- Prometheus: Climate Change Archives

Contents:

August 03, 2008

Joel Achenbach on Weather Extremes

In today's Washington Post Joel Achenbach has a smart and nuanced piece on weather extremes and climate change. The attribution of weather events and trends to particular causes is difficult and contested.

Equivocation isn't a sign of cognitive weakness. Uncertainty is intrinsic to the scientific process, and sometimes you have to have the courage to stand up and say, "Maybe."

For Achenbach's efforts he gets called stupid and a tool of the "deniers". Such complaints are ironic given that Achenbach explains how foolish it is to put too much weight on extreme events in arguments about climate change:

the evidence for man-made climate change is solid enough that it doesn't need to be bolstered by iffy claims. Rigorous science is the best weapon for persuading the public that this is a real problem that requires bold action. "Weather alarmism" gives ammunition to global-warming deniers. They're happy to fight on that turf, since they can say that a year with relatively few hurricanes (or a cold snap when you don't expect it) proves that global warming is a myth. As science writer John Tierney put it in the New York Times earlier this year, weather alarmism "leaves climate politics at the mercy of the weather."
There's an ancillary issue here: Global warming threatens to suck all the oxygen out of any discussion of the environment. We wind up giving too little attention to habitat destruction, overfishing, invasive species tagging along with global trade and so on. You don't need a climate model to detect that big oil spill in the Mississippi. That "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico -- an oxygen-starved region the size of Massachusetts -- isn't caused by global warming, but by all that fertilizer spread on Midwest cornfields.

Some folks may actually get the notion that the planet will be safe if we all just start driving Priuses. But even if we cured ourselves of our addiction to fossil fuels and stabilized the planet's climate, we'd still have an environmental crisis on our hands. Our fundamental problem is that -- now it's my chance to sound hysterical -- humans are a species out of control. We've been hellbent on wrecking our environment pretty much since the day we figured out how to make fire.

This caused that: It would be nice if climate and weather were that simple.

And the U.S. Climate Change Science Program recently issued a report with the following conclusions:

1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.
2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.

3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation , there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).

4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms.

5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.

6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.

In the climate debate, you would have to be pretty foolish to allow any argument to hinge on claims about the attribution of observed extreme events to the emissions of greenhouse gases. But as we've noted here on many occasions, for some the climate debate is a morality tale that cannot withstand nuance, even if that nuance is perfectly appropriate given the current state of understandings. But given the public relations value of extreme events in the climate debate, don't expect Achenbach's reasoned view to take hold among those calling for action. Like the Bush Administration and Iraqi WMDs, for some folks sometimes the intelligence that you wish existed trumps the facts on the ground.

August 01, 2008

The New Abortion Politics

The deepest pathologies in the climate policy debate can been seen in this comment in today's NYT column by Paul Krugman:

The only way we’re going to get action [on climate change], I’d suggest, is if those who stand in the way of action come to be perceived as not just wrong but immoral.

This strategy of characterizing one's political opponents as immoral is of course is part and parcel of the debate over abortion (which is why I call such politics "abortion politics" in The Honest Broker). In the climate debate the litmus test for having the proper morality (i.e., defined as not "standing in the way of action," by being a "denier" or "delayer" or [insert derisive moral judgment here]) is by holding and expressing (and not questioning) certain acceptable beliefs, such as:

*Not questioning any consensus views of the IPCC (in any working group)

*Not supporting adaptation

*Not emphasizing the importance of significant technological innovation

*Not pointing out that policies to create higher priced energy are a certain losing strategy

Deviation for these beliefs is, blasphemy -- heresy! Or as Paul Krugman recommends . . . immoral.

Climate change is the new locus of the U.S. culture wars. Unlike the abortion issue which was turned into a referendum on morality by the political right, the climate issue is fast becoming a referendum on morality by the political left. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Posted on August 1, 2008 09:44 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics | The Honest Broker

July 31, 2008

Ocean Encroachment in Bangladesh

My first reaction upon seeing this story was that someone was having some fun. But it doesn't seem like benthic bacteria . . . So this article from the AFP comes as a surprise, and a reminder that forecasting the future remains a perilous business. With news like this, it seems premature to dismiss skepticism about climate science as fading away, far from it, expect skeptics of all sorts to have a bit more bounce in their steps.

DHAKA (AFP) - New data shows that Bangladesh's landmass is increasing, contradicting forecasts that the South Asian nation will be under the waves by the end of the century, experts say.
Scientists from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) have studied 32 years of satellite images and say Bangladesh's landmass has increased by 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) annually.

Maminul Haque Sarker, head of the department at the government-owned centre that looks at boundary changes, told AFP sediment which travelled down the big Himalayan rivers -- the Ganges and the Brahmaputra -- had caused the landmass to increase.

The rivers, which meet in the centre of Bangladesh, carry more than a billion tonnes of sediment every year and most of it comes to rest on the southern coastline of the country in the Bay of Bengal where new territory is forming, he said in an interview on Tuesday.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that impoverished Bangladesh, criss-crossed by a network of more than 200 rivers, will lose 17 percent of its land by 2050 because of rising sea levels due to global warming.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning panel says 20 million Bangladeshis will become environmental refugees by 2050 and the country will lose some 30 percent of its food production.

Director of the US-based NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, professor James Hansen, paints an even grimmer picture, predicting the entire country could be under water by the end of the century.

But Sarker said that while rising sea levels and river erosion were both claiming land in Bangladesh, many climate experts had failed to take into account new land being formed from the river sediment.

"Satellite images dating back to 1973 and old maps earlier than that show some 1,000 square kilometres of land have risen from the sea," Sarker said.

"A rise in sea level will offset this and slow the gains made by new territories, but there will still be an increase in land. We think that in the next 50 years we may get another 1,000 square kilometres of land."

Mahfuzur Rahman, head of Bangladesh Water Development Board's Coastal Study and Survey Department, has also been analysing the buildup of land on the coast.

He told AFP findings by the IPCC and other climate change scientists were too general and did not explore the benefits of land accretion.

"For almost a decade we have heard experts saying Bangladesh will be under water, but so far our data has shown nothing like this," he said.

Posted on July 31, 2008 12:32 AM View this article | Comments (14)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

July 28, 2008

Draft CCSP Synthesis Report

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program has put online for public comment a draft version of its synthesis report ( here in PDF), and I suppose the good news is that it is a draft, which means that it is subject to revision. But what the draft includes is troubling in several respects.

First, the report adopts an approach to presenting the science more befitting an advocacy group, rather than a interagency science assessment. The report ignores the actual literature on economics and policy, choosing instead to present fluffy exhortations about the urgency of action and reducing emissions. I can get that level of policy discussion from any garden variety NGO, for $2 billion per year over the past 18 years, I would expect a bit more.

The report opens with this language:

The Future is in Our Hands
Human-induced climate change is affecting us now. Its impacts on our economy, security, and quality of life will increase in the decades to come. Beyond the next few decades, when warming is "locked in" to the climate system from human activities to date, the future lies largely in our hands. Will we begin reducing heat-trapping emissions now, thereby reducing future climate disruption and its impacts? Will we alter our planning and development in ways that reduce our vulnerability to the changes that are already on the way? The choices are ours.

Pretty thin stuff. The report speaks of urgency:

Once considered a problem mainly for the future, climate change is now upon us. People are at the heart of this problem: we are causing it, and we are being affected by it. The rapid onset of many aspects of climate change highlights the urgency of confronting this challenge without further delay. The choices that we make now will influence current and future emissions of heat-trapping gases, and can help to reduce future warming.

It is not within the Congressional mandate of the CCSP to tell policymakers when to act or what goals to pursue. The report does have some limited discussion of options, which would be great (and within the mandate) if it were comprehensive and scientifically rigorous. Unfortunately, it is neither.

Despite recognizing that some adaptation will be necessary, and discussing adaptive responses in the text, the report has a strong bias against adaptation in favor of mitigation:

The more we mitigate (reduce emissions), the less climate change we’ll experience and the less severe the impacts will be, and thus, the less adaptation will be required. . . Despite what is widely assumed to be the considerable adaptive capacity of the United States, we have not always succeeded in avoiding significant losses and disruptions, for example, due to extreme weather events. There are many challenges and limits to adaptation. Some adaptations will be very expensive. We will be adapting to a moving target, as future climate will not be stationary but continually changing. And if emissions and thus warming are at the high end of future scenarios, some changes will be so large that adaptation is unlikely to be successful.

A large body of work, some of which I’ve contributed, indicates that adaptation and mitigation are not tradeoffs, but complements. Somehow this literature escaped the thorough review done by the authors of this report.

The report claims to be focused on bringing together the "best available science." However in the area of my expertise, disasters and climate change, the report is an embarrassment. For example, once again, it uses the economic costs of disasters as evidence of climate change and its impacts, as shown in the following figure from the report.

Then, later in the report it discusses increasing U.S. precipitation under the heading "Floods" and next to a picture of a flooded house (below). However, in the U.S. there has been no increase in streamflow and flood damage has decreased dramatically as a fraction of GDP. Thus the report reflects ignorance on this subject or is willfully misleading. Neither prospect gives one much confidence in a government science report.

In short, in areas where I have expertise, at best the reporting of the science of climate impacts in this report is highly selective. Less generously it is misleading, incorrect, and a poor reflection on the government scientists whose names appear on the title page, many of whom I know and have respect for. The report asks for comments during the next few weeks, and I will submit some reactions, which I'll also post here.

So why does the report have such an advocacy focus and rely on misleading arguments?

One answer is to have a look to the people chiefly responsible for the editing of the report, and also the section on natural disasters, where one person's views are reported almost exclusively to any others.

Perhaps it is time to rotate control of U.S. government "science" reports to some new faces?

Posted on July 28, 2008 01:51 PM View this article | Comments (21)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Scientific Assessments

Free Enterprise but not Free Speech

The management of the Free Enterprise Action Fund have thrown their hat into the ring seeking to limit what can be said or claimed in the context of climate change. In this case they have asked the U.S. government's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pass judgment on whether certain claims by companies can be considered false and misleading, and thus in violation of securities laws of the U.S. government.

The fund is run by Steven Milloy (of junkscience.com) and Thomas Borelli, and according to Google Finance the fund seeks to achieve long-term growth "through investments and advocacy that promote the American system of free enterprise." I'm no stockbroker, but it seems like a gussied up market index fund to me. (Isn't any investment in the stock market promoting free enterprise? But I digress . . .) Anyway, here is the full text of their letter to the SEC:

Ms. Florence E. Harmon Acting Secretary U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 100 F Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20549
Re: Petition for Interpretive Guidance on Public Statements Concerning Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

Dear Ms. Harmon,

We are writing on behalf of the Free Enterprise Action Fund ("FEAOX"), a publicly-traded mutual fund, to petition the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC" or "Commission") to issue interpretive guidance pursuant to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 ("the Act") that would warn registrants against making potentially false and misleading statements pertaining to global warming and other environmental issues.

We believe the Commission should take action immediately to protect investors.

I. Examples of potentially false and misleading statements made by registrants.

Below are but a few examples of the sort of potentially false and misleading statements being made by registrants. The problematic nature of these statements is discussed in Section II.

* Exelon Corp. issued a media release and placed full-page advertisements in major newspapers on July 15, 2008 stating, "The science is overwhelming -- climate change is happening now and human activity is the primary cause."

* Lehman Brothers issued a report on climate change featuring the so-called "hockey stick" graph to support the notion that humans are causing global warming.

* The General Electric Company issued a "Call for Action" to "slow, stop and even reverse the damage of greenhouse gasses."

* Toyota Motor Corp. states in a report, "When we drive a vehicle, it consumes fossil fuels and emits CO2, a major contributor to climate change."

* Goldman Sachs states in a 2007 report, "By now, the dynamics of global warming are widely known, and we find no reason to dispute the scientific assumptions."

* Caterpillar said in a public statement that, "We must take action now [to reduce carbon dioxide emissions] or risk serious harm to our planet."

All these statements are potentially false and/or misleading as recent events show.

II. Recent events that put registrants at risk of making false and misleading statements.

A number of recent developments have tended to expose the above-mentioned registrant statements (and probably many others) as false and/or misleading, including:

* The American Physical Society, the leading professional society for American physicists announced in July 2008 on one of its websites that, "There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

* In May 2008, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine released a petition signed by more than 31,000 U.S. scientists stating, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate..."

* India's National Action Plan on Climate Change issued in June 2008 states, "No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established." Researchers belonging to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in the science journal Nature (May 1) that, after adjusting their climate model to reflect actual sea surface temperatures of the last 50 years, "global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade," since natural climate variation will drive global climate.

* Climate scientists reported in the December issue of the International Journal of Climatology, published by Britain's Royal Meteorological Society, that observed temperature changes measured over the last 30 years don't match well with temperatures predicted by the mathematical climate models relied on by the IPCC.

* A British judge ruled in October 2007 that Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," contained so many factual errors that a disclaimer was required to be shown to students before they viewed the film.

* A panel of the National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2006 that the "hockey stick" graph is not proof that human activity is linked to global warming.

III. Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, we request that the Commission immediately inform and remind registrants that:

1. False and/or misleading statements on material matters may violate the anti-fraud provision of the federal securities laws.

2. Statements by registrants on global warming and other environmental issues could be considered material.

3. There is considerable ongoing debate about the science of global warming and its impacts and;

4. Statements to the effect that "the science is conclusive," "the debate is over," and that "human activities are definitely causing harmful global warming" should be avoided.

If you have any questions, please contact the undersigned at 301-258-2852.

Sincerely,

/s/

Steven J. Milloy, MHS, JD, LLM
Thomas J. Borelli, PhD
Managing Partners
Portfolio Managers, Free Enterprise Action Fund

Call me a skeptic -- go ahead, it is OK -- but I don't think this complaint has any chance of succeeding, as the example statements that they have cited are either opinions or puffery. Are these examples really the best that they could come up with?

What is (again) most troubling about this sort of behavior is the recourse to legal methods to limit what can or cannot be claimed about climate change in political debate. And yes, I am viewing the actions of the Free Enterprise Action Fund management as a political act with little relevance to the actual performance of their portfolio of investments. Of course, I see that efforts at moral suasion aren't faring so well so perhaps the thinking -- on both sides of this political debate -- is that if you can't win the debate on the merits, then silencing your opponents via the force of law is the next best thing. A pity, if so.

