Pennsylvania rock formations fascinated Melissa Berke when she was a kid. She grew up in Ohio but had family in New York, and visits required a road trip through the Quaker state. \u201cYou drive on all these really cool roads where you see all this carved rock,\u201d Berke said. \u201cSo I really wanted to understand how that got there and why.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Berke never stopped wanting to understand the world. Not in a vague, existential way. She wanted to study the physical earth beneath her feet and learn what sediment layers could tell humans about ancient earth history. So she got a Ph.D. and became a researcher and assistant professor in the University of Notre Dame\u2019s Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences in Indiana. She\u2019s passionate about her work and happy to patiently explain it to people when they ask. The only problem?<\/span><\/p>\n She\u2019s one of those dreaded climate scientists.<\/span><\/p>\n Multiple surveys <\/span><\/a>show that about 97 percent of actively published climate scientists agree that humans are causing the global climate to warm. But a lot of people don\u2019t believe them.<\/span><\/p>\n Only 48 percent of Americans believe that the Earth is warming due to human activity, according to a 2016 PEW Research study<\/a><\/span>. Fewer believe climate scientists have reached a consensus on global warming: just 27 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n It seems that a sizeable portion of Americans don\u2019t think highly of climate scientists. A mere 32 percent say that \u201cthe best available evidence\u201d influences climate scientists. More people \u2014 36 percent \u2014 think they\u2019re influenced by desires to advance their careers.<\/span><\/p>\n And, of course, President Donald Trump has not exactly sung praises to climate scientists. He once tweeted<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,\u201d and has called climate scientists \u201choaxsters.\u201d He has since<\/span> said it was a joke, but continues to say that climate scientists are misleading the public, and his recent budget proposal makes big cuts to EPA <\/a>and NASA<\/a><\/span>\u00a0programs devoted to studying climate change.<\/span><\/p>\n When asked if all this vitriol and doubt cause her moments of despair, Berke said \u201cYeah, like, most minutes of most days.\u201d But then she laughed. \u201cIf you let yourself get bowled over by it, it\u2019s pretty easy to do, right? You kind of have to soldier on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Soldiering on, though, can be tough \u2014 especially when the public seems to think the science is confusing at best and bogus at worst. But Berke, along with other climate scientists, won\u2019t give in to despair without a fight.<\/span><\/p>\n Berke\u2019s job sounds a little like magic. She hops on a boat and sticks a long tube down through the water and into the bottom of the lake or sea. Once she retrieves a sample of the mud layers, she\u2019s able to learn pieces of information about the past, like how warm the water was thousands or millions of years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see why some people are skeptical. For someone without a scientific background, learning about water\u2019s temperature from mud sounds crazy. Forget about figuring out the temperature from thousands of years in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n Even if someone wanted to learn more about the process, it can be daunting. Most people don\u2019t know a climate scientist they can talk to, and even if they do know one, they might be afraid to ask.<\/span><\/p>\n The divide between climate scientists and the rest of the world makes a great breeding ground for conspiracy theories. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI definitely have heard people say that they think climate change is a hoax,\u201d Berke said. \u201cI definitely have extended family members who don\u2019t quote-unquote believe in climate science, believe in climate change. I mean, I\u2019m related to them. Why would they think I would lie to them?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The JOIDES Resolution, the International Ocean Discovery Program ship Melissa Berke boarded in Mauritius to take samples from the Indian Ocean near southeastern Africa. Berke is quick to point out that the boats for research aren\u2019t always so big \u2014 she\u2019s taken samples from aboard a rowboat. Credit: Melissa Berke<\/p><\/div>\n If her family asked her about her work, Berke would start by explaining sediment layers. When organic material like plant stems and leaves, as well as rock particles, get into a body of water, they sink to the bottom and settle. Then, more particles settle on top of them. Eventually, after thousands of years, those particles are buried deep within the lake\u2019s floor. The deeper the particles, the older they are.<\/span><\/p>\n There are several ways to figure out what went on in the past once the mud\u2019s been removed. One way is looking for chemical fossils, the \u201cunderdog of the fossil world,\u201d according to Berke. She uses a leaf as an example. Leaves have a waxy coating on them that protects them from the sun. Even after the leaf decomposes, the chemicals that made up that waxy coating remain. If the leaf ended up in the lake, then those chemical particles sink to the bottom and are enveloped in the sediment layer.