The authoritative guide to ensuring science and technology make life on Earth better, not worse.

DIGITAL MAGAZINE

May 2020

DIGITAL MAGAZINE

May 2020

Cover design by Thomas Gaulkin

The climate change evidence right before our eyes. And a note on COVID-19

By John Mecklin

For this issue of the Bulletin, I decided to try what I call the “so deny this” approach, asking our authors to offer concrete, indisputable evidence that climate change is happening right now, right before our eyes, along with clear explanations of why that physical evidence can’t reasonably be explained, except as a result of warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The climate change evidence right before our eyes. And a note on COVID-19

By John Mecklin

For this issue of the Bulletin, I decided to try what I call the “so deny this” approach, asking our authors to offer concrete, indisputable evidence that climate change is happening right now, right before our eyes, along with clear explanations of why that physical evidence can’t reasonably be explained, except as a result of warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
Known as pyramid tents or Scott tents, they’re essentially the same tent design used by the original polar explorers a hundred years ago, capable of withstanding winds of up to 70 miles per hour. “They’re just so good, they got the design perfect,” says the author. Image courtesy of Peter Davis.

Peter Davis of the British Antarctic Survey on changes in the Thwaites Glacier

By Dan Drollette Jr

On the Thwaites Glacier on Antarctica’s western shelf, researchers are going all-out to learn what is happening deep under the surface of the ice, out of sight: How much is melting from below, where the ice comes into contact with warm ocean waters? Is the ice relatively solid throughout and resting solidly on the seabed, or is it about to slip off and dramatically raise the world’s sea levels?
The Alaska National Guard has been used to fight extensive Alaskan wildfires. (Photo by Sherman Hogue/Fort Wainwright Public Affairs Office.)

Brian Brettschneider: How climate change has already arrived in the Arctic

By John Krzyzaniak

Brian Brettschneider says that the last few years have brought not only major events such as record-low sea ice in the Bering Sea and unprecedented Arctic wildfires, but also changes that are perhaps less stark, such as shifting tree lines, glacial melt, and changing vegetation.
A forest test plot, where snow was removed to see the effects of the lack of this insulating blanket. (Image courtesy of Pamela Templer.)

Shorter, warmer winters, less snow. What next? Q&A with biologist Pamela Templer

By Dan Drollette Jr

Decades of data collected at the nation’s experimental forests show that the winters are getting shorter and warmer, meaning that there will be less snow to protect the microfauna and microflora below. To find out what this could mean for New England’s forests, biologist Pamela Templer of Boston University and her team have been conducting experiments to see what climate change has in store for the future of the forest floor.

How we know the Earth is warming and humans are responsible

By Dana Nuccitelli

Only two-thirds of Americans are confident in the knowledge that global warming is happening, and a bare majority understand that it’s mostly caused by human activities. One-third of Americans continue to believe that global warming is mostly natural. In reality, the scientific evidence demonstrating that global warming is happening and human-caused is overwhelming, which is why there is a 90 to 100 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming.
Hampton Roads. (Photo by Copernicus Sentinel-2, ESA.)

Sea level rise and beyond: Is the US military prepared for climate change?

By Joan VanDervort

Climate change has already wrought economic and physical havoc on US military bases. In Hampton Roads, an area of Virginia described by some as the greatest concentration of military might in the world, rising sea levels and worsening storms threaten basic operations. Elsewhere wildfires and melting permafrost limit the types of operations the military can conduct, affecting its ability to respond to conflicts and humanitarian disasters. While the military has commissioned studies and funded resilience efforts, climate change impacts continue to grow more serious and more difficult to address.
One conception of using lasers to power a spacecraft. (Image courtesy Breakthrough Initiatives at: https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/3)

Reaching for the stars: The case for cooperative governance of directed energy technologies

By Joan Johnson-Freese, Nikola Schmidt

The kind of advances in spaceflight envisioned in the mid-twentieth century have largely failed to materialize, thereby limiting space exploration to relatively small areas of a very large galaxy. That will change with the advent of directed energy technologies, specifically laser propulsion. The privately funded Breakthrough Starshot program is already working on such a propulsion system to carry nanosatellite Star Chips to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. But powerful lasers—a dual-use technology much like rocketry, nuclear energy, and cyber technology, which have both security-related and civilian uses—have been largely stigmatized as weapons.
Known as pyramid tents or Scott tents, they’re essentially the same tent design used by the original polar explorers a hundred years ago, capable of withstanding winds of up to 70 miles per hour. “They’re just so good, they got the design perfect,” says the author. Image courtesy of Peter Davis.