Posted on July 28, 2008 12:51 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

July 25, 2008

A brief account of an aborted contribution to an ill-conceived debate

A guest post by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch

The July 2008 newsletter of the American Physical Society (APS) opened a debate concerning the IPCC consensus related to anthropogenic induced climate change. We responded with a brief comment concerning the state and changing state of consensus as indicated by two surveys of climate scientists. Data was presented concerning climate scientists assessments of the understanding of atmospheric physics, climate related processes, climate scientists level of agreement with the IPCC as representative of consensus and of the level of belief in anthropogenic warming. (The full manuscript is available here .) Our comment was summarily dismissed by the editors as polemic, political and unscientific. The following is a brief account of this episode.

The APS Forum on Physics and Society states "The Forum on Physics and Society is a place for discussion and disagreement on scientific and policy matters". The Forum on Physics and Society, Newsletter, July 2008 began a debate "concerning one of the main conclusions" of the IPCC. The intended debate was clearly evident in the statement,

There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming ...

There is no reference as to how this statement was determined or its validity known. It is very probably likely to be primarily ethereal.

The intended debate seemed to be aimed at prompting a discussion, or perhaps as the two papers to date seem to suggest, an evaluation of the methods employed in reaching the IPCC conclusion. Two invited articles were published to set off the debate, one pro and one contra to the IPCC conclusion. Oddly enough, neither paper appears to be authored by a climate scientist per se although both present a detailed discussion of atmospheric physics. Subsequent contributions were invited from the "physics" community for "comments or articles that are scientific in nature."

So here we have two editors (who are themselves not climate scientists) soliciting invited papers from authors who, as far as we know, have never had any peer reviewed publications pertaining to climate science, setting off a debate concerning the consensus in the climate sciences by what appears to be a mere declaration of the current state of the consensus. The editors of the newsletter should be commended however for at least stating that the "correctness or fallacy of that [the IPCC] conclusion has immense implications for public policy."

Our interests were drawn by statements found on the web page: 1. the Forums declaration that it is "a place for discussion and disagreement on scientific and policy matters", and 2. the statement "There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming ...". We have been working for some time in the area of assessing the levels of consensus in the climate science community and therefore decided to submit a brief (and rapidly rejected) comment (PDF.) to the debate.

Our stance concerning "consensus" (on any matter) is:

1. Consensus and certainty are two different concepts, which sometimes are parallel, although often not.

2. Consensus is simply a level of agreement among practitioners and might be subject to change over time.

3. Consensus is a level of agreement in belief of the relevance of the theory to the issue and the casual relationship inherent in the theory

and in particular reference to climate science

4. Climate change science is considered to be multidisciplinary and therefore the knowledge claims comprising the consensus is considered to be multidimensional, that is, not able to be captured in a single statement.

In short, consensus is not as simple as a yes - no response. It is a negotiated outcome of multiple levels of expertise.

Now, returning to our submission, or more precisely, the rejection of our submission, the first rejection arrived in a matter of hours. Short and to the point, it said:

The original invitation was for participation in a scientific debate, not a political one. As your attached piece is not primarily of a scientific nature, we cannot consider it for publication in our newsletter. In my editorial comments for the July 2008 issue, I emphasized that we are not interested in publishing anything of a polemical or political nature.

The "emphasized" points are of interest. The paper was neither polemic nor political, as we invite the readers of the blog to verify, however giving the editors the benefit of the doubt, we asked for clarification. Again the APS response was quite rapid:

Your article [...] is not about technical issues concerning climate research. Instead, it is about the opinions of scientists. I would be glad to consider publication of articles, comments, or letters from you that address specific technical issues connected with climate research.

Now, aren’t the "opinions of scientists" the foundation of consensus? The "opinions of scientists" in our analysis represent not a political statement but a scientific comment. The data is empirical and the paper was deliberately devoid of political or polemic statement. Our paper does definitely not address a specific technical issue but it does provide a collective peer assessment of a number of specific technical issues (such as: representation of hydrodynamics and greenhouse gases). Indeed, our concern was to substantiate quantitatively the loose assertion of an anonymous APS officer:

There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming.

An estimate based on data can be read in our short comment.

Posted on July 25, 2008 06:24 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Science + Politics | Scientific Assessments

July 18, 2008

Adaptation Policies for Biodiversity: Facilitated Dispersal

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of Queensland University and colleagues have an important article on “Assisted Colonization and Rapid Climate Change” in this week’s issue of Science (pdf). The author’s argue:

Rapid climatic change has already caused changes to the distributions of many plants and animals, leading to severe range contractions and the extinction of some species (1, 2). The geographic ranges of many species are moving toward the poles or to higher altitudes in response to shifts in the habitats to which these species have adapted over relatively longer periods (1-4). It already appears that some species are unable to disperse or adapt fast enough to keep up with the high rates of climate change (5, 6). These organisms face increased extinction risk, and, as a result, whole ecosystems, such as cloud forests and coral reefs, may cease to function in their current form (7-9).

Current conservation practices may not be enough to avert species losses in the face of mid- to upper-level climate projections (>3°C) (10), because the extensive clearing and destruction of natural habitats by humans disrupts processes that underpin species dispersal and establishment. Therefore, resource managers and policy-makers must contemplate moving species to sites where they do not currently occur or have not been known to occur in recent history. This strategy flies in the face of conventional conservation approaches.

The strategy flies in the face of conventional conservation approaches due to the numerous risks associated with the introduction of invasive species. The authors fully acknowledge these risks.

The world is littered with examples where moving species beyond their current range into natural and agricultural landscapes has had negative impacts. Understandably, notions of deliberately moving species are regarded with suspicion. Our contrary view is that an increased understanding of the habitat requirements and distributions of some species allows us to identify low-risk situations where the benefits of such "assisted colonization'" can be realized and adverse outcomes minimized…

…One of the most serious risks associated with assisted colonization is the potential for creating new pest problems at the target site. Introduced organisms can also carry diseases and parasites or can alter the genetic structure and breeding systems of local populations…

…In addition to the ecological risks, socioeconomic concerns must be considered in decisions to move threatened species. Financial or human safety constraints, for example, may make a species' introduction undesirable. It is likely to be unacceptable to move threatened large carnivores or toxic plants into regions that are important for grazing livestock…

These risks do not invalidate the authors' major point. If we want to conserve current biodiversity in a changing climate, we will likely need creative alternatives to current conservation approaches. Facilitated dispersal of species is one option that deserves consideration in specific conservation contexts. However, it is far from a silver bullet.

Posted on July 18, 2008 08:57 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Cherney, D. | Biodiversity | Climate Change | Environment

July 14, 2008

Replications of our Normalized Hurricane Damage Work

This post highlights two discussion papers that have successfully replicated our normalized hurricane damage analyses using different approaches and datasets. Interestingly, both papers claim a trend in losses after normalization, but do some only by using a subset of the data – starting in 1950 in the first case and 1971 and the second case. Our dataset shows the same trends when arbitrarily selecting these shorter time frames, however, as we reported, we found no trends in the entire dataset.

If you’d just like the bottom line, here it is:

I am happy to report that Nordhaus (2006) and Schmidt et al. (2008) offer strong confirmatory evidence in support of the analysis that we have presented on adjusting U.S. hurricane losses over time. What do these studies say about the debate over hurricanes and climate change? Well, almost nothing (despite the unsuccessful effort by Schmidt et al. to reach for such a connection). There is no long-term trend in the landfall behavior of U.S. hurricanes, so it is only logical that there would also be no long-term trends in normalized damage as a function of storm behavior. Those looking for insight on this debate will need to look elsewhere. If it is to be found, such a linkage will be found in the geophysical data long before it shows up in the damage data, as we asserted at our Hohenkammer workshop.

Please read on if you are interested in the details.

The first paper is by the leading economist William Nordhaus (2006, PDF). His analysis uses the same original loss data but adjusts it for GDP rather than population, wealth, and housing units. His analysis uses our 1998 study which we updated in 2008. Nordhaus claims to have "verified our analysis" but he does leave a loose end (emphasis added):

Our estimates indicate that the time trend in the damage function is positive. For example, the time trend in the OLS full-sample equation found that normalized damages have risen by 2.9 (+0.76) percent per year, indicating increased vulnerability to storms of a given size.
This is contrary to Roger A. Pielke, Jr., "Are There Trends in Hurricane Destruction?" Nature, Vol. 438, December 2005, E11, who reports no statistically significant trend. Similar negative results were found in Roger A. Pielke, Jr. and Christopher W. Landsea, "La Niña, El Niño, and Atlantic Hurricane Damages in the United States," Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., vol. 80, 2027-2033. Additionally, issues of comparability over time are non-trivial, as is discussed in Christopher W. Landsea, "Hurricanes and Global Warming," Nature, Vol. 438, December 2005, E11-E12. The reasons for the difference in findings have not been resolved.

The reason for the difference in findings should be completely obvious: Nordhaus looks at 1950-2005, and Pielke (2005) and Pielke and Landsea (1998) both begin their analysis in 1900. Pielke (2005, PDF) reports:

For example, take the 86 storms causing at least US$1 billion in normalized damages, which removes a bias caused by small storms resulting in no damage in the early twentieth century (that is, not subjected to normalization). There is an average per-storm loss in 1900–50 for 40 storms (0.78 events per year) of $9.3 billion, and an average per-storm loss in 1951–2004 for 46 storms (0.85 events per year) of $7.0 billion; this difference is not statistically significant. Adding Hurricane Katrina to this data set, even at the largest loss figures currently suggested, would not change the interpretation of these results.

The following figures illustrate this point quite clearly. The first figure is from Nordhaus:

The second figure is from the data of Pielke et al. 2008 (PDF):

Clearly, the datasets show the same trends. However, our entire dataset shows no trend, as we reported in the paper:

The two normalized data sets reported here show no trends either in the absolute data or under a logarithmic transformation: the variance explained by a best-fit linear trend line=0.0004 and 0.0003, respectively, for PL05, and 0.0014 and 0.00006, respectively, for CL05. The lack of trend in twentieth century normalized hurricane losses is consistent with what one would expect to find given the lack of trends in hurricane frequency or intensity at landfall. This finding should add some confidence that, at least to a first degree, the normalization approach has successfully adjusted for changing societal conditions. Given the lack of trends in hurricanes themselves, any trend observed in the normalized losses would necessarily reflect some bias in the adjustment process, such as failing to recognize changes in adaptive capacity or misspecifying wealth. That we do not have a resulting bias suggests that any factors not included in the normalization methods do not have a resulting net large significance.

So to summarize, Nordhaus (2006) and Pielke et al. (2008) reconcile perfectly.

A second study is just out by Silvio Schmidt et al. (2008, PDF) which applies a modified version of our normalization methodology to hurricane losses found in the Munich Reinsurance global loss dataset. This study finds no significant trend from 1950, using a log transformation of the dataset:

The trend analysis for the period 1950–2005 yields no statistically significant trend in annual adjusted losses. Even if the two extreme years, 2004 and 2005, are omitted from the trend analysis, no trend can be identified in which the explanatory variable time is significant. Thus, no conclusion can be drawn regarding a possible trend in the periods 1950–2005 and 1950–2003.

The paper does identify a statistically significant trend starting in 1971, but the significance disappears when Katrina is removed from the dataset. Once again, the Schmidt et al. analysis is perfectly consistent with our analysis. The following figure shows their log-transformed data from 1950:

And the following graph is the same transformation applied to the data of Pielke et al. (2008).

One notable difference is that the Munich Re dataset apparently has some gaps, as it reports a number of years with zero damage that our dataset shows the presence of damaging storms. From the graph is should be clear that any claim of a trend over the dataset depends upon 2004 and 2005. And even in this case Schmidt et al. were only able to identify a statistically significant trend by starting with 1971 (which they claim as the start of a cold phase, contrary to most studies that use 1970). The following figure from Schmidt et al. shows how close the two analyses actually are (the red curve is Pielke et al. 2008):

The differences between the two analyses are very small, and I would guess, of no particular statistical significance over the time series of the dataset.

So I am happy to report that Nordhaus (2006) and Schmidt et al. (2008) offer strong confirmatory evidence in support of the analysis that we have presented on adjusting U.S. hurricane losses over time.

What do these studies say about the debate over hurricanes and climate change? Well, almost nothing despite efforts by Schmidt et al. to reach for such a connection. There is no long-term trend in the landfall behavior of U.S. hurricanes, so it is only logical that there would also be no long-term trends in normalized damage as a function of storm behavior. Those looking for insight on this debate will need to look elsewhere. If it is to be found, such a linkage will be found in the geophysical data long before it shows up in the damage data, as we asserted at our Hohenkammer workshop.

Posted on July 14, 2008 07:35 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Risk & Uncertainty

July 09, 2008

Climate Science and National Interests

The Indian government has put out a climate change action plan (PDF) that places economic development and adaptation ahead of mitigation (sound familiar?). The report was endorsed by IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri:

[Pachauri] said that India has realised the climate change threat. India's climate change action plan recently released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a "good policy document" and needs to be implemented.

Interesting, the report's views of climate science are at odds with that presented by the IPCC.

The Indian climate change action plan states of observed climate changes in India (p. 15):

No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established.

For example, the Indian report states of the melting of Himalayan glaciers (p. 15):

The available monitoring data on Himalayan glaciers indicates while some recession of glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend is not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is accordingly, too early to establish long-term trends or their causation, in respect of which there are several hypotheses.

By contrast, the IPCC (WG II Ch. 10 p. 493)says of Himalayan glacier melt:

The receding and thinning of Himalayan glaciers can be attributed primarily to the global warming due to increase in anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases.

Imagine the reaction if the U.S. (or British or German or Australian . . .) government put out a report placing economic growth ahead of mitigation while contradicting the science of the IPCC. Dr. Pachauri's endorsement of a report that contradicts the IPCC indicates that issues of science and national interests are apparently universal.

Posted on July 9, 2008 06:50 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | International | Science + Politics

Governance as Usual: Film at 11

I have long considered Andy Revkin of the New York Times to be the dean of reporters covering climate science. But there is one issue that I think he consistently gets wrong, and that is his coverage of the politics of internal bureaucratic-politician conflicts. His story in today's NYT is a good example.

