What's a Few Degrees?

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2022

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brace yourself for heatwave “Lucifer.” Dangerous deadly heatwaves may soon be so common that we give them names, just like hurricanes. This is one of the dramatic consequences of just a few degrees rise in average temperatures. Also coming: Massive heat “blobs” that form in the oceans and damage marine life, and powerful windstorms called “derechos” pummeling the Midwest. Plus, are fungal pathogens adapting to hotter temperatures and breaching the 98.6 F thermal barrier that keeps them from infecting us? Guests: Kathy Baughman McLeod – director and senior vice president of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at The Atlantic Council Pippa Moore – Marine ecologist at Newcastle University in the U.K. Ted Derouin – Michigan farmer Jeff Dukes – Ecologist and director of Purdue Climate Change Research Center at Purdue University. Arturo Casadevall – Molecular microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Originally aired October 19, 2020 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.2	I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Safeguarding Sound Science, Evolution Edition.
0:09.6	Evolution is the unifying principle of biology, yet it still breeds controversy a century
0:15.3	and a half after Charles Darwin.
0:17.7	Join us as we meet the passionate researchers and communicators who are expanding our knowledge
0:23.0	and fighting to keep good science in our schools and politics. Subscribe to Safeguarding
0:29.0	sound science on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you like to listen. The average body temperature is 98.6. Sure, your personal average
0:49.4	average might be a little higher, it might be a little lower, but if you're running a
0:52.5	fever, that number goes up.
0:55.0	And it only takes a few degrees to indicate that something out of the ordinary is happening
0:59.5	in your body.
1:00.9	Well, our planet is running a fever.
1:03.4	In the last century, the average global temperature has risen a couple of degrees Fahrenheit.
1:08.4	Okay, a couple of degrees.
1:09.9	That might be just a low-grade fever for a human.
1:12.6	But it takes a lot of heat to warm a planet, even one degree. And what about that heat?
1:19.3	I find it ironic and just fascinating that we have been talking about global warming for decades
1:26.5	and not talking about heat. And it's the number
1:30.1	one killer. It's all a matter of degrees and degrees matter. I'm Seth Shostek. And I'm Molly Bentley.
1:37.7	Welcome to Big Picture Science produced at the SETI Institute. In this episode, the world is getting
1:42.7	warmer. We're losing snow cover and sea ice as a
1:45.8	result, but that seemingly small rise in average temperatures has led to other dramatic consequences.
	...

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