<\/span><\/p>\n The little wax-layer particles that could are preserved beneath the mud for thousands and thousands of years. Until Berke comes along, of course. Her long, straw-like sampling tube reaches deep into the mud and extracts those preserved particles. The harvested samples make the long journey back to her lab. \u201cWe do a series of separations in the lab based on chemical polarity,\u201d Berke said. \u201cWe\u2019re able to separate out different compound types, different molecules, and it\u2019s that separation that then allows us to identify the different groups of organisms or processes that used to occur.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Berke and her group figure out the types of organisms and processes by comparing the samples to modern-day chemical remains. If the old sample and the modern sample have similar chemical makeups, they\u2019re able to figure out what the sample actually was. Then they can track the chemical changes in that type of substance over time, and learn about what changed through the years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMud samples, or \u201ccores,\u201d after they\u2019ve been extracted, cut into smaller sizes, and halved. Chemical fossils found in these cores can inform scientists about climate conditions from thousands of years ago.\u201d Credit: Tim Fulton<\/p><\/div>\n Berke\u2019s method of reconstructing the past environment is just a small part of the climate scientist puzzle. \u201cWe do these reconstructions in lots of different places with lots of different techniques,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen they confirm each other, we feel pretty confident.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Climate scientists perform numerous experiments to double check each other\u2019s conclusions. \u201cThe whole key to science is trying to replicate results,\u201d Berke said. \u201cAnd so, it\u2019s not just one study or one measurement that shows an increase in temperatures. It\u2019s thousands of records from many different places.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That need to check one another\u2019s results can look, to an unscientific eye, like climate scientists are doubting one another. Christie Manning, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota with a Ph.D. in cognitive and biological psychology, said that science is, by its nature, a critical pursuit. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPart of being a good scientist is to not just accept evidence without questioning where that evidence came from, how it was collected, whether sound methods were used, whether the questions that were asked were appropriate and whether the analysis that was done was rigorous,\u201d Manning said. \u201cBut that can make it look like there\u2019s lots of disagreement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Berke has noticed that the way scientists communicate with one another is confusing to the public. \u201cWe don\u2019t say \u2018100 percent absolute, never going to change,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that makes it sound like scientists are doubtful when that\u2019s not at all what\u2019s happening, that\u2019s just the way scientists talk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But the way scientists talk seems to be hurting their cause. \u201cIf you are trained as a really good scientist, you are trained to communicate scientific results well,\u201d Manning said. \u201cYou may not be trained to communicate with the public. A lot of the scientific concern is getting lost in translation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n When something important is at stake, people tend to adapt. That\u2019s how climate scientists feel about the planet, and they\u2019re taking action to improve their messaging. The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, for example, provides videos, books and other resources to improve communication.<\/span><\/p>\n Climate scientists are also trying to establish that they\u2019re more than scientists studying global warming \u2014 they\u2019re people, too. Berke said she wants to end the \u201cBig Bang Theory thing.\u201d \u201cI think there\u2019s a stereotype of scientists just working nonstop,\u201d she said. \u201cBut most all the climate scientists I know, myself included, go home. We sleep in our beds. We have husbands, wives, kids, pets. We do things for fun. I\u2019m doing this whole interview with a cat on my lap. How about that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Berke on a sampling expedition on Lake Malawi, which is located in Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. Credit: Josef Werne<\/p><\/div>\n In early January, a high-profile climate scientist named Eric Holthaus tweeted about stress caused by his job. \u201cI\u2019m starting my 11th year working on climate change, including the last 4 in daily journalism. Today I went to see a counselor about it,\u201d the thread began. \u201cI\u2019m saying this b\/c I know many ppl feel deep despair about climate, especially post-election. I struggle every day. You are not alone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I'm starting my 11th year working on climate change, including the last 4 in daily journalism. Today I went to see a counselor about it. 1\/<\/p>\n — Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) January 6, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nMisunderstood<\/h6>\n
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A Depressing Job<\/h6>\n
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