Six members of the Chapman University faculty are heading for the climate summit in Copenhagen, hoping what they learn will fuel their own vigorous research in the climate-change arena.

The group brings with it expertise in everything from the legal issues surrounding climate regulations to geochemistry. Most leave for Copenhagen on Saturday.

“Since we are quite a bit involved here at Chapman, we felt we had to be there,” said Menas Kafatos, vice chancellor for special projects and dean of Chapman’s Schmid College of Science, who is among the six heading to Denmark.

Chapman has been pushing toward greater involvement in climate change research over the past year, Kafatos and other faculty members said, and next year plans to begin a master’s program in “hazards and global environmental change.”

The school also offers a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and policy.

Next April, the school plans to host a conference called “Beyond Copenhagen,” to assess whatever emerges from the Copenhagen conference and what ought to come next.

At the Copenhagen summit, which began Dec. 7, delegates from 192 countries are trying to hammer out an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They hope to have something for President Barack Obama and more than 100 other national leaders to sign by the end of the conference on Dec. 18 — when Obama is scheduled to appear.

The delegates are negotiating a variety of issues, including how big a share of emissions reductions industrialized nations should take on and how much financial aid wealthier countries should provide for poorer nations for coastal protection, agricultural changes in response to drought, shifts to alternative fuels and other climate-related projects.

The potential hazards from climate change being faced around the world are a major concern for Kafatos.

“We know how the ice is melting: the glaciers, the polar cap, Greenland,” he said. “The flooding in Bangladesh that is happening right now. Every year typhoons have been hitting Bangladesh and Korea, and hurricanes in the southern part of the United States. Fires in California, droughts. How many of those things are related to climate change — this is a scientific question.”

Chapman assistant law professor Deepa Badrinarayana

Another member of the Chapman delegation,  assistant law professor Deepa Badrinarayana, said legal issues form an important part of the climate debate.

“The question is, will they make a concrete legal commitment at Copenhagen?” she asked. “This whole conference is in a sense very law-oriented.”

Badrinarayana, who specializes in how climate issues intersect with international law, also wondered what negotiating position the United States would strike without having climate change legislation in place ahead of the summit.

Meanwhile, chemistry professor Christopher Kim, who specializes in environmental geochemistry, said he hopes to gain insight into his areas of research, including clearing metal contamination from water sources — technology that could become more important if the effects of global warming include decreasing access in some areas to fresh water.

He said he hopes to network with other attendees on a variety of scientific issues.

“It will be useful for me to be there and bring all that knowledge back to the classroom,” he said.

The other Chapman attendees are associate physics professor Jeff Tollaksen,  professor of computational biology Keun-Hang Yang, and political science assistant professor David Shafie.

The group also plans to keep a blog of their experiences.

And will they get to see Obama speak?

“I will be there on the 18th,” Kafatos said. “I’m not sure anybody will be able to get in.”

(Photo of opening of Copenhagen climate summit by Miguel Villagran, Getty Images. Photo of professor Deepa Badrinarayana courtesy, Badrinarayana.)

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