And we're saying because of a changing climate, higher sea levels,
they're rising in some cases faster than we thought that
it makes those coastlines more vulnerable, and flooding is happening
more frequently, and it's reaching further inland.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
We're joined right now by doctor Ellen Prager, marine scientist
and chief scientists at Storm Center Communications, and meteorologist Dave Jones,
CEO of Storm Center Communications. They're the authors of the
new book Megalodons, Mermaids and Climate Change Answers to Your
Ocean and Atmosphere Questions, which you can pre order now
on Amazon or wherever you get your books. Now, doctor Prager,
(10:57):
since they've just mentioned climate change, let's get to that.
First of all, what is the difference between climate and weather?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So weather is what's happening.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
We'll make sure, day will.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I'm going to look at Dave and see if he's
nodding like I'm right.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Okay, you're right so far, yeah, so far.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
But weather is what happens day to day. So the
easy way to think about it, and climate is typically
longer term and on the order of like thirty years
or what are the trends? So it's not about how
hot summer is today, it's how much hotter it is
today than it's been in the past. That's what climate is.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
And you can also you can also think of it
too that climate is what you expect and weather is
what you get.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So what have we seen in terms of the trend
line and has there been a good track record in
predicting where we are today or have some of those
past predictions and projections turned out to be so accurate?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Well jointly answered this one. I'll start and then I'll
pass it over to Dave. Very clearly, the trends are
matching what the models predicted in terms of increasing temperatures
across the globe and in seawater temperature. So they have
gotten that right, and they've actually done studies to assess
the accuracy now so they can get the trends. Those
(12:24):
models can't predict when we're going to have an extreme
rainfall or what the strength of a hurricane is going
to be. I will tell you that in talking to
a lot of scientists who have been studying things like
the melting of the glaciers and ice caps, and I
think the thing that people have maybe gotten wrong in
the past is that it's happening faster than they thought
(12:47):
it would.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
You know, the research and researchers typically in the environment
climate area are fairly conservative. They don't want to talk
about any big extremes happening down the road. But what
we're saying is that that sea levels are rising faster.
You know, Greenland is losing a whole bunch of ice
(13:10):
every year. It's rushing down into the ocean. And one
of the things that you know, when we were writing
the book I thought was very fascinating was, you know,
many many years ago in the seventies, scientists, there was
a Time magazine article. On the cover of the Time magazine,
it said something about the.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Global Warming Survival Guide.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Global Warming Survival Guide. But what happened is someone doctored
the cover and called it the Global Cooling Survival Guide,
and that is what got media's attention. And so when
you look back, and this is some of the research
(13:55):
that we did. When you look back, it was only
a few media organizations that that put that out.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But that is what's stuck. And when you hear people saying, hey.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
You know forty fifty years ago, remember when they were
saying everything was cooling, that was actually not correct. That
was not the consensus out there. The consensus has always
been that we're going to see warming of the atmosphere
because of excessive CO two being put in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So we're seeing warming here on planet Earth. What are
some of the different impacts that we experience because of
that trend line?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So I'll start.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
We got lots there. I'll start in the ocean.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
We are seeing much higher seawater temperatures than in the past,
and it's having huge impacts. I'm sure your listeners have
heard about the crisis of coral reefs around the world
are facing coral bleaching and mass mortality events, and they're happening.
That thing is they happen and then sometimes the corals recover,
(15:03):
But if they keep happening over time, the corals have
less than and lesson of chance to recover. And it's
that chronic stress that has been really devastating coral reefs.
So coral reefs, the oceaning is becoming more acidic, you
are more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gets absorbed into
the ocean, it becomes more acidic, and that affects the
(15:24):
ability of organisms in the ocean to create skeletons of
calcium carbonate and just sort of the physical processes of
living like respiration and reproduction. So we're seeing a lot
of impacts in the ocean and see obviously sea level
rise from the melting of the land based glaciers and
(15:45):
ice caps is a huge issue, but there's also issues
of having a warmer atmosphere. One more that we'll go
to that is the thing that drives hurricanes or fuels them. Remember,
is ocean heat ocean heat content. The warmer the ocean,
the more intense that the hurricanes can get. And so Dave,
(16:05):
I'll I'll leave my passover to you.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
And the other thing that I'll add is to what
Ellen was saying about ocean heat content, and it also
goes down in the water column. So if you have
warmer sea surface temperatures, but that warm water goes down further,
it provides much more energy for high test fuel, if
you will, for hurricanes to feed upon. You know, in
(16:30):
the past, we could be pretty confident when a hurricane
would form and let's just say it slowed down near
the Bahamas or somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, it
would spin up and churn up cooler water underneath of
the storm if it moves slow. Well, what we're seeing
today is that the sea temperatures are so warm down
(16:52):
to a certain depth that the hurricane doesn't have time
to churn up cooler water and it just can con
tinues to strengthen. And one of the big impacts we're
seeing because of those sea surface temperatures being so warm.