Andy writes, breathlessly:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s office was involved in removing statements on health risks posed by global warming from a draft of a health official’s Senate testimony last year, a former senior government environmental official said on Tuesday.

Watergate this is not. In fact, the editing of testimony probably occurs just about every time that an employee of the executive branch is set to testify before Congress, and this has been standard operating procedure for decades. The more significant the issue the higher up the chain of command the review takes place. The procedure is clearly outlined in OMB Circular-21 (PDF):

Unless a specific exemption is approved by OMB, materials subject to OMB clearance include:
• All budget justifications and budget-related oversight materials;
• Testimony before and letters to congressional committees;
• Written responses to congressional inquiries or other materials for the record; . . .

Now if you or I were in a decision making position in the Executive Branch we might make decisions about what to allow in testimony differently than those in the current administration. But make no mistake, such decisions are under the discretion of the administration. Federal employees who don't like those decisions are free to go public or even resign (both occurred in this case).

A spat between elected and career officials may or may not be significant, as they happen all the time. My problem with the track record of coverage of such disputes on climate change by the NYT is that it they have been very misleading about what the news is in such situations. The headline reads: "Cheney’s Office Said to Edit Draft Testimony" suggesting that there is something improper or perhaps even illegal about the editing of testimony in the Executive Office of the President. There is not.

Revkin and I have disagreed on this same issue before. At the time I called the NYT coverage of Bush officials editing Bush Administration documents a "manufactured controversy" and I think that statement applies to today's revelations as well.

Here are the comments I left on Andy's blog, to which, perhaps understandably, he reacted a bit snippily:

Andy-
This is a "dog bites man" story in the form of "pit bull bites man". It is red meat for those who do not like pit bulls, but at the same time, everyone knows that pit bulls bite.

Can you name a presidential administration in which senior officials did not play a role in shaping testimony on important issues? This is a loaded question, because of course you cannot.

I’m no fan of Bush or Cheney, or their approach to climate, but at the same time I think that it is only appropriate to present to your readers an accurate sense of how policy making actually works. In this case, Marburger’s explanation [cited on Andy's blog] is exactly correct.

It is perfectly fair for people to disagree with the actions taken by the Bush Administration on this testimony, but was it improper or even illegal? No, not even close.

Science does not dictate particular policies, and presidential administration’s have wide latitude in what information they present and how they present it. This is spelled out in OMB Circular 22:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a11/current_yea r/s22.pdf

Dog bites man is not news.

[ANDY REVKIN says: Roger, maybe you forgot to read the entire 2004 story, which made the points you’re making now.]

— Posted by Roger Pielke, Jr.

Posted on July 9, 2008 01:44 PM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Journalism, Science & Environment | Science + Politics

The IPCC, Scientific Advice and Advocacy

For some time the leadership of the IPCC have sought to use the institution's authority to promote a specific political agenda in the climate debate. The comments made yesterday by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, place the organization in opposition to the G8 leaders position on climate change:

RK Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on Tuesday slammed developed countries for asking India and China to cut greenhouse gas emissions while they themselves had not taken strong steps to cut down pollution.
"India can not be held for any emission control. They (developed countries) should get off the back of India and China," Pachauri told reporters here.

"We are an expanding economy. How can we levy a cap when millions are living with deprivation? To impose any cap (on India) at a time when others (industrialised countries) are saying that they will reach the 1990 level of emission by 2025 is hazardous," Pachauri said.

He said countries like the US and Canada should accept their responsibilities and show leadership in reducing green house gases like carbon dioxide and methane.

Pachauri said millions of Indian do not have access to electricity and their per capita income is much less. At this point, you cannot ask a country to "stop developing".

Who does Dr. Pachauri speak for as head of the "policy neutral" IPCC?

It is as if the head of the CIA (or any other intelligence agency) decided to publicly criticize the government of Iran (or other country). Such behavior would seriously call into question the ability of the intelligence agency to perform its duties, which depend upon an ability to leave advocacy to other agencies. The United States has a Department of State responsible for international relations. The CIA collects intelligence in support of decision makers. These agencies have different roles in the policy process -- hoenst broker and issue advocate.

The IPCC seems to want to both gather intelligence and decide what to do based on that intelligence. This is not a recipe for effective expert advice. Leaders in many areas would not stand for this conflation of advice and advocacy, so why does it continue to occur in the climate arena with little comment?

June 20, 2008

What the CCSP Extremes Report Really Says

Yesterday the U.S. Climate Change Science Program released an assessment report titled "Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate" (PDF) with a focus on the United States. This post discusses some interesting aspects of this report, with an emphasis on what it does not show and does not say. It does not show a clear picture of ever increasing extreme events in the United States. And it does not clearly say why damage has been steadily increasing.

First, let me emphasize that the focus of the report is on changes in extremes in the United States, and not on climate changes more generally. Second, my comments below refer to the report’s discussion of observed trends. I do not discuss predictions of the future, which the report also covers. Third, the report relies a great deal on research that I have been involved in and obviously know quite well. Finally, let me emphasize that anthropogenic climate change is real, and deserving of significant attention to both adaptation and mitigation.

The report contains several remarkable conclusions, that somehow did not seem to make it into the official press release.

1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.

Yes, you read that correctly. From the appendix (p. 132, emphases added):

The final example is a time series of U.S. landfalling hurricanes for 1851-2006 . . . A linear trend was fitted to the full series and also for the following subseries: 1861-2006, 1871-2006, and so on up to 1921-2006. As in preceding examples, the model fitted was ARMA (p,q) with linear trend, with p and q identified by AIC.
For 1871-2006, the optimal model was AR(4), for which the slope was -.00229, standard error .00089, significant at p=.01. For 1881-2006, the optimal model was AR(4), for which the slope was -.00212, standard error .00100, significant at p=.03. For all other cases, the estimated trend was negative, but not statistically significant.

2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.

Yes, you read that correctly. From p. 5:

Averaged over the continental U.S. and southern Canada the most severe droughts occurred in the 1930s and there is no indication of an overall trend in the observational record . . .

3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation (pp. 46-50, pp. 130-131), there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).

From p. 53 (emphasis added):

Lins and Slack (1999, 2005) reported no significant changes in high flow above the 90th percentile. On the other hand, Groisman et al. (2001) showed that for the same gauges, period, and territory, there were statistically significant regional average increases in the uppermost fractions of total streamflow. However, these trends became statistically insignificant after Groisman et al. (2004) updated the analysis to include the years 2000 through 2003, all of which happened to be dry years over most of the eastern United States.

4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms

From p. 77:

There is no evidence for a change in the severity of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, and the large changes in the overall number of reports make it impossible to detect if meteorological changes have occurred.

5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.

From p. 68:

They found a general tendency toward weaker systems over the past few decades, based on a marginally significant (at the p=0.1 level) increase in average storm minimum pressure (not shown). However, their analysis found no statistically significant trends in ECWS frequency for all nor’easters identified in their analysis, specifically for those storms that occurred over the northern portion of the domain (>35°N), or those that traversed full coast (Figure 2.22b, c) during the 46-year period of record used in this study.

6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.

From p. 39:

Analysis of multi-day very extreme heat and cold episodes in the United States were updated from Kunkel et al. (1999a) for the period 1895-2005. The most notable feature of the pattern of the annual number of extreme heat waves (Figure 2.3a) through time is the high frequency in the 1930s compared to the rest of the years in the 1895-2005 period. This was followed by a decrease to a minimum in the 1960s and 1970s and then an increasing trend since then. There is no trend over the entire period, but a highly statistically significant upward trend since 1960. . . Cold waves show a decline in the first half of the 20th century, then a large spike of events during the mid-1980s, then a decline. The last 10 years have seen a lower number of severe cold waves in the United States than in any other 10-year period since record-keeping began in 1895 . . .

From the excerpts above it should be obvious that there is not a pattern of unprecedented weather extremes in recent years or a long-term secular trend in extreme storms or streamflow. Yet the report shows data in at least three places showing that the damage associated with weather extremes has increased dramatically over the long-term. Here is what the report says on p. 12:

. . . the costs of weather-related disasters in the U.S. have been increasing since 1960, as shown in Figure 1.2. For the world as a whole, "weather-related [insured] losses in recent years have been trending upward much faster than population, inflation, or insurance penetration, and faster than non-weather-related events" (Mills, 2005a). Numerous studies indicate that both the climate and the socioeconomic vulnerability to weather and climate extremes are changing (Brooks and Doswell, 2001; Pielke et al., 2008; Downton et al., 2005), although these factors’ relative contributions to observed increases in disaster costs are subject to debate.

What debate? The report offers not a single reference to justify that there is a debate on this subject. In fact, a major international conference that I helped organize along with Peter Hoeppe of Munich Re came to a consensus position among experts as varied as Indur Goklany and Paul Epstein. Further, I have seen no studies that counter the research I have been involved in on trends in hurricane and flood damage in relation to climate and societal change. Not one. That probably explains the lack of citations.

They reference Mills 2005a, but fail to acknowledge my comment published in Science on Mills 2005a (found here in PDF) and yet are able to fit in a reference to Mills 2005b, titled "Response to Pielke" (responding to my comment). How selective. I critiqued Mills 2005a on this blog when it came out, writing some strong things: "shoddy science, bad peer review and a failure of the science community to demand high standards is not the best recipe for helping science to contribute effectively to policy."

The CCSP report continues:

For example, it is not easy to quantify the extent to which increases in coastal building damage is due to increasing wealth and population growth in vulnerable locations versus an increase in storm intensity. Some authors (e.g., Pielke et al., 2008) divide damage costs by a wealth factor in order to "normalize" the damage costs. However, other factors such as changes in building codes, emergency response, warning systems, etc. also need to be taken into account.

This is an odd editorial evaluation and dismissal of our work (Based on what? Again not a single citation to literature.) In fact, the study that I was lead author on that is referenced (PDF) shows quantitatively that our normalized damage record matches up with the trend in landfall behavior of storms, providing clear evidence that we have indeed appropriately adjusted for the effects of societal change in the historical record of damages.

The CCSP report then offers this interesting claim, again with the apparent intention of dismissing our work:

At this time, there is no universally accepted approach to normalizing damage costs (Guha-Sapir et al., 2004).

The reference used to support this claim can be found here in PDF. Perhaps surprisingly, given how it is used, Guha-Sapir et al. contains absolutely no discussion of normalization methodologies, but instead, a general discussion of damage estimation. It is therefore improperly cited in support of this claim. However, Guha-Sapir et al. 2004 does say the following on p. 53:

Are natural hazards increasing? Probably not significantly. But the number of people vulnerable and affected by disasters is definitely on the increase.

Sound familiar?

In closing, the CCSP report is notable because of what it does not show and what it does not say. It does not show a clear picture of ever increasing extreme events in the United States. And it does not clearly say why damage has been steadily increasing.

Overall, this is not a good showing by the CCSP.

Posted on June 20, 2008 01:28 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Scientific Assessments

June 18, 2008

Op-Ed in Financial Post

UPDATE: At Dot Earth Andy Revkin labels an excerpt from this op-ed the "quote of the day."

I have an invited op-ed in today's Financial Post (a Canadian newspaper with a skeptical editorial perspective on climate change). I argue that even though many scientists oversell the predictive capabilities of climate models, action on climate change still makes sense. Here is an excerpt:

So in the debate on what to do about climate change, what are we to make of the overstated claims of predictive accuracy offered by many scientists? Not surprisingly, the reason for overstated claims lies in the bitter and contested politics of climate change. Myanna Lahsen, an anthropologist who has studied climate modelers, finds that many of these scientists are acutely aware of the fact that any expressed “caveats, qualifications and other acknowledgements of model limitations can become fodder for the anti-environmental movement.” She documents how, more than a decade ago, a prominent climate scientist warned a group of his colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, home of one of the main U.S. climate modeling efforts that informs the IPCC, to “Choose carefully your adjectives to describe the models. Confidence or lack of confidence in the models is the deciding factor in whether or not there will be policy response on behalf of climate change.”
I witnessed this dynamic in practice while I was waiting to testify on climate policy before the U.S. Congress in 2006. A prominent climate scientist testifying on the panel appearing before mine was asked by a member of Congress about uncertainties in predictions from climate models. The scientist replied, enthusiastically and accurately, that there are a range of important uncertainties coming from scenario inputs and choices in parameterization schemes, instantly overwhelming his congressional audience with technical detail. Much later, and after a long break, the scientist requested an opportunity to clarify his earlier comments, and this time he said, “I would like to give you a little more direct answer to the question on reliability of climate models. I think they are reliable enough to be a very useful guide into the future.”

Lost in the Manichean debate over climate change is the real significance of what climate models really are telling us: We should act on climate mitigation and adaptation not because we are able to predict the future, but because we cannot.

See it all here. Comments and reactions welcomed.

Posted on June 18, 2008 02:04 AM View this article | Comments (22)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Science + Politics

June 16, 2008

U.S. Flood Damage 1929-2003

The ongoing Midwest floods are a horrible disaster. The United States however has seen a long-term trend of decreasing flood losses as a fraction of GDP, as shown in the following graph.

Flood Damage 1929-2003.jpg

Sources

Flood damage data: Here (Note no data 1980-82)

GDP data: Here

For further reading:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., M. Downton, J. Z. B. Miller, S. A. Changnon, K. E. Kunkel, and K. Andsager, 2000: Understanding Damaging Floods in Iowa: Climate and Societal Interactions in the Skunk and Raccoon River Basins, Environmental and Societal Impacts Group, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, August. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A. and M.W. Downton, 2000. Precipitation and Damaging Floods: Trends in the United States, 1932-97. Journal of Climate, 13(20), 3625-3637. (PDF)

Downton, M. and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. How Accurate are Disaster Loss Data? The Case of U.S. Flood Damage, Natural Hazards, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 211-228. (PDF)

Posted on June 16, 2008 03:33 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

The New Global Growth Path

A very important new paper is forthcoming in the journal Climatic Change which has been published first online. The paper is:

P. Sheehan, 2008. The new global growth path: implications for climate change analysis and policy, Climatic Change (in press).

