OU National Weather Center members asked the community about climate change concerns at a public discussion Monday night.

The discussion was part of the center’s two-day symposium: “Regional Climate Change – Monitoring, Modeling, Predicting and Impacts.”

To start the discussion, Mark Shafer, Oklahoma Climatological Survey climate information director, gave an overview of how Oklahoma’s weather patterns are changing.

Oklahoma is currently ranked No. 1 in number of declared disasters this decade, ranging from droughts to tornadoes to ice storms, Shafer said.

He explained projections and predictions about future temperature and rainfall changes are still uncertain, but there is an increase in global average temperatures. The main reason predictions are uncertain is because they depend on how society will act, he said.

For example, Oklahoma will probably have a temperature rise of 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit by the 2020s, Shafer said. However, by the 2090s there could be an increase of either 10 to12 degrees or 4 to 7, depending on society.

“The gases that come out from our fossil fuels stay in the atmosphere for a very long time,” Shafer said. “We have already committed ourselves to a certain amount of warming.”

Rainfall also is affected by climate change, Shafer said. The amount of rainfall each season is shifting, affecting crop cycles and harvests. It could continue to a point where there is more runoff and flooding but actually less water.

Carter and Shafer handed out questionnaires to ask what participants thought was valuable in life and how climate change could effect that.

“I joked that the questions were really deep, but actually I haven’t really thought about those questions in a broad way,” said Alex Schenkman, second-year Ph. D. student in meteorology. “I know more than most people do [about climate change], so I am kind of isolated from thinking about how it might affect me personally.”

Afterward, volunteers discussed their chief concerns on topics like water conservation and making the public more knowledgeable about climate change, something four or five participants expressed as a major problem.

“Predictions are too uncertain,” said Matt Kumjian, second-year Ph.D. student in meteorology. “If you could tell people, ‘Hey, in 30 years, it’s going to be like this,’ it might have more weight. You have to put things into perspective.”

Despite the bad weather, the discussion had a turnout of about 30 to 40 people, ranging in ages, professions and interests.

James Hockner, Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program program manager, said he thought they benefited from what everyone had to say, and it would help them in their research.

The symposium will continue today with sessions about recent research results in climate change.