Ahead in the Clouds

Smithsonian.com
Science and Technology

Susan Solomon helped patch the ozone hole. Now, as a leader of a major United Nations report—out this month—she's going after global warming.

This month, when the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization release their first major report on global climate change in six years, two things are likely to happen. Some people will dismiss it. And Susan Solomon will grow hoarse explaining why they shouldn't.

A no-nonsense 51-year-old atmospheric chemist, she's a co-leader of the massive new study, along with Qin Dahe, a climatologist from the China Meteorological Administration in Beijing. Solomon will become the public face of the U.N. report, in charge of presenting the best scientific thinking on the subject of global warming and the evidence that it is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. "The science is strong," she says,"and we'll be presenting a consensus view."

To reach that consensus, Solomon logged more than 400,000 air miles over the past four years and held dozens of meetings with the report's more than 500 authors. "This much I can say: the climate is changing and quite noticeably," she says shortly before the report is released. In her paper- and book-crammed office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, she suggests that policy makers (and the rest of us) have reached a critical moment in our dealings with, or failings to deal with, climate change: "The effects will vary from region to region, and the challenge that society will face is to get people to think beyond their own backyards and to make judgments about the risks they're willing to take."

Maybe as the climate continues to warm, the ice caps won't melt; maybe a rising sea level will be offset by some other unforeseen event. She's reminded of the scene in Dirty Harry in which the cop played by Clint Eastwood confronts a criminal: "You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" Solomon says,"That's what we as a society have to decide. Will we choose to go down the same path, or will we make some changes in our behaviors? You could say that the gun of climate change is pointed at us. So, how lucky do we feel?"

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