The paper argues that:

In recent years the world has moved to a new path of rapid global growth, largely driven by the developing countries, which is energy intensive and heavily reliant on the use of coal—global coal use will rise by nearly 60% over the decade to 2010. It is likely that, without changes to the policies in place in 2006, global CO2 emissions from fuel combustion would nearly double their 2000 level by 2020 and would continue to rise beyond 2030. Neither the SRES marker scenarios nor the reference cases assembled in recent studies using integrated assessment models capture this abrupt shift to rapid growth based on fossil fuels, centred in key Asian countries.

This conclusion strongly supports the analysis that we presented in Nature (PDF)not long ago, in which we argued that the mitigation challenge was potentially underestimated in the so-called IPCC SRES (and pre- and post- SRES) scenarios due to overly aggressive assumptions about future trends in the decarbonization of the global economy. Such overly optimistic assumptions are endemic in the literature, found in the Stern Review, and IEA and CCSP assessments, among others.

Sheehan comes to similar conclusions:

To the extent that NGP is a reasonable projection of global trends on current policies out to 2030, it follows that all of the SRES marker scenarios seriously understate unchanged policy emissions over that time, and do so because they do not capture the extent of the expansion in energy use and emissions that is currently taking place in Asia. Nor, as a consequence, do they capture the rapid growth in coal use that is also occurring. . .
The SRES scenarios were a substantial intellectual achievement, and have stood the test of time for almost a decade. But the central feature of global economic trends in the early decades of the twenty-first century—the new growth path shaped by the sustained emergence of China and India, in the context of an open, knowledge-based world economy—could not be foreseen in the 1990s, and is not covered by these scenarios. Many of the SRES scenarios are no longer individually plausible, and as a whole the marker scenarios can no longer be said to ‘describe the most important uncertainties’. As a result, and especially given the emissions intensity of the new growth path, there is an urgent need for new approaches.

Unfortunately, a major obstacle to discussing (much less achieving) new approaches are the very public intellectual and political commitments that have been advanced, based on the earlier assumptions. Unwinding these commitments -- as we have seen -- will take some doing.

PS. See also the NYTs Andy Revkin and Elisabeth Rosenthal on China's growing emissions here. As yet, the dots remain to be connected between such trends unfolding before our eyes and their incongruity with assumptions in energy policy assessments. But reality and policy assessments can diverge only for so long.

Posted on June 16, 2008 03:59 AM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

June 12, 2008

Why Costly Carbon is a House of Cards

How can the world achieve economic growth while at the same time decarbonizing the global economy?

This question is important because there is apt to be little public or political support for mitigation policies that increase the costs of energy in ways that are felt in reduced growth. Consider this description of reactions around the world to the recent increasing costs of fuel:

Concerns were growing last night over a summer of coordinated European fuel protests after tens of thousands of Spanish truckers blocked roads and the French border, sparking similar action in Portugal and France, while unions across Europe prepared fresh action over the rising price of petrol and diesel. . .
Protests at rising fuel prices are not confined to Europe. A succession of developing countries have provoked public outcry by ordering fuel price increases. Yesterday Indian police forcibly dispersed hundreds of protesters in Kashmir who were angry at a 10% rise introduced last week. Protests appeared likely to spread to neighbouring Nepal after its government yesterday announced a 25% rise in fuel prices. Truckers in South Korea have vowed strike action over the high cost of diesel. Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia have all raised pump prices. Malaysia's decision last week to increase prices generated such public fury that the government moved yesterday to trim ministers' allowances to appease the public.

Advocates for a response to climate change based on increasing the costs of carbon-based energy skate around the fact that people react very negatively to higher prices by promising that action won’t really cost that much. For instance, our frequent debating partner Joe Romm says of a recent IEA report (emphasis added):

. . . cutting global emissions in half by 2050 is not costly. In fact, the total shift in investment needed to stabilize at 450 ppm is only about 1.1% of GDP per year, and that is not a "cost" or hit to GDP, because much of that investment goes towards saving expensive fuel.

And Joe tells us that even these "not costly" costs are "overestimated."

If action on climate change is indeed "not costly" then it would logically follow the only reasons for anyone to question a strategy based on increasing the costs of energy are complete ignorance and/or a crass willingness to destroy the planet for private gain. Indeed, accusations of "denial" and "delay" are now staples of any debate over climate policy.

There is another view. Specifically that the current ranges of actions at the forefront of the climate debate focused on putting a price on carbon in order to motivate action are misguided and cannot succeed. This argument goes as follows: In order for action to occur costs must be significant enough to change incentives and thus behavior. Without the sugarcoating, pricing carbon (whether via cap-and-trade or a direct tax) is designed to be costly. In this basic principle lies the seed of failure. Policy makers will do (and have done) everything they can to avoid imposing higher costs of energy on their constituents via dodgy offsets, overly generous allowances, safety valves, hot air, and whatever other gimmick they can come up with.

Analysts and advocates allow this house of cards to stand when trying to sell higher costs of energy to a skeptical public they provide analyses that support a conclusion that acting to cut future emissions is "not costly."

The argument of "not costly" based on under-estimating the future growth of emissions so that the resulting challenge does not appear so large. We have discussed such scenarios on many occasions here and explored their implications in a commentary in Nature (PDF).

One widely-know example is the stabilization wedge analysis of Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow (PDF. The stabilization wedge analysis concluded that the challenge of stabilizing emissions was no so challenging.

Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world’s energy needs over the next 50years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the preindustrial concentration. . . But it is important not to become beguiled by the possibility of revolutionary technology. Humanity can solve the carbon and climate problem in the first half of this century simply by scaling up what we already know how to do.

In a recent interview the lead author of that paper, Pacala provided a candid and eye-opening explanation of the reason why they wrote the paper (emphases added):

The purpose of the stabilization wedges paper was narrow and simple – we wanted to stop the Bush administration from what we saw as a strategy to stall action on global warming by claiming that we lacked the technology to tackle it. The Secretary of Energy at the time used to give a speech saying that we needed a discovery as fundamental as the discovery of electricity by Faraday in the 19th century.
We also wanted to stop the group of scientists that were writing what I thought were grant proposals masquerading as energy assessments. There was one famous paper published in Science [Hoffert et al. 2002] that went down the list [of available technologies] fighting them one by one but never asked "what if we put them all together?" It was an analysis whose purpose was to show we lacked the technology, with a call at the end for blue sky research.

I saw it as an unhealthy collusion between the scientific community who believed that there was a serious problem and a political movement that didn’t. I wanted that to stop and the paper for me was surprisingly effective at doing that. I’m really happy with how it came out – I wouldn’t change a thing.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things wrong with it and that history won’t prove it false. It would be astonishing if it weren’t false in many ways, but what we said was accurate at the time.

So lets take a second to reflect on what you just read. Pacala is claiming that he wrote a paper to serve a political purpose and he admits that history may very well prove its analysis to be “false.” But he judges the paper was successful not because of its analytical soundness, but because it served its political function by severing relationship between a certain group of scientific experts and decision makers whose views he opposed.

Why is this problematic? NYU’s Marty Hoffert has explained that the Pacala and Socolow paper was simply based on flawed assumptions. Repeating different analyses with similar assumptions doesn’t make the resulting conclusions any more correct. Hoffert says (emphases added):

The problem with the formulation of Pacala and Socolow in their Science paper, and the later paper by Socolow in Scientific American issue that you cite, is that they both indicate that seven "wedges" of carbon emission reducing energy technology (or behavior) -- each of which creates a growing decline in carbon emissions relative to a baseline scenario equal to 25 billion tonnes less carbon over fifty years -- is enough to hold emissions constant over that period. . . .
A table is presented in the wedge papers of 15 "existing technology" wedges, leading virtually all readers to conclude the carbon and climate problem is soluble with near-term technology; and so, by implication, a major ramp-up of research and development investments in alternate energy technology like the "Apollo-like" R&D Program that we call for, is unnecessary. . . .

The actual number of wedges to hold carbon dioxide below 450 ppm is about 18, not 7, for Pacala-Socolow scenario assumptions, as Rob well knows; in which case we're much further from having the technology we need. The problem is actually much worse than that, since the number of emission-reducing wedges needed to avoid greater than two degree Celsius warming explodes after the mid-century mark if world GDP continues to grow three percent per year under a business-as-usual scenario.

The figure below is from a follow-on paper by Socolow in 2006 (PDF) and clearly indicates the need for 11 additional wedges of emissions reductions from 2005 to 2055. These are called "virtual wedges" which is ironic, because their existence is very real and in fact necessary for the stabilization of emissions to actually occur. (Cutting emissions by half would require another 4 wedges, or 22 total).

If Pacala and Socolow admit that we need 18 wedges to stabilize emissions, and 22 wedges to cut them by half, and this is based on an rosy assumption of only 1.5% growth in emissions to 2055, then why would anyone believe that we need less? If it is conceivable that emissions might grow faster than 1.5% per year, then we will need even more than the 22 wedges. Perhaps much more. But analysts seeking to impose a price on carbon won't tell you this. Instead, some will resort to demagoguery, and others will simply repeat over and over again the consequences of assuming rosy scenarios. None of this will make the mitigation challenge any easier. But as Pacala says in the excerpt above, such strategies may keep more sound analyses out of the debate.

Policies based on the argument that putting a price on carbon will be "not costly' are a house of cards, and based on a range of assumptions that could easily be judged very optimistic. Looking around, what you will see is that the minute that energy prices rise high enough to be felt by the public, action will indeed occur, but it will not be the action that is desired by the climate intelligencia. It will be demands for lower priced energy. And policy makers will listen to these demands and respond. Climate policy analysts should listen as well, because there will be no tricking of the public with rosy scenarios built on optimistic assumptions.

Virtual Triangle.png

June 10, 2008

Who Do National Science Academies Speak For?

UPDATED!

Today the national science academies of the G8+5 issued a statement on climate change (PDF) advocating a greater pace of action on adaptation and mitigation in response to climate change. We have discussed advocacy by science academies here on various occasions, and in this post I'd like to highlight two issues endorsed by the Academies that are still being debated among scientists and advocates, and ask, who do the academies speak for?

1. Clean coal. Carbon capture and storage is a contested technology, for example, by various environmental groups. However, the national science academies endorse its development and use.

Technologies should be developed and deployed for carbon capture, storage and sequestration (CCS), particularly for emissions from coal which will continue to be a primary energy source for the next 50 years for power and other industrial processes. G8+5 economies can take the lead globally to further develop CCS technologies. This will involve governments and industry working collaboratively to develop the financial and regulatory conditions needed to move CCS forward and international coordination in the development of demonstration plants.

2. Geoengineering research. Similarly, geoengineering research (as a separate issue from actual geoengineering) is a contested issue, for instance the recent Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biodiversity proposed a moratorium (receiving broad international support) on certain geoengineering experiments.. The national science academies endorse geoengineering without such reservations.

There is also an opportunity to promote research on approaches which may contribute towards maintaining a stable climate (including so-called geoengineering technologies and reforestation), which would complement our greenhouse gas reduction strategies.

Separate from the merit of the policy recommendations advanced by the academies (and for the record I support both CCS and geoengineering research) is the question of who the national science academies speak for and the basis for their endorsement of particular actions.

Do they represent the scientific community within their countries? Their members? Their executive bodies and leadership?

What of public concerns and those among members of the scientific community about CCS and geoengineering?

If the science academies claim to represent a special interest, then whose interest? If they claim to represent common interests, then on what basis is their advocacy to be viewed as legitimate (e.g., is democratic, consensual, authoritative, elite, etc.)?

Posted on June 10, 2008 01:41 PM View this article | Comments (9)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics | The Honest Broker

June 09, 2008

An Order of Magnitude in Cost Estimates: Automatic Decarbonization in the IEA Baseline

Last week I mentioned the conclusions of the IEA Energy Technologies Perspectives report. I have had a chance to look at the full report in some depth, with an eye to the assumptions in the report for the spontaneous decarbonization of the global economy.

All assessments of the costs of stabilizing concentrations of carbon dioxide start with a baseline trajectory of future emissions. The costs of mitigation are calculated with respect to reductions from this baseline. In the Pielke, Wigley, and Green commentary in Nature (PDF) we argued that such baselines typically assume very large, spontaneous decreases in energy intensity (energy per unit GDP). The effect of these assumptions is to decrease the trajectory of the baseline, making the challenge of mitigation much smaller than it would be with assumptions of smaller decreases in energy intensity (and a higher baseline trajectory). Obviously, the smaller the gap between the baseline scenario and the mitigation scenario, the smaller the projected costs of mitigation.

The annotated figure below is from the IEA ETP report (Figure 2.8, p. 74), and shows the assumptions of decreasing energy intensity in the baseline scenario (BASELINE), as well as the two mitigation scenarios (ACT [emissions stabilized at current values] and BLUE [emissions half current values]).

IEA Decarb.jpg

In the annotation I show with the red call out the difference between the BASELINE and BLUE scenarios, which the report identifies with a cost of $45 trillion. The magnitude of this difference is about 0.8% per year. However, the report assumes that about twice this rate of decarbonization of the global economy will happen spontaneously (i.e., the magnitude of the BASELINE reductions in energy intensity). With the green call out I ask how the baseline is actually to be achieved.

In numbers, the BLUE scenario assumes that by 2050 a trajectory consistent with stabilization at 450 ppm carbon dioxide will require reductions in emissions from 62 Gt carbon dioxide to 14 Gt. But what if we use a "frozen technology" baseline as recommended in PWG?

Using the assumptions from Annex B of the report for global economic growth (4.2% to 2015, 3.3% 2015-2030, and 2.6% 2030 to 2050 -- we could play with these assumptions as well) results in a frozen technology baseline of 115 Gt carbon dioxide. Thus, 53Gt of carbon dioxide are assumed in the BASELINE to be reduced by the automatic decarbonization of the global economy. This spontaneous decarbonization will occur without any of the technologies proposed in the report to get from the baseline to the mitigation level (otherwise the report would be double-counting the effects of these technologies). What these technologies are is anyone's guess, as the report does not describe them.

If the world does not automatically decarbonize as projected in the IEA baseline, then the costs of mitigation will be considerably higher. By how much?

