Hot deserts, soggy rainforests, arctic tundra and temperate forests – these are a few climatic regions spread across our planet. Unlike weather, which is chaotic and difficult to predict on a daily basis, climate is the expected weather for an area averaged over time. But climate is not static and itself changes with time. The new exhibition Climate Change: From Snowball Earth to Global Warming explores our planet’s history of climate shifts, explains some of the causes, and highlights the challenges and responses to current global warming.

While records from weather instruments provide good data for the last 100 years of climate on Earth, scientists use a variety of methods to reconstruct climate from earlier ages. About 700 million years ago, the entire Earth was so cold that scientists refer to it as “snowball Earth,” where few organisms other than hardy single-celled bacteria survived. Fossil evidence of these and the first multi-celled life forms that developed as the planet warmed are on view in the exhibition. Fossil plants and animals such as a 110-million-year-old subtropical fern from Washington state and the skull of a crocodile that roamed Utah 45-million years ago, represent a time when the Earth was significantly warmer than it is today. A section of a bristlecone pine tree from California documents growing conditions from 2219 BC to AD 1956 and a part of a South Pacific coral core drilled in 2004 dates to 1836.

Currently, Earth’s climate is warming and scientists continue to need good data with global coverage. The APEX profiler is one of over 3,000 floating devices that send temperature data from the world’s oceans to international climate data centers. The current warming is affecting entire ecosystems – from the arctic to the tropics. On display are examples that underscore the impacts: the polar bear that requires extensive sea ice for successful hunting is now a threatened species; corals, cod and a sea urchin represent marine organisms that are having difficulty adapting to the changing conditions in the oceans; the extinction of the golden toad of Costa Rica and early egg laying of tree swallows have both been attributed to global warming.

Changing climates affect human culture, too. An Anasazi pot in the exhibition reminds the visitor of an ancient culture of the US Southwest that thrived in a relatively wetter period, but then disappeared, likely in part as the result of drought and unstable climatic conditions. Today, agricultural scientists are developing different strains of rice that can withstand an uncertain future of salty water, drought or excess water.

The exhibition also describes some of the causes of variation in Earth’s climate. Interactive stations invite visitors to understand the complex, dynamic processes of the climate system and express their understanding of and response to current global warming.

The exhibition is organized by the Bruce Museum’s Science Department, former Manager of Outreach Education Jenn Josef and volunteer Lisette Henrey. The show is supported by the Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund and a Committee of Honor under the leadership of Daniel Barrett, Dick Bergstresser, Fred Elser, and Bill Evans.

The exhibition is held in conjunction with the International Year of Planet Earth.

The Museum gratefully acknowledges the lenders to the exhibition, including:
American Museum of Natural History
Prof. Stephen Burns, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Birch Aquarium, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
Greenland National Museum and Archives
Integrated Ocean Drilling Program
Jenn Josef
Professors Harriet and Seymour Koenig
Laboratory of Tree-ring Research, University of Arizona
Prof. Mark Leckie, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Prof. Braddock K. Linsley, University at Albany, State University of New York
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
New London County Historical Society
The New York Botanical Garden
Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
Denise Savageau, Town of Greenwich
Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History
Webb Research
Wesleyan University