NCAR to open multimedia exhibit on climate change

BOULDER — Hoping to increase understanding about the natural, social and economic effects of climate change, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in June will unveil a multimedia exhibit that will be free and open to the public.

The displays on the second floor of NCAR’s Mesa Lab, located on a mountainside at the west end of Table Mesa Drive, actually are available for public viewing now as part of a “soft opening,” said Becca Hatheway, exhibits manager for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which manages NCAR. Members of the media got a first look at the exhibit Wednesday.

Hatheway estimated that the exhibit itself cost about $130,000 to build but has a final price tag of about $250,000 once programming and staff time are figured in.

The extensive display, designed by Denver-based Condit Exhibits and built by Vancouver, Wash.-based Show Time Exhibits, highlights how the climate system works, how scientists study it, the difference between “climate” and “weather,” and the potential impacts of warming temperatures and altered precipitation patterns on society and the environment.

“Our goal is to provide the public with an engaging and scientifically accurate forum to learn about climate change, which is perhaps the signature environmental challenge of our time,” said Hatheway.

The touch screens, audio recordings, activities and panels entirely replaced a more text-oriented exhibit that had opened in 2003.

One interactive exhibit, called “Shifting the Weather Odds,” uses balls that drop into different slots, enabling visitors to see how higher emissions of greenhouse gases lead to extreme heat waves occurring more frequently. Another, “Choose Our Future,” allows people to choose courses of action — including how they travel, what they eat and where and how they live.

“We can choose,” said UCAR education specialist Tim Barnes, “and depending on those choices, we’ll have a different future.”

“Irrespective of what we do, climate change is going to happen,” added project scientist Ben Sanderson. “This exhibit lays out basic science and things that people are going to have to do” as well as outlining the potential effects of a warming climate on people, businesses and the nation’s strategic defense policies.

“There are things you can do as an individual” to mitigate climate change, he said, “but some things are going to have to happen at a higher level — some hard choices.”

“We don’t want visitors leaving the exhibit feeling nothing but doom and gloom,” Hatheway said.

The Mesa Lab draws about 100,000 visitors a year to its exhibits on weather, the sun, supercomputing and other topics related to the atmospheric sciences.

“There’s no public transit up to here, so people self-select to come here,” Hatheway said, but acknowledged that the occasional climate-change skeptic or denier will challenge the exhibit’s message.

“We just present the science and don’t engage in arguments about whether it’s true,” she said. “Our staff will answer questions but will really stand firm about what the science is.”

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