If we take the report's marginal cost estimate of $200 to $500 per ton for mitigating carbon dioxide, then a simple estimate of the full costs from a frozen technology baseline would be an additional $210 to $530 trillion above the $45 trillion cited in the report. Yes, you read that right.

What if the assumption of automatic decarbonization was off by only 10%? Then the additional cost would be an additional $21 to $53 billion, or about the same magnitude of the IEA's total cost estimate of mitigation (i.e., of moving from the BASELINE to the BLUE trajectory) .

What does this exercise tell us about costs estimates of mitigation?

1. They are highly sensitive to assumptions.

2. Depending on assumptions, cost estimates could vary by more than an order of magnitude.

3. We won't know the actual costs of mitigation until action is taken and costs are observed. Arguments about assumptions are unresolvable.

Meantime, it will be easy to cherrypick a cost for mitigation -- low or high -- that suits the argument that you'd like to make.

Anyone telling you that they have certainty about the future costs of mitigation -- whether that certainty is about high costs or low costs -- is not reflecting the actual uncertainty. Action on mitigation will have to take place before such certainty is achieved, and modified based on what we learn.

Posted on June 9, 2008 02:07 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

June 06, 2008

IEA on Reducing The Trajectory of Global Emissions

The International Energy Administration released its Energy Technology Perspectives report today, with a view on the prospects of returning global emissions to present values by 2050 and also more aggressively cutting them by half in 2050.

The report has several interesting conclusions:

1. Its cost estimates for stabilizing emissions at current amounts have doubled over the past 2 years to $50 per ton of carbon dioxide.

2. Its estimates for halving emissions from today's levels are $200 to $500 per ton of carbon dioxide.

By contrast, the Stern Review's 2006 estimate of the average cost of a similar reduction in emissions to 2050 was $25 per ton of carbon dioxide (see Figure 9.5 here in PDF), with an uncertainty range that topped out at about $100 per ton. The IPCC AR4 scenarios led to costs ranging up to $200 per ton of carbon dioxide (consistent with a 550 ppm stabilization trajectory by 2050, as seen in figure TS.9 in this PDF). (Note: I am unclear as to how the report handles the baseline issue that we raised in our recent Nature paper, but if they handled it properly, the differences in cost estimates from Stern/IPCC may simply reflect a more transparent accounting.)

What to take from this? Estimates of the economic costs of mitigation are highly unstable and speculative. Consider that the Stern Review considered no costs of oil above $80/barrel. However, the trend in cost estimates is up, due to the higher costs of energy and infrastructure. Efforts to map out the costs of mitigation to 2050 (or 2030 for that matter) are little more than guesses, leaving plenty of room to find a pleasing result.

3. The IEA report sees no path to stabilizing or halving emissions without a massive investment in both nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (for coal and gas). These are both politically controversial and will generate resistance among some groups, perhaps limiting their future prospects. To the extent that this happens other avenues for emissions reductions will need to be found to meet these ambitious goals.

4. Here is what the IEA sees as necessary each year:

The average year-by-year investments between 2010 and 2050 needed to achieve a virtual decarbonisation of the power sector include, amongst others, 55 fossil-fuelled power plants with CCS, 32 nuclear plants, 17,500 large wind turbines, and 215 million square metres of solar panels. [Reducing 2050 emissions to half of today's] also requires widespread adoption of near-zero emission buildings and, on one set of assumptions, [by 2050] deployment of nearly a billion electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

5. Finally, while the report says that the technologies to stabilize emissions at current values by 2050 are, in principle, available, it observes that they are not for reductions below this level, and thus calls for:

A massive increase of energy technology Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) is needed in the coming 15 years, in the order of USD 10-100 billion per year.

In short, the IEA report should serve as a reminder that the challenge of mitigation is significant and costly. Consequently,the politics of adopting mitigation policies will continue to be difficult (to put it mildly). Efforts to couch mitigation policies as low cost (in the short term) or of immediate benefit will likely fail, because presently this simply is not true. Strategies that will have greater prospects for success will those that align the short term costs with short term benefits, by broadening the focus of mitigation policies beyond a narrow focus on long-term climate change, or, by capitalizing on technological advances that do in fact lead to demonstrable short-term benefits by reducing the costs experienced by consumers and voters.

Until this lesson is learned, climate policy will continue in its current form.

Posted on June 6, 2008 06:54 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

June 04, 2008

A Few Bits on Cap and Trade

The U.S. Senate is debating a cap and trade bill this week and next. Anyone wanting a look at the debate can find it on CSPAN-2.

Meantime here are a few minor related items:

I reviewed Earth: The Sequel by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn of the Environmental Defense Fund. Unfortunately, the book adds little to understanding of or debate on cap and trade. My review can be found at Nature Reports: Climate Change here.

Monday's Denver Post has a column by David Harsanyi (opposing the cap and trade bill) in which he quotes from an analysis I did of the effectiveness of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Unfortunately he confuses my analysis of the effect of the CDM with an assessment of the entire Protocol. For that analysis he would have wanted to look at a 1998 paper by Tom Wigley, and make a few adjustments based on actual participation and performance of Kyoto. The amount of delay in emissions from all of Kyoto would be measured in months not days.

Posted on June 4, 2008 08:11 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

June 03, 2008

Idealism vs. Political Realities

David Cox writes in the Guardian on climate change: "It's surely time for a change of tack. Or should we just wring our hands?"

A further excerpt:

Perhaps, it's time to get real. Climate change activists should come to appreciate what religious reformers, communist revolutionaries and other utopian visionaries have learned before them. You can't change human behaviour in the interests of the supposed greater good.
Nonetheless, warming hasn't gone away, even if its character is less clear-cut than has been suggested by those urging us to make obeisance to it. What should we do about it?

The answer is surely to switch our efforts away from trying to change human behaviour towards other approaches to the problem. The most obvious is technological research into methods of alleviating warming. Up until now, mentioning this route has been considered a sinful attempt to divert attention from the hairshirt remedies on which the prophets of doom have insisted. Perhaps partly as a result, such research is proving surprisingly skimpy.

He raises a good point, which I'd characterize as, if efforts to put a meaningful price on carbon fail, what is plan B?

Posted on June 3, 2008 09:32 AM View this article | Comments (23)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

Air Capture in The Guardian

Saturday's Guardian has a story about a potentially important breakthrough in air capture technology:

It has long been the holy grail for those who believe that technology can save us from catastrophic climate change: a device that can "suck" carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, reducing the warming effect of the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas produced each year.
Now a group of US scientists say they have made a breakthrough towards creating such a machine. Led by Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University in New York, they plan to build and demonstrate a prototype within two years that could economically capture a tonne of CO2 a day from the air, about the same per passenger as a flight from London to New York.

The prototype so-called scrubber will be small enough to fit inside a shipping container. Lackner estimates it will initially cost around £100,000 to build, but the carbon cost of making each device would be "small potatoes" compared with the amount each would capture, he said.

The scientists stress their invention is not a magic bullet to solve climate change. It would take millions of the devices to soak up the world's carbon emissions, and the CO2 trapped would still need to be disposed of. But the team says the technology may be the best way to avert dangerous temperature rises, as fossil fuel use is predicted to increase sharply in coming decades despite international efforts. Climate experts at a monitoring station in Hawaii this month reported CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached a record 387 parts per million (ppm) - 40% higher than before the industrial revolution.

The quest for a machine that could reverse the trend by "scrubbing" carbon from the air is seen as one of the greatest challenges in climate science. Richard Branson has promised $25m (£12.6m) to anyone who succeeds.

Lackner told the Guardian: "I wouldn't write across the front page that the problem is solved, but this will help. We are in a hurry to deal with climate change and will be very hard pressed to stop the train before we get to 450ppm [CO2 in the atmosphere]. This can help stop the train."

My recent paper on the economics and politics of air capture is going to be obsolete before I even get the reviews back!! (Anyone wanting a copy of the paper as submitted just send me an email: pielke@colorado.edu.)

Posted on June 3, 2008 09:22 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

June 02, 2008

Visually Pleasing Temperature Adjustments

This is a follow up to our continuing discussion of the possible implications of changes to mid-century global average temperatures for conclusions reached by the IPCC AR4, and how scientists react to such changes.

Over at Real Climate they pointed to the following figure as representing "a good first guess at what the change will look like" and asserted that it would have no meaningful implications for the trends in temperature rise since mid-century presented by the IPCC.

independent graph.jpg

Since there was some disagreement here in the comments of an earlier post about how to interpret this graph, I have decided to simply replicate it and then see if I could exactly replicate the graph from the Independent. The data is available here.

The first thing to note is that the Independent graph has a major error which Real Climate did not point out. It says that the smooth curve represents a 5-year average, when in fact, it actually represents a 21-point binomial filter. The difference in smoothing is critically important for interpreting what the graph actually says, and the error confused me and at least one climate scientist writing in our comments.

Here is a replication of the 21-point smoothing generated from the annual values, which will allow for my effort to replicate the graph from the Independent.

smooth seas.jpg

So far so good. But replication of the adjusted curve is a bit tricky as changing data for any one year has implications for the shape of the curve 10 years before that year and 10 years after. Upon trying to create a exact replication of the graph from The Independent, right away I realized that there was a major problem, because adding any increment to where Thompson et al. said it should begin (in 1945) instantly raised the adjusted curve to a point above the unadjusted curve. And as you can see in the Independent graph that at no point does the adjusted curve rise above the unadjusted curve, much less by a significant amount as implied by Thompson et al..

So right away it seems clear that we are not trying to make an adjustment that actually draws on the guidance from Thompson et al. This might seem odd, since the graph is supposed to show a proposed "guess" at the implications of Thompson et al. In any event, with that constraint removed I simply tried to get the best visual fit to the Independent graph that I could. And here is what I came up with.

Now, given the complicated smoothing routine, there is certainly any number of combinations of weird adjustments that will result in a very similar looking curve. (And if anyone from CRU is reading and wants to share with us exactly what you used, and the basis for it, please do so.) The adjustments I used are as follows:

1945 0
1946 0
1947 0
1948 0.1
1949 0.25
1950 0.18
1951 0.18
1952 0.18
1953 0.18
1954 0.16
1955 0.16
1956 0
1957 0
1958 0
1959 0
1960 0

Oh yeah, the effect of these visually pleasing adjustments on the IPCC trend from 1950? Not that it actually means anything given the obvious incorrectness, but it would reduce the trend by about 15%.

Posted on June 2, 2008 08:00 AM View this article | Comments (20)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty | Scientific Assessments

June 01, 2008

Real Climate on Meaningless Temperature Adjustments

[UPDATE]Real Climate did not like the figure shown below, so I responded to them with the following request, submitted as a comment on their site:

Hi Gavin-
I’d be happy to work from a proposed adjustment directly from you, rather than rely on the one proposed by Steve McIntyre or the one you point to from The Independent.

Thompson et al. write: "The new adjustments are likely to have a substantial impact on the historical record of global-mean surface temperatures through the middle part of the twentieth century."

It is hard to see how temperatures around 1950 can change "substantially" with no effect on trends since 1950, but maybe you have a different view. Lets hear it. Give me some better numbers and I’ll use them.

Their response was to dodge the request:

Response: Nick Rayner, Liz Kent, Phil Jones etc. are perfectly capable of working it out and I’d suggest deferring to their experience in these matters. Whatever they come up with will be a considered and reasonable approach that will include the buoy and drifter issues as well as the post WW-II canvas bucket transition. Second guessing how that will work out in the absence of any actual knowledge would be foolish. - gavin

But doesn't speculation that no changes will be needed to the IPCC trend estimates count as "second guessing," or pointing to a graph in The Independent as likely being correct?

Similarly, in the comments below climate scientist James Annan criticized the graph in this post and when asked to provide an alternative adjustment, he declined to do so.

If these guys know what is "wrong" then they must have an idea about what is "right".

Real Climate writes an entire post responding to Steve McIntyre's recent discussions of buckets and sea surface temperatures, explaining why the issue doesn't really matter, but for some weird reason they can't seem to mention him by name or provide a link to what they are in fact responding to. (If the corrections don't matter, then one wonders, why do them? Thompson et al. seemed to think that the issue matters.)

Real Climate does seem have mastered a passive voice writing style, however. Since they did have the courtesy to link here, before calling me "uninformed" (in deniable passive voice of course), I though a short response was in order.

Real Climate did not like our use of a proposed correction suggested by He Who Will Not Be Named. So Real Climate proposed another correction based on a graphic printed in The Independent. Never mind that the correction doesn't seem to jibe with that proposed by Thompson et al., but no matter, we used the one suggested by Mr. Not-To-Be-Named so lets use Real Climate's as well and see what difference it makes to temperature trends since 1950. Based on what Real Climate asserts (but oddly does not show with numbers), you'd think that their proposed adjustment results in absolutely no change to mid-20th century trends, and indeed anyone suggesting otherwise is an idiot or of ill-will. We'll lets see what the numbers show.

The graph below shows a first guess at the effects of the Real Climate adjustments (based on a decreasing adjustment from 1950-60) based on the graphic in The Independent.

Real Climate Adjustment.jpg

What difference to trends since 1950 does it make? Instead of the about 50% reduction in the 1950-2007 trend from the first rough guess from you-know-who, Real Climate's first guess results in a reduction of the trend by about 30%. A 30% reduction in the IPCC's estimate in temperature trends since 1950 would be just as important as a 50% reduction, and questions of its significance would seem appropriate to ask. But perhaps a 30% reduction in the trend would be viewed as being "consistent with" the original trend ;-)

Try again Real Climate. And next time, his name is STEVE MCINTYRE -- and his blog is called CLIMATE AUDIT. There is a lot of science and civil discussion there, with a healthy mix of assorted experts and a range of ordinary folks. Questioning scientific conclusions is a lot healthier for science than rote defense, but we all learned that in grad school, didn't we?

Posted on June 1, 2008 05:03 PM View this article | Comments (25)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

May 29, 2008

Does the IPCC’s Main Conclusion Need to be Revisited?

Yesterday Nature published a paper by Thompson et al. which argues that a change in the observational techniques for taking the temperatures of the oceans led to a cold bias in temperatures beginning in the 1940s. The need for the adjustment raises an interesting, and certainly sensitive, question related to the sociology and politics of science: Does the IPCC's main conclusion need to be revisited?

