Trobec Talks Climate Change In South Dakota At Sierra Club

KELO Meteorologist Jay Trobec spoke to the Yankton Sierra Club this week about climate change, how its effects have already been felt in South Dakota and how the international climate agencies work together.

A large audience was on hand for Trobec despite the cold temperatures.

Trobec, who has been at KELO for decades and is a true “storm chaser” at heart, said his interest in climate change has led him to be involved internationally.

“The subject of climate change is something I’m very interested in, because I’m involved nationally and internationally in a lot of groups,” he said. “I was a professional affairs commissioner for the American Meteorological Society for six years and had a lot of posts with them. I’ve been chairman of the International Association of Broadcast Meteorology. I’ve been to many meetings at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva. I go to Europe about five times a year for various things, and I’ve been involved in some of the international talks that have been going on.”

Trobec said climate change is a global issue but one that carries local impacts. He also said getting everyone to agree on climate change and what the human world can do to combat it is nearly impossible.

However, he said when the scientists come together, there is often more that gets done than when the politicians come together.

“As scientists, we come together and we talk about these things,” he said. “These are the groups who come together and try to write reports about their latest findings and forecasts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change started meeting (Monday) in Paris, and they’re going to come up with what’s called the next assessment report, which is what is going on with the climate as an update.”

Trobec said the group is comprised of biologists, climatologists, meteorologists, environmental oceanographers and other experts in their fields.

“It’s an attempt to get a complete feeling about what is going on with the climate,” he said.  

At these conferences, Trobec explained how one scientist will say, “If this happens, then this will happen.” That’s usually followed by many more scenarios that are pointed out. It can be a snowball effect.

Trobec explained the COP (Conference of the Parties), which is the political conference around climate change organized by the United Nations.

“These are very political and there’s is not much science here,” he said. “These are world leaders — lots of world leaders. At the end of the conference, they put together a 30-page report.”

Trobec said the media is allowed to view the meeting, but there is no audio, so it can’t hear what is being said. What they can see is when a nation strikes something out of the report. That editing process goes on for hours. 

“Since these are world leaders, those meetings are occurring in a very high security area and there’s not much information getting out,” he said. “It can take a month to come up with that 30-page document. People always wonder why there never seems to be anything of substance coming out of these international climate treaties. It’s because every country is trying to protect itself while making itself look good to the people back home.”

In his 40 years at KELO, Trobec has observed changes in weather patterns.

“With climate change, some people are winners and some people are losers,” he said. “Where the weather gets bad in one spot, it gets better in another spot, and there’s always winners and there’s always losers. We always hope to see things balanced out.” 

Trobec showed a chart that displayed the state’s observed (since 1900) and projected (future) temperatures. Temperatures have been steadily climbing, according to the chart.

He also showed data from 1970 to present day explaining the changes we’ve noticed in South Dakota over that 55-year period.

During that period, for example, Rapid City saw seven more summer days with temps over 90 while Sioux Falls saw a decrease by 11. In contrast, Rapid City’s coldest day of the year has increased by 2.3% over the 55-year average while Sioux Falls has increased a considerable 9.3%.

Trobec also showed a graph showing tornado outbreaks in South Dakota from 1995 to present day. He did his thesis on tornadoes, and there are hardly any to chase anymore because their frequency has changed. What’s replaced it? Straight-line winds, which — when they get to certain speed and cover more than 200 kilometers — are called derechos. Trobec said the instability has been there for tornadoes, but the wind shear has been lacking for quite some time.

“We haven’t seen a super cell in about five years,” he said.

Another fact of climate change for South Dakotans is the intensity of precipitation and storm activity.

Southeastern South Dakota has seen more than a 30% increase in the intensity of rainfall when measured by 0.01-inch per hour. That leads to flash flooding and flooded basements, Trobec said.

And, while the summertime may bring derechos and intense rainfall events, the winters around South Dakota and the country are apparently rapidly declining. Trobec said 64% of stations around the country have reported less annual snowfall.

Trobec said it’s no longer really a matter of if it will become even more of an issue but when.

“Here’s something else, and the climate scientists really got a bunch of guff from it,” Trobec said. “About the same time that Al Gore was saying the ice caps are going to melt and the glaciers are going to go away, the climate scientists were saying, ‘In the future, we’re going to have more droughts and more flash floods’ — and they got ridiculed for it. That’s what the regional climate models were saying, and it kind of turned out to be right.”

Trobec is very concerned at the moment about the increasingly heavy rainfall events.

“So that’s something to keep in mind: Heavy rainfall could be an issue for us,” he said. “I was asked by a lady at another talk what we could do to prepare for the changing climate. I told her I invested in a second sump pump.” 

• Prior to Trobec’s presentation, the Sierra Club announced it had hired a part-time community organizer in Geoffrey Gray-Lobe. He has already begun.