Penn State researchers are providing new insight that could help inform policymakers about climate change.

Recent advancements focus on creating models of climate change and improving those already existing, developing a better understanding of the issues and more comprehensive data from which to make create new policies.

Richard Alley, professor of geosciences, explained the importance of models in generating potential future scenarios.

"These models answer the 'what ifs' of climate change, and we need to be able to supply policymakers with useful answers and real options," he said.

Alley's work focuses on careful monitoring of polar ice sheets and upper-latitude glaciers for a decrease in size or amount of frozen ice, as well as developing new models to monitor large areas of ice over the long term, he said.

As recently as the past decade, researchers have seen a decrease in the quality and quantity of ice in certain areas, which may indicate that it is slowly melting, Alley said.

Alley said that without this kind of careful examination, these changes would largely go unnoticed in the short term. But by studying certain characteristics, such as polar ice caps, scientists hope to better gauge the rate of the climatic change.

Although certain regions periodically have warmer- or colder-than-average summers and winters, signs are pointing to an increase in Earth's temperature over the long term, he said.

Alley said global warming can be obvious to everyone in a number of ways.

"The best indicators are thermometers -- surface and ocean temperatures are getting warmer," he said. "Also, questions like when are flowers starting to bloom, and how far north are certain birds now wintering -- all agree it's getting warmer globally."

Klaus Keller, assistant professor of geosciences, is also focusing on improving current climate change models. Keller works with economic models to determine the impacts of reaching a threshold of abrupt climate change from which we could not easily recover globally.

These models use cost-benefit analysis to determine, among other things, the appropriate levels of carbon dioxide emissions reduction and to provide a way to balance the costs of solutions with their potential benefits, Keller said.

Keller said that the challenge of modeling economically for climate change is the hundreds of factors that must be considered and worked into such models.

However, they will help make predictions about if and when we could reach a threshold of climate change and if there are early warning signs that may indicate crossing such a threshold, creating the potential for abrupt climate change.

Keller explained that it's important to separate the economic and scientific analyses of policies with the process of actually making the decisions.

"Scientists are not in the business of making policies. We analyze observations and make scientific predictions and assess possible outcomes of different strategies," he said.

Decision-makers then use value judgments to decide how much to weigh the information presented by scientists and researchers, Keller said.

Alley explained that the some national and world leaders' stance focuses more on the issue of climate change than others. Since they must focus on a broad range of societal problems, they must balance the needs of their constituency in both the short and long term, which usually results in less attention focused on global warming.

While these Penn State researchers may be seeing changes in Earth's climate now, Alley said that slowing the warming would have to take place on the order of decades -- not years.

Eventually, extracting fossil fuels will become too expensive and energy companies will turn to things like solar or wind power, but probably not until they are cheaper than fossil fuels, Alley said.

While changes may take decades, Keller explained that to stay within limits suggested by many scientists, a "business as usual" approach cannot be maintained. Decarbonization of our energy systems, he said, should become a priority, and less carbon-intense means to produce energy require even more serious consideration.

Keller explained that as Americans -- internationally, the biggest users of fossil fuels -- we should consider the ethical questions surrounding our impact on the rest of the world's climate.

"We as a society are burning large amounts of fossil fuels and are affecting other people who don't have the benefits we do from using fossil fuels," he said. "This creates the very strong potential for unequal distribution of benefits and risks -- low-lying island populations are much more vulnerable."

Alley said that those who do not believe global warming is taking place often find small faults over a wide array of research, and use these in an attempt to devalue all research that indicates global warming exists. He added that they argue that in this large of a scientific study, there must be some errors.

Often, he said, economics plays a large role in denying climate change, and spending money on climate research now is a matter of how much insurance we wish to invest in Earth's climatic future.