The Nature paper states of the effects of the bias on temperature measurements:

The adjustments immediately after 1945 are expected to be as large as those made to the pre-war data (.0.3 C; Fig. 4), and smaller adjustments are likely to be required in SSTs through at least the mid-1960s.

Thompson et al. do not provide a time series estimate on the effects of the bias on the global temperature record, but Steve McIntyre, who is building an impressive track record of analyses outside the peer-review system, discussed this topic on his weblog long before the paper appeared in Nature, and has proposed an adjustment to the temperature record (based on discussions with participants on his blog). Steve’s adjustment is based on assuming:

that 75% of all measurements from 1942-1945 were done by engine inlets, falling back to business as usual 10% in 1946 where it remained until 1970 when we have a measurement point - 90% of measurements in 1970 were still being made by buckets as indicated by the information in Kent et al 2007- and that the 90% phased down to 0 in 2000 linearly.

The effects of McIntyre’s proposed adjustments (on the UKMET global temperature record) are shown in the following figure.

Other adjustments are certainly plausible, and will certainly be proposed and debated in the literature and on blogs (McIntyre discusses possible implications of the adjustments in this post.). But given how much research has been based on the existing global temperature record, it seems likely that many studies will be revisited in light of the Nature paper. In a comment in Nature that accompanies Thompson et al., Forest and Reynolds suggest:

The SST adjustment around 1945 is likely to have far-reaching implications for modelling in this period.

In the figure above, the trend in the unadjusted data (1950-present) is 0.11 Deg C per decade (slightly lower than reported by IPCC AR4, due to the recent downturn), and after the adjustments are applied the trend drops by just about half, to 0.06 Deg C per decade.

And this brings us to the IPCC. In 2007 the IPCC (PDF) concluded that:

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations

I interpret "mid-20th century" to be 1950, and "most" to be >50%. This means that the 2007 IPCC attributed more than 0.06 Deg per decade of the temperature increase since 1950 to increasing greenhouse gases. But we know now that the trend since 1950 included a spurious factor due to observational discontinuities, which reduces the entire trend to 0.06. So logically, if the proposed adjustment is in the ballpark, it would mean that one of the following statements must be true in order for the IPCC statement to still hold:

A. The entire trend of 0.06 per decade since 1950 should now be attributed to greenhouse gases (the balance of 0.06 per decade)

B. Only >0.03 per decade can be attributed to greenhouse gases (the "most" from the original statement)

C. The proposed adjustment is wildly off (I’d welcome other suggestions for an adjustment)

D. The IPCC statement needs to be fundamentally recast

So which is it?

PS. To ensure that this blog post is not misinterpreted, note that none of the mitigation or adaptation policies that I have advocated are called into question based on the answer that one gives to the question posed in the title.

Posted on May 29, 2008 08:10 AM View this article | Comments (14)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics | Scientific Assessments

May 28, 2008

Meantime, Back in the Real World: Power Plant Conversion Rates

A reader writes in with positive things to say, but notes that as interesting as it is to see our focus on technical issues like the short-term predictive capability of models and the fidelity of IPCC pre/post/SRES scenarios we may also balance that out with some bigger picture stuff.

To that I say: guilty as charged, fair enough. I'll be returning to the short-term prediction stuff before long, but for today's big picture perspective, consider the following points on the scale of the mitigation challenge.

The Center for Global Development estimates that there are 25,339 power plants around the world that emit carbon dioxide. If the world starts replacing or converting these plants to carbon free energy production at the rate of one plant per day, then it will take 69 years to make all of these power plants carbon neutral, and an 80% conversion would take 56 years. If you'd like assume that most emissions come from the largest plants, you can cut those numbers in half or even by 2/3 and the point remains. At a conversion rate of one plant per week -- using only the top 1/3 emitters -- it would take 145 years to convert 80% of these 1/3 (162 years to convert the entire 1/3).

But energy production from fossil fuel power plants is of course increasing, so these are conservative numbers. The rate of conversion from carbon dioixde emitting power plants currently is negative (they are growing in number, at a rate of, what, several per week? Good data sources appreciated in the comments), so the conversion clock is running in reverse. And, oh yeah, power plant emissions according to CGD are 29% of the global total.

The point of this post is not that mitigation is impossible, but that it arguably is much, much harder a challenge than typically advertised. Any guesses on when the power plant conversion rate will become positive, and a what rate it will occur? Will it occur at all?

Posted on May 28, 2008 08:51 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

May 25, 2008

IPCC Scenarios and Spontaneous Decarbonization

Joe Romm has helpfully posted up his full reply to Nature on PWG (PDF), and we are happy to link to it as promised. And after reading Joe's original letter and his comments, the source of his complaint -- and confusion -- is now clear. This post explains that Joe has confused the differences between different IPCC SRES scenarios with spontaneous decarbonization within each individual scenario.

Figure 1.png

The Figure above is from our Nature paper. It shows for the six SRES families (A1B, A1FI, A1T, A2, B1, B2) cumulative emissions to 2100. For now lets ignore the light blue part of each bar (which represents the spontaneous or automatic decarbonization that we discuss in the paper, and which I return to below).

Joe Romm points out in his critique:

The Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), which the Commentary cites, makes clear that while the SRES scenarios don’t technically have climate policies, they can and do have energy efficiency and decarbonization policies, which are the same thing. That’s clear from examining the B1 scenario, which includes aggressive policies that help limit total global warming to about 2°C

He is correct in this assertion. The effect of these policies in the B1 sceanrio can be seen in the difference between the height of the green plus red (G+R) parts of the B1 bar and the same G+R portion of the bars for the other scenarios. Clearly, the B1 G+R is closer to the dotted line than any of the others (though A1T is also close). The "energy and decarbonization policies" that Joe Romm refers to are those that account for the difference in height between the G+R parts of the bars in our graph across scenarios -- which is completely different than the assumptions of automatic decarbonization within each scenario which are reflected in the light blue parts of the bars.

Automatic decarbonization occurs in the IPCC scenarios not because of specific policies that the report discusses, but because of assumptions that it uses within individual scenarios (specifically, assumptions of decreasing carbon and energy intensities). Whatever policies are associated with these assumptions are not discussed by the IPCC. The decarbonization of the global economy reflected by the light blue portions of the bars in the figure above are indeed accurately characterized as being "automatic" or "spontaneous."

In its editorial discussing our paper, Nature clearly understood this. Joe Romm apparently does not. He has confused the differences between aggregate emissions across scenarios with assumptions of automatic decarbonization within scenarios.

Now that Joe has released his original letter to Nature, it is clear why they asked him to correct his error of interpretation. It is also clear why his claims that we have made an error in our analysis is incorrect.

Posted on May 25, 2008 03:52 PM View this article | Comments (18)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

A Familiar Pattern is Emerging

This post provides a good example how some climate bloggers try to shut down debate over policy options by personalizing policy debates.

William Nordhaus, one of the leading economists who has worked on climate change, has a new book coming out, which is good news for anyone interested in the subject. His book was reviewed in The New York Review of books by Freeman Dyson.

But rather than take on the arguments made by Nordhaus, Real Climate and Joseph Romm attack Nordhaus' arguments by proxy. They attack Freeman Dyson for invoking arguments raised by Nordhaus. In the process they ignore the substance of the issues and turn the issue into a referendum on an individual with whom they have policy differences. This tag-team smear job is becoming a bit too familiar.

In Nordhaus' book he discusses five policy approaches, summarized by Freeman Dyson as follows:

Nordhaus examines five kinds of global-warming policy, with many runs of DICE for each kind. The first kind is business-as-usual, with no restriction of carbon dioxide emissions—in which case, he estimates damages to the environment amounting to some $23 trillion in current dollars by the year 2100. The second kind is the "optimal policy," judged by Nordhaus to be the most cost-effective, with a worldwide tax on carbon emissions adjusted each year to give the maximum aggregate economic gain as calculated by DICE. The third kind is the Kyoto Protocol, in operation since 2005 with 175 participating countries, imposing fixed limits to the emissions of economically developed countries only. Nordhaus tests various versions of the Kyoto Protocol, with or without the participation of the United States.
The fourth kind of policy is labeled "ambitious" proposals, with two versions which Nordhaus calls "Stern" and "Gore." "Stern" is the policy advocated by Sir Nicholas Stern in the Stern Review, an economic analysis of global-warming policy sponsored by the British government.[*] "Stern" imposes draconian limits on emissions, similar to the Kyoto limits but much stronger. "Gore" is a policy advocated by Al Gore, with emissions reduced drastically but gradually, the reductions reaching 90 percent of current levels before the year 2050. The fifth and last kind is called "low-cost backstop," a policy based on a hypothetical low-cost technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or for producing energy without carbon dioxide emission, assuming that such a technology will become available at some specified future date. According to Nordhaus, this technology might include "low-cost solar power, geothermal energy, some nonintrusive climatic engineering, or genetically engineered carbon-eating trees."

What do Real Climate and Joseph Romm do? Rather than engage the substance of the policy arguments, they go on the attack, with Real Climate using the term "b#ll&hit" and Romm "unmitigated disinformation." Of course the policy issues that they don't like -- discount rates, cost estimates, air capture -- all come from Nordhaus, not Dyson. But rather than engage the substance they viciously attack an individual.

The only apparently original view from Dyson that Real Climate takes issue with is when Dyson notes that (in a second book discussed in the review, by Ernesto Zedillo) chapters by Richard Lindzen and Stefan Rahmstorf (of Real Climate) are both unsatisfactory:

These two chapters give the reader a sad picture of climate science. Rahmstorf represents the majority of scientists who believe fervently that global warming is a grave danger. Lindzen represents the small minority who are skeptical. Their conversation is a dialogue of the deaf. The majority responds to the minority with open contempt.

A sad picture indeed.

Posted on May 25, 2008 03:02 PM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

May 23, 2008

Homework Assignment: Solve if you Dare

The graph above shows three trend lines.

BLUE: Temperature Trend prediction from the 1990 IPCC report
RED: Temperature Trend prediction from the 2007 IPCC report
GREEN: Observed Trend for 2001-2007 (from average of four obs datasets)

All data is as described in this correspodence (PDF).

Your assignment:

Which IPCC prediction is the trend observed 2001-2007 more consistent with and why? Show your work!

You are free to bring in whatever information and use whatever analysis that you want.

Posted on May 23, 2008 12:08 AM View this article | Comments (24)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

May 22, 2008

Nature Letters on PWG

The 8 May 2008 issue of Nature published 4 letters in response to the Pielke, Wigley, and Green commentary on IPCC scenarios (PDF). This provides a few excerpts from and reactions to these letters.

Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba writes:

I largely agree with the overall conclusion of Pielke et al. that the IPCC assessment is overly optimistic, but I fear that the situation is even worse than the authors imply.

Smil is realistic about the challenge of mitigation:

The speed of transition from a predominantly fossil-fuelled world to conversions of renewable flows is being grossly overestimated: all energy transitions are multigenerational affairs with their complex infrastructural and learning needs. Their progress cannot substantially be accelerated either by wishful thinking or by government ministers’ fiats.

But pessimistic about action:

Consequently, the rise of atmospheric CO2 above 450 parts per million can be prevented only by an unprecedented (in both severity and duration) depression of the global economy, or by voluntarily adopted and strictly observed limits on absolute energy use. The first is highly probable; the second would be a sapient action, but apparently not for this species.

Christopher Field, from Stanford University agrees with our analysis and its implications:

The trends towards increased carbon and energy intensity may or may not continue. In either case, we need new technologies and strategies for both endogenous and policy-driven intensity improvements. Given recent trends, it is hard to see how, without a massive increase in investment, the requisite number of relevant technologies will be mature and available when we need them.

Richard Richels, of the Electric Power Research Institute, Richard Tol, of the Economic and Social Research Institute (Ireland), and Gary Yohe, of Wesleyan University support our analysis and our interpretation of its significance:

Pielke et al. show that the 2000 Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) reflects unrealistic progress on both the supply and demand sides of the energy sector. These unduly optimistic baselines cause serious underestimation of the costs of policy-induced mitigation required to achieve a given stabilization level.
This is well known among experts but perhaps not to the public, which may explain why some politicians overstate the impact of their (plans for) climate policy, and why others argue incorrectly that ‘available’ off-the-shelf technologies can reduce emissions at very little or no cost.

They also make an absolutely critical point about climate policy – it is necessarily incremental and adaptive:

The focus of policy analysis should not be on what to do over the next 100 years, but on what to do today in the face of many important long-term uncertainties. The minute details of any particular scenario for 2100 are then not that important. This can be achieved through an iterative risk management approach in which uncertain long-term goals are used to develop short-term emission targets. As new information arises, emission scenarios, long-term goals and short-term targets are adjusted as necessary. Analyses would be conducted periodically (every 5–10 years), making it easier to distinguish autonomous trends from policy-induced developments — a major concern of Pielke and colleagues. If actual emissions are carefully monitored and analysed, the true efficacy and costs of past policies would be revealed and estimates of the impact of future policy interventions would be less uncertain.
Such an approach would incorporate recent actions by developed and developing countries. In an ‘act then learn’ framework, climate policy is altered in response to how businesses change their behavior in reaction to existing climate policies and in anticipation of future ones. This differs from SRES-like analyses, which ignore the dynamic nature of the decision process and opportunities for mid-course corrections as they compare scenarios without policy with global, century-long plans.

Ottmar Edenhofer, Bill Hare, Brigitte Knopf, Gunnar Luderer Potsdam of the Institute for Climate Impact Research (Germany) suggest that the range of rates for the future decarbonization of energy in the IPCC reports is in fact appropriate:

Over the past 30 years, the decrease in energy intensity has been 1.1% a year — well above the 0.6% a year assumed in 75% of the energy scenarios assessed by the IPCC.
Developments in China since 2000 do raise concerns that the rate of decrease in energy and carbon intensity could slow down, or even be reversed. However, similar short-term slow-downs in technical progress have occurred in the past, only for periods of more rapid development to compensate for them. India, for example, does not show the decreasing trend in energy efficiency seen in China.