Peter Davis of the British Antarctic Survey on changes in the Thwaites Glacier

By Dan Drollette Jr

On the Thwaites Glacier on Antarctica’s western shelf, researchers are going all-out to learn what is happening deep under the surface of the ice, out of sight: How much is melting from below, where the ice comes into contact with warm ocean waters? Is the ice relatively solid throughout and resting solidly on the seabed, or is it about to slip off and dramatically raise the world’s sea levels?
The Alaska National Guard has been used to fight extensive Alaskan wildfires. (Photo by Sherman Hogue/Fort Wainwright Public Affairs Office.)

Brian Brettschneider: How climate change has already arrived in the Arctic

By John Krzyzaniak

Brian Brettschneider says that the last few years have brought not only major events such as record-low sea ice in the Bering Sea and unprecedented Arctic wildfires, but also changes that are perhaps less stark, such as shifting tree lines, glacial melt, and changing vegetation.
A forest test plot, where snow was removed to see the effects of the lack of this insulating blanket. (Image courtesy of Pamela Templer.)

Shorter, warmer winters, less snow. What next? Q&A with biologist Pamela Templer

By Dan Drollette Jr

Decades of data collected at the nation’s experimental forests show that the winters are getting shorter and warmer, meaning that there will be less snow to protect the microfauna and microflora below. To find out what this could mean for New England’s forests, biologist Pamela Templer of Boston University and her team have been conducting experiments to see what climate change has in store for the future of the forest floor.

How we know the Earth is warming and humans are responsible

By Dana Nuccitelli

Only two-thirds of Americans are confident in the knowledge that global warming is happening, and a bare majority understand that it’s mostly caused by human activities. One-third of Americans continue to believe that global warming is mostly natural. In reality, the scientific evidence demonstrating that global warming is happening and human-caused is overwhelming, which is why there is a 90 to 100 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming.
Hampton Roads. (Photo by Copernicus Sentinel-2, ESA.)

Sea level rise and beyond: Is the US military prepared for climate change?

By Joan VanDervort

Climate change has already wrought economic and physical havoc on US military bases. In Hampton Roads, an area of Virginia described by some as the greatest concentration of military might in the world, rising sea levels and worsening storms threaten basic operations. Elsewhere wildfires and melting permafrost limit the types of operations the military can conduct, affecting its ability to respond to conflicts and humanitarian disasters. While the military has commissioned studies and funded resilience efforts, climate change impacts continue to grow more serious and more difficult to address.
One conception of using lasers to power a spacecraft. (Image courtesy Breakthrough Initiatives at: https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/3)

Reaching for the stars: The case for cooperative governance of directed energy technologies

By Joan Johnson-Freese, Nikola Schmidt

The kind of advances in spaceflight envisioned in the mid-twentieth century have largely failed to materialize, thereby limiting space exploration to relatively small areas of a very large galaxy. That will change with the advent of directed energy technologies, specifically laser propulsion. The privately funded Breakthrough Starshot program is already working on such a propulsion system to carry nanosatellite Star Chips to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. But powerful lasers—a dual-use technology much like rocketry, nuclear energy, and cyber technology, which have both security-related and civilian uses—have been largely stigmatized as weapons.

Cover design by Thomas Gaulkin

Subscribe now

We've relaunched the Bulletin's award-winning digital magazine. Get premium access for less than $5 a month.

Subscribe

Magazine archive

November 2024

September 2024

July 2024

May 2024

March 2024

January 2024

November 2024

September 2024

July 2024

May 2024

March 2024

January 2024

November 2023

September 2023

July 2023

May 2023

March 2023

January 2023

Albert Einstein in Washington, D.C., between 1921 and 1923. Harris & Ewing, photographers. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016885961/

Premium subscribers can read the complete Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ archive, which contains every article published since our founding in 1945.

This archive was created in honor of John A. Simpson, one of the Bulletin’s principal founders and a longtime member of its Board of Sponsors. This searchable archive provides exclusive online access to original interviews and commentary by luminaries like Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ruth Adams, John F. Kennedy, Stephen Hawking, Christine Todd Whitman, US Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, and multiple Nobel laureates.

Explore the archive

Over 75 years of magazine covers

February 1978

September - October 1995

August - September 1986

October 1978

December 1991

July - August 1997

View all covers