The director of the National Climate Assessment told a Boothbay audience Tuesday that global warming is very, very real.

“It is about science. It is not a political campaign,” National Climate Assessment Director Katherine Jacobs said.

At a Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences Café Scientifique on July 10, Jacobs said the scientific effort she leads is challenged by some who claim global warming is a hoax.

One audience member asked about a recent law passed in North Carolina that requires the state to ignore studies predicting a rapid rise in sea level due to climate change. Backed by real estate developers, lawmakers passed a law requiring that projected rates of sea level rise be calculated on historical trends and not include accelerated rates of increase.

There is a lot of opposition to scientific findings, Jacobs said. “I don’t think you can legislate science. You can’t legislate sea levels,” she said, saying the nation’s climate change debate is so polarized that almost nobody is in the middle.

Jacobs, a longtime Southport summer resident, is the director of the National Climate Assessment for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Environment and Energy Division. She is the head of a national effort, begun in 1990 under President George Bush.

Simply put, she is the chief staffer in the nation’s efforts to find out just what is going on, and recommend ways for the nation to deal with it. It is a $2.6 billion a year global research project that coordinates the work of 13 federal agencies, scientists and private industry.

The hour-long presentation was the opening event of Café Scientifique, 2012, a summer long lecture series at the Opera House presenting scientists associated with East Boothbay’s Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.

Already, the scientific evidence has triggered a positive response by the federal government, which has ordered agencies to reduce their effects on the atmosphere. More than 100 cities and counties and private industries have joined in this effort. One of the major private partners is the nation’s insurance industry, she said. The effects of the combined national efforts are already being measured.

For nearly 100 audience members who attended the free presentation, Jacobs explained how the nation collects climate data using satellites, ships, buoys and other methods. Their research explains the reasons for a lot of things that are happening with our weather – not in the future, but right now.

Jacobs’ presentation came on the heels of a federal report by one of her partner agencies, NOAA, which said the last 12 months were the warmest on record for the mainland United States since record keeping began in 1895. Fifty-six percent of our nation is experiencing drought conditions, while more than 170 all-time temperature records were broken or tied last month. June wildfires burned more than 1.3 million acres, NOAA said.

According to Jacobs, since the last national report in 2009, scientists have observed changes: increased temperatures, increased intense storms, rising sea levels, the rapid retreat of glaciers, thaws in the permafrost, longer growing seasons, longer ice free seasons in the oceans and rivers, smaller snow covers, earlier snowfalls and changes in river flows.

“We now have a northwest (sea) passage across northern Canada,” she said.

In addition she explained that the greenhouse effect shows more of the sun’s heat is being kept in the atmosphere. “Global warming is what is happening, but it is not politically correct to call it that,” Jacobs said.

A key finding shows changing climate patterns have had a huge impact on our national electrical system that is not explained by nature, she said.

The agency she heads is compiling a scientifically reviewed report on the climate that is due out next year. It will be released as an online e-book. Each section will contain links to the underlying research data used to compile the work. It is part of their efforts to be transparent. A draft report will be available for public view in December.

The next Café Scientifique will feature Bigelow scientist Willie Wilson, who will speak on marine algae and its impact on the planet at the Boothbay Opera House on Tuesday, July 17, at 6 p.m.