기후 변화 와 자연재해 - 고든 맥 빈 박사 인터뷰 
 기후 변화 와 자연재해 - 고든 맥 빈 박사 인터뷰 2 부 
 Hallo , eco - friendly viewers . Today ’ s Planet Earth : Our Loving Home features an interview with Dr . Gordon McBean , a distinguished scientist from the University of Western Ontario in Canada . Professor McBean received his PhD in Oceanography from the University of British Columbia , Canada . 
 He has been honored with many distinguished awards , including MSC Patterson Medal , CMOS President ’ s Prize , EC Jim Bruce Award . As a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada , the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the American Meteorological Society , he has also chaired and attended numerous international and national science committees . We now present Dr . McBean ’ s discussion the natural hazards caused by climate change . 
 SUPREME MASTER TV : Could you give us an overview on climate change ? 
 SUPREME MASTER TV : So , what are some of the risks or the effects of climate change ? 
 In the developing countries where they have less capacity , they would be even more impacted , because widely speaking , they ’ re more , at risk to begin with . We will have more droughts in areas where droughts already happened . They will be stronger in the sense of the duration and the magnitude of dryness will be larger in the future , particularly in some tropical zones around North Africa , around the Mediterranean , through parts of the Caribbean areas , parts of South Asia where drought is already a problem . That will become more pronounced . The general expectation is we will not see more hurricanes or typhoons as they are called in most of the world . But what we will see is the percentage of those that are in the category - four and five - type hurricanes / typhoons will be a higher fraction . In other words , the hurricanes with high peak wind velocities , high peak precipitation intensities , those fractions will go up . For every hundred hurricanes , typhoons , a greater fraction of those will be in the high categories again . 
 HOST : As a matter of fact , scientists have found that more intense hurricanes have already begun to happen . 
 But as we warm the climate , the warm water expanse will move in both ways away from the equator . So we will have a larger area in the North Atlantic , from which you can generate hurricanes , and you will have an area in the South Atlantic , which previously was very small , now becoming substantial in creating a zone of hurricanes there . SUPREME MASTER TV : So , you say they will go by geography ? Prof . McBean : In both . In the areas where they have them now , we ’ ll still get them , and there will be some zones that previously didn ' t get hurricanes because it wasn ' t warm enough will start getting them . 
 Prof . McBean : We can take action now to prevent the climate of the future from being much worse than it will be if we as humans take action . And it really needs to be a global collection of activities around the world . We need to work together between countries , with the developed countries taking the lead , to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases and at the same time to put in place strategies to reduce the impacts of the hazards , the disasters that are happening as the climate changes . 
 SUPREME MASTER TV : Let ' s look at the human impact of climate change . 
 SUPREME MASTER TV : I know as a grandfather , you are pretty concerned about how our kids will fare with climate change and the effects of climate change . 
 Prof . McBean : Yes . We are very much , leaving a very sad legacy for our children and grandchildren who , in a sense , will be inheriting from us a much more unlivable , dangerous climate than we had and that we inherited from our parents and grandparents . They gave us some of it , but we are adding immensely to this , this load of greenhouse , extra - fossil - based greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and with it a changed climate , such that the opportunities that we ’ ve had or some of us have had won ' t be so easily taken in the future The issue of the relationship between what we do and what we leave for our children and grandchildren , but also international equity . I have a nice satellite image of the Earth with Africa at the center because in many ways Africa will be the most impacted of the continents . It is the one where there is least capacity in many areas to take the stress of additional climate change and because it is already under stress , and as you increase the drought conditions both north and south of the equator there will be very large impacts there , as well as parts of Asia . 
 Last week , Dr . McBean discussed in - depth about natural hazards related to global warming . On today ’ s program , he continues with a look at the growing awareness of governments and the public toward climate change . 
 SUPREME MASTER TV : Let ' s look at the world governments on climate change . 
 Prof . McBean : I think it ' s interesting . There are governments that from the beginning have had a good , strong understanding of this . Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom , who was a conservative , but she was also a chemist . I never personally ever met her , but my colleagues who do the same kind of thing I was doing then in the United Kingdom , spent hours with her discussing this , going over with her so she could understand , and one result is the United Kingdom has been from the beginning a leader both in support of the science to better understand things , but also in actions on emission reductions and those kind of strategies . You get in some other countries similar kinds of leaders . And it has been rather interesting in the Canadian scene . We ’ ve had , up until , well early 2007 , if you did an opinion poll of the Canadian population , environment was just one of those down in the bottom group of things . Maybe one in ten persons identified it as an important issue . And for a variety of factors , storms that happened in Canada , Katrina and other terrible events that happened around the world , maybe some of the IPCC report perhaps by the time we got to mid - late 2007 , if you asked Canadians , they said repeatedly in polls that environment was the number one issue on their mind . It was the biggest issue of concern and within the environment climate change was the number one issue on their mind . SUPREME MASTER TV : Right . 
