Article published Oct 13, 2007

UM professor co-recipient of Nobel Prize

By MATTHEW BROWN

Associated Press Writer

HELENA — A University of Montana climate change scientist who was on a panel awarded the Nobel Peace Prize said Friday he hoped the recognition would put to rest any remaining doubts about global warming.

Ecology professor Steve Running, 57, was lead author of the North American chapter in a climate change report issued this year by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Nobel administrators announced Friday that this year's prize would be shared by the panel and former Vice President Al Gore, who has been outspoken on the need to confront global warming.

"What I hope this award does is finally finish off the really disingenuous climate change deniers who over the last number of years have very consciously tried to deceive the public about the reality of this issue," Running said. "We've got a lot of work to do and we can't waste more time arguing if this is real."

An estimated 2,000 scientists are in the U.N. panel's research network. IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said Friday they were all Nobel co-laureates.

Running's work has focused on the consequences of declining snowpacks across western North America. Spurred by higher temperatures, increasingly meager snowpacks have led to lower streamflows, more intense and more frequent wildfires and major insect infestations in once-healthy forests.

The economic toll of those changes has not yet been quantified, but Running said there is no doubt they are significant. "If you look back into midsummer in Montana here, many, many of our blue ribbon trout streams were closed at the height of the tourist season because the water was so low. This was a major impact economically and ecologically."

Running, who lives in Missoula, is married with two grown daughters. He studied at Oregon State and Colorado State universities before coming to UM in 1979.

He said he does not expect to see any of the $1.5 million award that accompanies the Nobel, but was "stunned" with the recognition.

"Even when we were sitting around drinking beer nobody ever joked about getting a Nobel prize for this," he said.