Travelers 'Feel the Heat' at the San Diego Airport

Birch Aquarium's outreach climate exhibit warms the Commuter Terminal

Now through June, travelers passing through the Commuter Terminal of San Diego International Airport can learn more about climate change. Thanks to an invitation from the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography is showcasing its latest engaging exhibit as part of the airport's Cultural Exhibits Program.

Four display cases feature popular elements from Birch Aquarium's award-winning Feeling the Heat: The Climate Challenge exhibit, extending the reach of its message beyond the walls of the aquarium. The airport installation features three-dimensional displays revealing how human-produced climate change is occurring and what the future may hold for the environment.

This is Scripps' third display within the airport's Cultural Exhibits Program, designed to showcase the diversity of arts and culture of the San Diego region. In 2006 in the Commuter Terminal, the aquarium presented a traveling display of Art of Deception, its exhibit about marine creatures that use camouflage for survival.

In March 2008, local artist Nancy Arthur-McGehee included her scientific illustrations of fish for Scripps' California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) as part of a show recognizing her body of work. CalCOFI, which has studied the ecology of the dynamic California Current region for the last six decades, was also featured.

Viewing this new traveling exhibit, airport passengers can trace evidence of a warming world in several ways. Dramatic photography documents melting glaciers and ice cover. The Keeling Curve, ground-breaking data produced by late Scripps scientist Charles David Keeling, shows the alarming rate at which humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And shells and coral fragments help tell the story of the challenges for reef-building and shell-producing animals living in an increasingly acidic ocean.

Airport passengers also can gain an understanding of the climate forecast of the future and learn how people can make adjustments in energy use to reduce global warming.

"Outreach is a core part of our mission, and we are pleased to partner with the airport to offer travelers a chance to learn about and enjoy science through the eyes of Scripps Oceanography explorers," Birch Aquarium Executive Director Nigella Hillgarth said.

—Lydia Cobb

April 2009