As a matter of fact, there was a buoy in
the Gulf of Mexico that recorded a ninety five degree
water temperature not too long ago.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's just crazy.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I mean, when you get into the water and you think, wow,
this feels like a hot tub. It is extending all
the way out into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico,
which is just providing a ton of fuel energy for
these storms to form. But what we're also seeing and
what we're really concerned about, is that hurricanes can form
(17:36):
very quickly. And if you look back at the last
five Category four and five storms that hit made landfall
in the United States, they weren't even existing three days
ahead of time. They weren't a tropical storm, and they
weren't a tropical depression.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
They were just a mass of thunderstorms.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And three days later they're a Category four or Category
five hurricane.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And it's very, very difficult.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
You know, if you want to evacuate New Orleans, you
need seventy two hours to evacuate the city of New Orleans.
So when you have rapid, intensifying storms close to the coast,
that's a real that's a real nightmare.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And just to add to that, one of the other
things that's really important for people to understand is that
a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. And we've been seeing
all across the globe these incredible precipitation events and mass
quantis of water falling from the sky and then creating
these outrageous flooding events, and it's because the atmosphere is warmer.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by doctor Ellen Praeger, marine scientist
and chief Scientists at Storm Center Communications, and meteorologist Dave Jones,
CEO of Storm Center Communications. They are authors of the
new book Megalodon's Mermaids and Climate Change. Answers to your
ocean and atmosphere questions, which you can pre order now
on Amazon. So we just talked about rainfall, hurricanes, things
(19:06):
like that. Well, we're also seeing these droughts in different
places around the world, including different parts of the US.
How does that factor into all of this.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Yeah, that's a great question too, because droughts. As a
matter of fact, we're located in the Mid Atlantic area
in Annapolis. Just this past June, we had a wet June,
a wet first week of June, and then the last
three weeks and through July we hit a drought and
it's known as a flash drought where you have temperatures
(19:38):
that go up to one hundred degrees. We had four
days in a row in the Washington DC area of
temperatures at or above one hundred and one degrees.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
This isn't heat index, that's the actual temperature. Rain and
no rain, no rains.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
So that really stresses out a lot of the crops
and everything. And so what the droughts and heat waves
With a changing climate, we see that dry areas will
become drier, and wet areas are tending to become even wetter,
and so those people who have droughts, you know, in
(20:15):
the Southwest there, they already have a water crisis going on.
It looks like things are going to get even drier,
so they're going to have to work on serious conservation.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
I'm not sure how many golf.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Courses they're going to be able to to keep going
out there in the future.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Well, and one of the really interesting questions we sort
of answered in the book is what is the most
dangerous weather? And I think people are going to be
really surprised, but it's not you know, you would think, oh, hurricanes,
you know, snowstorms, wind, No, it's extreme heat. Extreme heat
(20:52):
kills thousands of people and it is now the most
dangerous weather sort of that for people, and it's getting worse.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And here's the thing about extreme heat.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
It is not on FEMA's list of reimbursable costs when
it impacts a city. So if we had temperatures of
one hundred like they did in Las Vegas, they hit
one hundred and twenty degrees for a high temperature a
couple of days in a row this year, and people
are seriously stressed, air conditioners break and there's just a
(21:29):
big impact. There is no way for the governor of
a state to declare a state of emergency for heat
and get federal reimbursement for how those cities can respond.
So that is something that we're hoping FEMA includes in
the future for a reimbursable costs.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
One thing that we've also seen, and you'll hear some
people say, the polar opposite of what we were just
talking about. Okay, the planet is getting warmer. We sometimes
during the winter we have these major snowstorms and cold spells.
How does that add up?
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah, that's that's a great question too.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And you know, I remember, I think a couple of
years ago, it was one of the senators.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
It was one of the senators in on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
We brought an ice snowball into Congress, into the Senate
and said, yeah, show me tell let's talk about global
warming here as he's throwing a snowball up and down. Well,
it gets back to your previous question, what's weather and
what's climate. So weather, we're always going to have weather
that means snowstorms, means hailstorms means snow flurries, it means
(22:46):
snow changing the rain and rain changing to snow. But
over the long term, we're having less snow, we might
have big events. So remember what Ellen said before, warmer
atmosphere holds more moisture. Well, if it happens to be
cold enough, it's going to dump a big snowstorm, and
(23:07):
that snow is tending not to stick around longer. Ski
resorts are having issues with keeping snow for their ski season.