The figure of 75% of scenarios of the IPCC assuming 0.6% per year decrease in energy intensity is difficult to interpret. But here is what the IPCC itself says on this (WGIII Ch. 3, p. 183 PDF):

In all scenarios, energy intensity improves significantly across the century – with a mean annual intensity improvement of 1%. The 90% range of the annual average intensity improvement is between 0.5% and 1.9% (which is fairly consistent with historic variation in this factor). Actually, this range implies a difference in total energy consumption in 2100 of more than 300% – indicating the importance of the uncertainty associated with this ratio.

So if 5% fall below 0.5%, it is hard to understand what the authors mean by "0.6% a year assumed in 75% of the energy scenarios assessed by the IPCC." Contrary to the other letters Edenhofer et al. conclude:

The IPCC’s main policy conclusions stand: present technologies can stop the rise in global emissions.

The final letter is from Joseph Romm, of the Center for America Progress. He chooses to parse what is meant by the term "climate policies" in the vernacular of the IPCC:

They criticize the IPCC for implicitly assuming that the challenge of reducing future emissions will mostly be met without climate policies. But the IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios makes clear that, although the scenarios don’t technically have climate policies, they can and do have energy efficiency and decarbonization policies, which amount to the same thing

It is not clear why this semantic point matters for interpreting our analysis as it has no implications for either our technical analysis or its interpretation. Of course, the IPCC defined the notion of "climate policies" quite precisely for a reason -- because the policies that relate to improved energy efficiency and decarbonization assumed by the IPCC to occur in their scenarios in the absence of climate policy mean that these other policies would be implemented with no effort focused on the stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (no cap and trade, no Kyoto, no carbon tax, etc. etc.). These policies, whatever they are, would happen spontaneously or automatically without any concern for climate. This assumption was explicit in the terms of reference for the IPCC SRES exercise for the purpose of clearly identifying the marginal benefits and costs of climate-specific policies.

Romm then simply repeats the conclusions of the IPCC:

the IPCC report makes clear that we have the necessary technologies, or soon will, and focuses on creating the conditions for rapid technological deployment

Interestingly, with a letter in Nature Romm, who has been a strong critic of our paper on his blog, had a perfect opportunity to explain what might have been incorrect in our technical analysis, and did not. We can assume that he was unable to find any flaws and thus chose to focus on the implications of the analysis, which he does not enagage, choosing simply to restate a position that he held before our paper came out.

As can be seen clearly in the letters, there is not a consensus among energy policy experts on the role of technological innovation in efforts to mitigate climate change. This is a debate which has only just begun, and for which there are a range of legitimate and informed points of view, despite the efforts of some to demagogue anyone who disagrees with their views.

World Bank and UK Government on Climate Change Implications of Development

The World Bank and UK government issued a report today titled, "Strategies For Sustained Growth And Inclusive Development." Here is what the report says about the implications for climate change of development in the developing world (p. 86), something that the report calls absolutely necessary:

Clearly the advanced countries are at per capita [carbon dioxide] output levels that, if replicated by the developing world, would be dramatically in excess of safe levels. World carbon emissions are now at about twice the safe level, meaning that if the current output is sustained, the CO2 stock in the atmosphere will rise above safe levels in the next 40 years. The figures for a range of countries, including developing countries, are shown in Figure 9.
If the developing countries did not grow, then safe levels of emissions would be achieved by reducing advanced country emissions by a factor of two or a little more. But with the growth of the developing countries, the incremental emissions are very large because of the size of the populations. To take the extreme case, if the whole world grew to advanced country incomes and converged on the German levels of emissions per capita, then to be safe from a warming standpoint, emissions per capita would need to decline by a factor of four. Reductions of this magnitude with existing technology are either not possible, or so costly as to be certain of slowing global and developing country growth.

What these calculations make clear is that technology is the key to accommodating developing country and global growth. We need to lower the costs of mitigation. Put differently, we need to build more economic value on top of a limited energy base. For that we need new knowledge.

What actions does the report call for (p. 90)?

The Commission recommends the following nine steps. Taken together, they will cut emissions, thereby staving off some of the worst dangers of global warming. They will reveal more about the cost of cutting emissions, and they will encourage new technologies that reduce these costs. These steps are also fair.
1. The advanced economies should cut emissions first and they should do so aggressively. This will slow the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere. It will also reveal a great deal about how much it truly costs to cut carbon emissions.

2. More generous subsidies should be paid to energy-efficient technologies and carbon reduction technologies, which will reduce the cost of mitigation.

3. Advanced economies should strive to put a price on carbon.

4. The task of monitoring emissions cuts and other mitigation measures should be assigned to an international institution, which should begin work as soon as possible.

5. Developing countries, while resisting long-term target-setting, should offer to cut carbon at home if other countries are willing to pay for it. Such collaborations take place through the Clean Development Mechanism provisions in the Kyoto protocol. Rich countries can meet their Kyoto commitments by paying for carbon cuts in poorer countries.

6. Developing countries should promise to remove fuel subsidies, over a decent interval. These subsidies encourage pollution and weigh heavily on government budgets.

7. All countries should accept the dual criteria of efficiency and fairness in carbon mitigation. In particular, richer countries, at or near high-income levels, should accept that they will each have the same emissions entitlements per head as other countries.

8. Developing countries should educate their citizens about global warming. Awareness is already growing, bringing about changes in values and behavior.

9. International negotiations should concentrate on agreeing to carbon cuts for more advanced economies, to be achieved 10 or 15 years hence.
These mitigation efforts should be designed so as to reveal the true costs of mitigation.

Interestingly, the report calls for developing countries to "resist long-term target setting" while at the same time expressing skepticism about the "true costs of mitigation." The report shows that there is a wide range of views on what sort of mitigation actions make sense in the debate over climate policy that cannot be captured by the facile "denialist-alarmist" dichotomy that some observers would like to enforce on the debate. One oversight is that the report does not address the issue of adaptation.

IPCC Predictions and Politics

The May 1, 2008 issue of New Scientist magazine has an interesting article that parallels some of the discussions that we’ve had on this site lately. Here is an interesting excerpt:

"Politicians seems to think that the science is a done deal," says Tim Palmer, "I don’t want to undermine the IPCC, but the forecasts, especially for regional climate change, are immensely uncertain".
Palmer is a leading climate modeller at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK, and he does not doubt that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has done a good job alerting the world to the problem of global climate change. But he and his fellow climate scientists are acutely aware that the IPCC's predictions of how the global change will affect local climates are little more than guesswork. They fear that if the IPCC's predictions turn out to be wrong, it will provoke a crisis in confidence that undermines the whole climate change debate.

The IPCC's forecasts could be wrong in many different ways, over different time periods and spatial scales, including underestimating future changes. And it is not even clear that scientists involved with the IPCC have a collective view on what it would even mean for the IPCC to be "wrong". As we've argued here often, action on climate change makes sense even if the predictions of the IPCC are not yet perfect. But this is a hard case to make when defenders of those predictions allow no room for imperfections to be seen, or questions to be asked.

Posted on May 22, 2008 01:06 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Science + Politics

May 21, 2008

An Inconsistent With Spotted, and Defended

Readers following recent threads know that I've been looking for instances where scientists make claims that some observations are "inconsistent with" the results from climate models. The reason for such a search is that it is all too easy for modelers to claim that anything and everything under the sun is "consistent with" their predictions, sometimes to avoid the perception of a loss of credibility in the political battle over climate change.

I am happy to report that claims of "inconsistent with" do exist. Here is an example from a paper just out by Knutson et al. in Nature Geoscience:

Our results using the ensemble-mean global model projections (Fig. 4) are inconsistent with the notion of large, upward trends in tropical storm and hurricane frequency over the twentieth century, driven by greenhouse warming.

The climate modelers at Real Climate apparently don't like the phrase "inconsistent with" in the context of models and try to air brush it away when they write of Knutson et al.:

. . .we know that (i) the warming [of the oceans] is likely in large part anthropogenic, and (ii) that the recent increases in TC frequency are related to that warming. It hardly seems a leap of faith to put two-and-two together and conclude that there is likely a relationship between anthropogenic warming and increased Atlantic TC activity.

Knutson et al. respond in the comments that this in fact is not how to interpret their paper, and -- kudos to them -- take strong, public issue with the weaselly words implying a connection that they don't show (emphasis added in the below, and I've copied the whole comment for the entire context):

Mike [Mann],
Statement (i), that "the warming [of the tropical Atlantic Ocean] is likely in large part anthropogenic." is reasonable, taking "anthropogenic" to mean "greenhouse gas", given the work of Santer et al (2006, PNAS), Knutson et al (2006, J. Clim.), and Gillett et al (2008, G.R.L.). To quote from Gillett et al:

…our results indicate that greenhouse gas increases are indeed likely the dominant cause of [tropical Atlantic] warming…

However, statement (ii), that "the recent increases in [Atlantic] TC (tropical cyclone) frequency are related to that warming" is vague – with "related to" allowing an interpretation that includes anything from a negative relationship, to a minor contribution, to local SST warming being the dominant dynamical control on TC frequency increase. Some might interpret "related to" to mean "are dominantly controlled by", and we think the evidence does not justify such a strong statement. In particular, the results of Knutson et al (2008) do not support such an attribution statement,if one focuses on the greenhouse gas part of the anthropogenic signal. Quoting from page 5 of the paper:

Our results using the ensemble-mean global model projections (Fig. 4) are inconsistent [emphasis added] with the notion of large, upward trends in tropical storm and hurricane frequency over the twentieth century, driven by greenhouse warming

We agree that TC activity and local Atlantic SSTs are correlated but do not view this correlation as implying causation. The alternative, consistent with our results, is that there is a causal nonlocal relationship between Atlantic TC activity and the tropical SST field. The simplest version uses the difference between Atlantic and Tropical-mean SST changes as the predictor (Swanson 2008, Non-locality of Atlantic tropical cyclone intensities, G-cubed, 9, Q04V01). This picture is also consistent with non-local control on wind shear (e.g. Latif et al 2007, G.RL.), atmospheric stability (e.g., Shen et al 2000, J. Clim.) and maximum potential intensity (e.g., Vecchi and Soden, 2007, Nature).

We view the SST change in the tropical Atlantic relative to the rest of the tropics as the key to these questions. Warming in recent decades has been particularly prominent in the northern tropical Atlantic, but such a pattern is not evident in the consensus of simulations of the response to increasing greenhouse gases. So, whether changes in Atlantic SST relative to the rest of the tropics - that according to our hypothesis have resulted in the changes in hurricane activity - were primarily caused by changes in radiative forcing, or whether they were primarily caused by internal climate variability, or (most likely) whether both were involved, is obviously an important issue, but this is not addressed by our paper

Now a word of caution -- Knutson et al. 2008 is by no means the last word on hurricanes and global warming, and the issue remains highly contested, and will remain so for a long time. Of course, you heard that (accurate) assessment of the state of this particular area of climate science here a long time ago (PDF;-)

Knutson et al. is notable because it clearly identifies observations "inconsistent with" what the models report which should give us greater confidence in research focused on generating climate predictions. We should have greater confidence because if practically everything observed is claimed to be "consistent with" model predictions, then climate models are pretty useless tools for decision making.

May 19, 2008

Do IPCC Temperature Forecasts Have Skill?

[UPDATE] Roger Pielke, Sr. tells us that we are barking up the wrong tree looking at surface temperatures anyway. He says that the real action is in looking at oceanic heat content, for which predictions have far less variability over short terms than do surface temperatures. And he says that observations of accumulated heat content over the past 4 years "are not even close" to the model predictions. For the details, please see for your self at his site.]

"Skill" is a technical term in the forecast verification literature that means the ability to beat a naïve baseline when making forecasts. If your forecasting methodology can’t beat some simple heuristic, then it will likely be of little use.

What are examples of such naïve baselines? In weather forecasting historical climatology is often used. So if the average temperature in Boulder for May 20 is 75 degrees, and my prediction is for 85 degree, then any observed temperature below 80 degrees will mean that my forecast had no skill. In the mutual fund industry stock indexes are examples of naive baselines used to evaluate performance of fund managers. Of course, no forecasting method can always show skill in every forecast, so the appropriate metric is the degree of skill present in your forecasts. Like many other aspects of forecast verification, skill is a matter of degree, and is not black or white.

Skill is preferred to "consistency" if only because the addition of bad forecasts to a forecasting ensemble does not improve skill unless it improves forecast accuracy, which is not the case with certain measures of "consistency," as we have seen. Skill also provides a clear metric of success for forecasts, once a naïve baseline is agreed upon. As time goes on, forecasts such as those issued by the IPCC should tend toward increasing skill, as the gap between a naive forecast and a prediction grows. If a forecasting methodology shows no skill then it would be appropriate to question the usefulness and/or accuracy of the forecasting methodology.

In this post I use the IPCC forecasts of 1990, 2001, and 2007 to illustrate the concept of skill, and to explain why it is a much better metric that "consistency" to evaluate forecasts of the IPCC.

The first task is to choose a naïve baseline. This choice is subjective and people often argue over it. People making forecasts usually want a baseline that is easy to beat, people using or paying for forecasts often want a more rigorous baseline. For this exercise I will use the observed temperature trend over the 100 years ending in 2005, as reported by the 2007 IPCC, which is 0.076 degrees per decade. So in this exercise the baseline that the IPCC forecasts have to beat is a naïve assumption that future temperature increases will increase by the same rate as has been observed over the past 100 years. Obviously, one could argue for a different naïve baseline, but this is the one I’ve chosen to use.

I will also use the ensemble average "best guess" from the IPCC for the most appropriate emissions scenario as the prediction. And for observations I will use the average value from the four main group tracking global temperature trends. These choices could be made differently, and a more comprehensive analysis would explore different ways to do the analysis.

So then, using these metrics how does the IPCC 1990 best estimate forecast for future increases in temperature compare for 1990-2007? The figure below shows that the IPCC forecast, while over-predicting the observed trend, outperformed this naïve baseline. So the forecast can be claimed to be skillful, but not by very much.

A more definitive example of a skillful forecast is the 2001 IPCC prediction, which the following figure shows demonstrated a high degree of skill.

Similarly, the 2000-2007 forecast of the IPCC 2007 also shows a high degree of skill, as seen in the next figure.