 Prof . McBean : So we ’ re seeing now , in countries , because of the number of climate - related events that have been happening , the statements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , I think the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize is interesting in that context . All of these things coming together in ways that citizens are saying , and so that in democracies there is now more of an interest in action in Canada , in the United States , certainly at the state level in the United States , in California , in the New England states and some others . In Europe , it ' s been there for awhile . Within the European Union as a collectivity , they have been willing to take statements , make judgments , put in place policies to take action on climate change . 
 SUPREME MASTER TV : Some scientists are predicting within two years , if we don ’ t fix , the ice melting in the Arctic . 
 Prof . McBean : The question on the ice is one of concern . What we talk about in the scientific way , what we call tipping points , or irreversible situations , and one of the tipping points is the melting of the Greenland ice sheet in the sense that once you go past a certain point of melting , then it becomes a process that is self - perpetuating . There is basically nothing you can do about it . 
 SUPREME MASTER TV : What is that process ? 
 Prof . McBean : The atmosphere is warmer near the surface where we live and it gets colder as we go aloft . So , think of the Greenland ice sheet as a huge chunk of ice , the top of it , which is a few kilometers high , is high up in the atmosphere where it is cold . So , we take a process by which we melt the top part of that ice . When we melt it , we actually lower it down a bit . The top is no longer as high . It ’ s now in a bit warmer air , so it ' s got some little more warm air to suck from , and it goes again and again and again and again , and it ' s a process that some modelers have argued , and I respect their judgments on this , is that you could with another degree or perhaps two degrees , warming globally translating into what that means over Greenland , result in the starting of this process by which it is a continual melting and then the question is , how fast it melts . 
 Two and a half years ago or so , I guess , I was contacted by the Norwegian Embassy in Washington and asked if I would go to Washington to speak in the open session in the U . S . Senate buildings so we had a session and the fourth speaker in a series of several was Dr . James Hansen , who was then , and I believe still is the director of one of the U . S . major government research labs , the Goddard Institute for Space Studies . And Professor Hansen , who is a very outstanding climate scientist modeler stood up and said , first of all he wanted to emphasize he was speaking as a private citizen , not as director of the U . S . government laboratory , which he was , and he then talked about the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and in his view , we could be only a degree away from the irreversible starting of this process , and he said , “ I don ' t know how long it will take once it starts , but once it starts , we won ' t be able to … . there ' s nothing we can do to stop it and it would result in global sea level rises of six to seven meters . ” Now , six to seven meters as he noted , roughly , half of Florida is under water . New York City , that ' s where the Al Gore part of the movie came from , An Inconvenient Truth . I was in Thailand in November we flew in over into Bangkok Airport . It really showed to me that the level , most of that area from the shoreline of the ocean into the city was basically at sea level and didn ' t need to have very much rise and that would all be under water . I know the Mekong Delta and many other parts and countries will disappear with that kind of sea level rise , well before seven meters . It would start disappearing within a meter or so . HOST : You ’ re watching Planet Earth : Our Loving Home on Supreme Master Television . 
 He explains how warming waters has the potential to release methane hydrates from the ocean floors and permafrost layers . 
 Prof . McBean : The ice is already warm . Warm water under the ice in the Arctic Ocean comes from the North Atlantic . It comes up through , between Iceland and Greenland , east of Iceland , into a depth . It ' s traveling underneath the water , that at the surface it ’ s coming out it goes in , and if that water got warmer , then you could start releasing some of these methyl hydrates . 
 HOST : Forests are known as carbon dioxide sinks for removing CO 2 from the atmosphere . The boreal forests of Canada store as much as 80 % of the total carbon in the soils . Dr . McBean explains clearly how oceans have always been effective carbon sinks as well , however , that will change if ocean waters continue to warm . 
 Prof . McBean : Some people occasionally ask me how I get up in the morning , because I always talk about all the gloom and doom stuff , and I think that unfortunately , we do have a lot of gloom and doom ahead of us , but I ' m also trying to take a more positive view that in the end humanity hopefully will pull together , we will see the wisdom of what we should be doing and the benefits of that in a global way , so that we can , collectively address the issue before it becomes too late . I don ' t think it is yet too late . I think there is basis for still taking action , moving together , but it has to be an effort that is motivated and driven by those with the capacity to help the global community .