And even though we have a warming atmosphere, we do
have parts of the globe that are very cold, like
up around the North Pole. It's although they've been warm
(23:29):
lately in the winter, it's very cold and the warm
air can squeeze up in the northern hemisphere up towards
the North Pole can squeeze and force a blob of
cold air southward. And that's why a couple of years ago,
I think the term polar vortex kind of hit the news.
(23:51):
That's because warm air replaced the cold air at the
North Pole and forced the polar vortex south and that's
why southern Canada much of the northeast US had temperatures
well below zero for many, many days and then until
it could recover and go back up towards the North Pole.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Doctor Prager, you mentioned the coral reefs earlier in terms
of the temperatures of the oceans, what about the rest
of the ecosystem, how is that impacted by what we're experiencing,
and what about their ability to adapt to these changes.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Adapt The question of adaptation for wildlife and humans is
a really good one because one of the questions we
get is how can we just can't adapt to it?
So for the animals in the ocean and for humans alike,
it's happening so quickly that organisms that can typically adapt
(24:53):
over time can't, including us. But in the ocean, what's happened.
What we're seeing is migrations of some animals. Animals that
can move from warmer into coil waters are already doing that.
But the problem is the animals like corals, that are
stuck on the bottom. They can't move, and that's where
you're seeing a big impact. And the expectations are they
(25:13):
we're going to see some extinctions, you know, massive extinctions
of those animals that can't move into different zones. And
in terms of humans, think about it. Our infrastructure and
the way we live has been built for a climate
that we no longer have, so you know, we are
we've run out of time to fix that and so
(25:33):
now we have to we have to adapt, mitigate, and
respond all at the same time.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
What about conservation efforts While we're talking about our marine life,
how have we done there over the past couple of
decades protecting certain species including and people love Shark Week,
but there was a time where sharks were in a
very vulnerable state.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, unfortunately, there's still in a very vulnerable state. The
biggest issue with sharks is overfishing and incidental catches. In bycatch,
when people use huge nets and they basically are catching
everything in them, often you get sharks. It's called bycatch,
and so bycatch and overfishing is still decimating shark populations.
(26:20):
So the ocean wildlife is a huge risk from climate change,
the heat, but still from humans, I mean still from overfishing, pollution.
I'm sure you've seen all the stuff about microplastics in
the ocean and organisms that are swallowing plastics. These, you know,
these are all issues that compound on one another, one
of the you know, some you might hear some people
(26:42):
saying that we need to fix pollution and overfishing because
it makes the ocean less resilient to climate change.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Well, we have to fix them all.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You know, those are all huge problems.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Final question for you, obviously, climate change and everything connected
to it can become very political. Explain how you managed
to avoid that while making your case in this book.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So let me just say we left politics out of it. Well,
that's not what we're talking about here. We want to
talk about the science we talk about in the book
about the importance of asking questions and looking for data.
We're happy to debate with people, but they better bring
data to the table because that's what you need to
(27:26):
rely on and.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Not Uncle Joe.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And the data is very clear that the Earth is warming,
and it's warming at an accelerated pace due to increasing
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and some of the things.
People also ask us, what about volcanoes, you know, maybe
they're causing it. The data shows it's not volcanoes. What
about sun? Is it increased solar activity? And there's data
(27:55):
out there that shows in fact that if it was
the sun, the solar activity is actually decreasing over time,
and if it was just because the Sun, we would
be cooling. So, Brian, it's all about the data, and
what the data shows is that the Earth is warming
due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and it's warming
(28:19):
at accelerated pace.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And I'll just add to that Ryan as well, that
you know, when we're seeing these changes happening, and people
normally that probably wouldn't talk about the changes are talking
about it. They're saying, man, we're seeing all these wildfires
out west, and I don't remember it being this hot
(28:42):
for so long in the summer. You know, we're not
being We're our crops are impacted and things like that.
And so we don't just jump on them and say, Aha,
it's climate change. We talk to them about how are
they being impacted by these changes in the west that
they're seeing, and then what are they doing about it?
(29:04):
Some of them are changing crops totally. Other people who
are out west that experienced the wildfire nearby, now they're
vulnerable to flash floods because when it rains on those burnscars,
you have mudflows and debris flows, and it really impacts
an entire community.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Marine scientists and chief scientists. That's Storm Center Communications doctor
Ellen Prager and meteorologist Dave Jones, CEO of Storm Center Communications.
They are authors of the new book Megalodons, Mermaids and
Climate change answers to your ocean and atmosphere questions, which
you can pre order now on Amazon and elsewhere. Doctor Prager,
(29:42):
Dave Jones, thank you so much for taking a few
minutes to come on. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Thank you anytime.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
That's going to do it for this edition of Ihearidio Communities.
I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to you again
real soon.
Host
Manny Munoz
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