But in 2008 things get interesting. With data from 2008 included, rather than ending in 2007, then the 2007 IPCC forecast is no longer skillful, as shown below.

If one starts the IPCC predictions in 2001, then the lack of skill is even greater, as seen below.

What does all of this mean for the ability of the IPCC to predict longer-term climate change? Perhaps nothing, as many scientists would claim that it makes no sense to discuss IPCC predictions on time scales less than 20 or 30 years. If so, then it would also be inappropriate to claim that IPCC forecasts on the shorter scales are skillful or accurate. One way to interpret the recent Keenlyside et al. paper in Nature is that their analysis suggests that the IPCC predictions of future temperature evolution won't be skillful unless they account for various factors not included in the IPCC predictions.

The point of this exercise is to show that there are simple, unambiguous alternatives to using the notion of "consistency" as the basis for comparing IPCC forecasts with observations. "Consistency" between models and observations is a misleading, and I would say fairly useless way to talk about climate forecasts. Measures of skill provide an unambiguous way to evaluate how the IPCC is doing over time.

But make no mistake, the longer the IPCC forecasts lie in a zone of "no skill" -- which the most recent ones (2007) currently do (for the time of the forecast to present) -- the more interest they will receive. This time period may be for only one more month, or perhaps many years. I don't know. This situation creates interesting incentives for forecasters who want their predictions to show skill.

Posted on May 19, 2008 09:21 AM View this article | Comments (42)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Old Wine in New Bottles

The IPCC will be using new scenarios for its future work, updating those produced in 2000, the so-called SRES scenarios. This would be good news, since, as we argued in Nature last month, the IPCC scenarios contain some dubious assumptions (PDF). But from the looks of it, it does not appear that much has changed, excpet the jargon. The figure below compares the new scenarios as presented in a report from a meeting of the IPCC held last month (source: PDF) with those from the 2000 IPCC SRES report. I have presented the two sets of scenarios on the same scale to facilitate comparison. Do they look much different to you?

May 16, 2008

The Helpful Undergraduate: Another Response to James Annan

In his latest essay on my stupidity, climate modeler James Annan made the helpful suggestion that I consult a "a numerate undergraduate to explain it to [me]." So I looked outside my office, where things are quiet out on the quad this time of year, but as luck would have it, I did find a young lady named Megan, who just happened to be majoring in mathematics who agreed to help me overcome my considerable ignorance.

The first thing I had to do was explain to Megan the problem we are looking at. I told her that we had 55 estimates of a particular quantity, with a mean of 0.19 and standard deviation of 0.21. At the same time we had 5 different observations of that same quantity, with a mean of –0.07 and standard deviation of 0.07. I wanted to know how similar or different from each other these two sets of data actually were.

I explained to her that James Annan, a modest, constructive, and respectful colleague of mine who happened to be a climate modeler ("Cool" she said), had explained that the best way to compare these datasets was to look at the normal distribution associated with the data (N(0.19. 0.21) and plot on that distribution the outlying value from the smaller dataset.

Since the outlying value of the observations fell well within the distribution of the estimates, James told us, the two dataset could not be claimed to be different -- case closed, anyone saying anything different must be an ignorant climate denying lunatic.

"Professor Pielke," Megan said, "You are funny. James surely didn’t react that way, because since he is a climate modeler he must surely recognize that there are many ways to look at statistical problems. We even learned that just this year in our intro stats class. Besides, I can’t imagine a scientific colleague being so rude! You must have misinterpreted him."

Since Megan was being so helpful in my education, I simply replied that we should stick to the stats. Besides, if she really knew that I was a climate denying moron, she might not continue to help me.

Megan said, "There is another way to approach this problem. Have you heard of an unpaired t-test for two different samples? (PDF)"

I replied, "Of course not, I am just a political scientist."

Megan said, "We learned in stats this year that such a test is appropriate for comparing two distributions with equal variance to see how similar they are. It is really very easy. In fact you can run these tests online using a simple calculator. Here is one such website that will do all of the work for you, just plug in the numbers."

So we plugged our numbers into the magic website as follows:

Sample 1:

Mean = 0.19
SD = 0.21
N = 55

Sample 2

Mean = -0.07
SD = 0.07
N = 5

And here is what the magic website reported back:

Unpaired t test results
P value and statistical significance:

The two-tailed P value equals 0.0082

By conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be very statistically significant.

Confidence interval:
The mean of Group One minus Group Two equals -0.2600
95% confidence interval of this difference: From -0.4502 to -0.0698

Intermediate values used in calculations:
t = 2.7358
df = 58
standard error of difference = 0.095

"Wow," I said to Megan, "These are lots of numbers. What do they all mean?"

"Well," Megan helpfully replied, "They mean that there is a really good chance that your two distributions are inconsistent with each other."

"But," I protested, "Climate modeler James Annan came up with a different result! And he said that his method was the one true way!"

"You are kidding me again, Professor Pielke," she calmly replied, "Dr. Annan surely recognizes that there are a lot of interesting nuances in statistical testing and using and working with information. There are even issues that can be raised about the appropriateness of test that we performed. So I wouldn't even be too assured that these results are the one true way either. But they do indicate that there are different ways to approach scientific questions. I am sure that Dr. Annan recognizes this, after all he is a climate scientist. But we'll have to discuss those nuances later. I'm taking philosophy of science in the fall, and would be glad to tutor you in that subject as well. But for now I have to run, I am on summer break after all."

And just like that she was gone. Well, after this experience I am just happy that I was instructed to find a smart undergraduate to help me out.

[UPDATE An alert reader notes this comment by Tom C over at James' blog, which is right on the mark:

James -
What you and Roger are arguing about is not worth arguing about. What is worth arguing about is the philosophy behind comparing real-world data to model predictions. I work in the chemical industry. If my boss asked me to model a process, I would not come back with an ensemble of models, some of which predict an increase in a byproduct, some of which predict a decrease, and then claim that the observed concentration of byproduct was "consistent with models". That is just bizarre reasoning, but, of course, such a strategy allows for perpetual CYAing.

The fallacy here is that you are taking models, which are inherently different from one another, pretending that they are multiple measurements of a variable that differ only due to random fluctuations, then doing conventional statistics on the "distribution". This is all conceptually flawed.

Moreover, the wider the divergence of model results, the better the chance of "consistency" with real-world observations. That fact alone should signal the conceptual problem with the approach assumed in your argument with Roger.

Another commenter tries to help out James by responding to Tom C, but in the process, also hits the nail on the head:

I don't see what the problem is, Tom C. It seems obvious that the less specific a set of predictions is, the more difficult it is to invalidate. So yes, consistency doesn't neccessarily mean that your model is meaningful, especially over such short terms.

Right! "Consistent with" is not a meaningful statement. Which is of course where all of this started.

[UPDATE #2]

The figure below shows the IPCC distribution of 55 forecasts N[0.19, 0.21] as the blue curve, and I have invented a new distribution (red curve) by adding a bunch of hypothetical nonsense forecasts such that the distribution is now N[0.19, 1.0].

The blue point represents a hypothetical observation.

According to the metric of evaluating forecasts and observations proposed by James Annan my forecasting ability improved immensely simply by adding 55 nonsense forecasts, since th blue observational point now falls closer to the center of the new (and improved distribution).

ipcc+55.png

Now if James wants to call this an improvement ("more consistent whit" -- "higher statistical significance" -- etc.], but any approach that lends greater consistency by making adding worse forecasts to your distributions fails the common sense test.

[UPDATE #3]

Real Climate says this about a model-observation comparison in a recent paper by Knutson et al. in Nature Geoscience on hurricanes:

The fact that the RCM-based downscaling approach can reproduce the observed changes when fed modern reanalysis data is used by Knutson et al as a 'validation' of the modeling approach (in a very rough sense of the word–there is in fact a non-trivial 40% discrepancy in the modeled and observed trends in TC frequency). But this does not indicate that the downscaled GCM projections will provide a realistic description of future TCs in combination with a multi-model GCM ensemble mean. It only tells us that the RCM can potentially provide a realistic description of TC behavior provided the correct input.

Have a look at the figure below, and the distributions of modeled and observations. Its funny how the differences in these distributions is considered to be "non-trivial" but the larger differences in temperature trends is "not inconsistent with" model predictions. Further proof of the irrelevance of the notion of "consistency."

knutson distro.png

Posted on May 16, 2008 11:55 AM View this article | Comments (102)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Risk & Uncertainty

The Politicization of Climate Science

[Update: The ever helpful David Roberts of Grist Magazine points out that an op-ed in the Washington Times yesterday makes the same logical error that I point out in this post below made by Patrick Michaels -- namely that short-term predictive failures obviate the need for action. The op-ed quotes me and says that I am "not previously a global warming skeptic," which is correct, but implies that somehow I am now . . . sorry, wrong. It also quotes my conclusion that climate models are "useless" without the important qualifiers **for decision making in the short term when specific decisions must be made**. Such models are great exploratory scientific tools, and were helpful in bringing the issue of greenhouse gases to the attention of decision makers. I've emailed the author making these points, asking him to correct his piece.]

Here I'd like to explain why one group of people, which we might call politically active climate scientists and their allies, seek to shut down a useful discussion with intimidation, bluster, and name-calling. It is, as you might expect, a function of the destructive politics of science in the global warming debate.

We've had a lot of interest of late in our efforts to explore what would seem to be a simple question:

What observations of the global climate system (over what time scale, with what certainty, etc.) would be inconsistent with predictions of the IPCC AR4?

The motivation for asking this question is of course the repeated claims by climate scientists that this or that observation is "consistent with" such predictions. For claims of consistency between observations and predictions to have any practical meaning whatsoever, they must be accompanied by knowledge of what observations would be inconsistent with predictions. This is a straightforward logical claim, and should be uncontroversial.

Yet efforts to explore this question have been met with accusations of "denialism," of believing that human-caused global warming is "not a problem," of being a "conspiracy theorist." More constructive responses have claimed that questions of inconsistency cannot really be addressed for 20-30 years (which again raises the question why claims of consistency are appropriate on shorter timescales), have focused attention on the various ways to present uncertainty in predictions from a suite of models and also on uncertainties in observations systems, and have focused attention on the proper statistical tests to apply in such situations. In short, there is a lot of interesting subjects to discuss. Some people think that they have all of the answers, which is not at all problematic, as it makes this issue no different than most any other discussion you'll find on blogs (or in academia for that matter).

But why is it that some practicing climate scientists and their allies in the blogosphere appear to be trying to shut down this discussion? After all, isn't asking and debating interesting questions one of the reasons most of us decided to pursue research as a career in the first place? And in the messy and complicated science/politics of climate change wouldn't more understanding be better than less?

The answer to why some people react so strongly to this subject can be gleaned from an op-ed in today's Washington Times by one Patrick Michaels, a well-known activist skeptical of much of the claims made about the science and politics of climate change. Here is what Pat writes:

On May Day, Noah Keenlyside of Germany's Leipzig Institute of Marine Science, published a paper in Nature forecasting no additional global warming "over the next decade."
Al Gore and his minions continue to chant that "the science is settled" on global warming, but the only thing settled is that there has not been any since 1998. Critics of this view (rightfully) argue that 1998 was the warmest year in modern record, due to a huge El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean, and that it is unfair to start any analysis at a high (or a low) point in a longer history. But starting in 2001 or 1998 yields the same result: no warming.

Michaels is correct in his assertion of no warming starting in these dates, but one would reach a different conclusion starting in 1999 or 2000. He continues,

The Keenlyside team found that natural variability in the Earth's oceans will "temporarily offset" global warming from carbon dioxide. Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is oceanic; hence, what happens there greatly influences global temperature. It is now known that both Atlantic and Pacific temperatures can get "stuck," for a decade or longer, in relatively warm or cool patterns. The North Atlantic is now forecast to be in a cold stage for a decade, which will help put the damper on global warming. Another Pacific temperature pattern is forecast not to push warming, either.
Science no longer provides justification for any rush to pass drastic global warming legislation. The Climate Security Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman and John Warner, would cut emissions of carbon dioxide — the main "global warming" gas — by 66 percent over the next 42 years. With expected population growth, this means about a 90 percent drop in emissions per capita, to 19th-century levels.

He has laid out the bait, complete with reference to Al Gore, claiming that recent trends of no warming plus a forecast of continued lack of warming mean that there is no scientific basis for action on climate change.

There are several ways that one could respond to these claims.

One very common response to these sort of arguments would be to attack Michaels putative scientific basis for his policy arguments. Some would argue that he has cherrypicked his starting dates for asserting no trend. Other would observe that the recent trends in temperature are in fact consistent with predictions made by the IPCC. This latter strategy is exactly the approach used by the bloggers at Real Climate when I first started comparing 2007 IPCC predictions (from 2000) with temperature observations.

The "consistent with" strategy is a potential double-edged sword because it grants Pat Michaels a large chunk of territory in the debate. Once you attack the scientific basis for political arguments that are justified in those terms, you are accepting Michaels claim that the political arguments are in fact a function of the science. So in this case, by attacking Michaels scientific claims, you would be in effect saying

"Yes while it is true that these policies are justified on scientific conclusions, Pat Michaels has his science wrong. Getting the science right would lead to different political conclusions that Michaels arrives at."

Here at Prometheus for a long time we've observed how this dynamic shifts political debates onto scientific debates. Any I discuss this in detail in my book, The Honest Broker (now on sale;-).

Now, the "consistent with" strategy is a double-edged sword because the future is uncertain. It could very well be the case that there is no additional warming over the next decade or longer, or perhaps a cooling. Given such uncertainty, scientists with an eye on the politics of climate change are quick to define pretty much anything that could be observed in the climate system as "consistent with" IPCC predictions in order to maintain their ability to deflect the sort of claims made by Patrick Michaels. For if everything observed is consistent with IPCC predictions, there is no reason to then call into question the scientific basis used to justify policies.

But this strategy runs a real risk of damaging the credibility of the scientific community. It is certainly possible to claim, as some of our commenters have and the folks at RC have, that 20 years of cooling is "consistent with" IPCC predictions, but I can pretty much guarantee that if the world has experienced cooling for 20 years from the late 1990s to the 2000-teens that the political dynamics of climate change and the standing of skeptics will be vastly different than it is today.

Now I am sure that many scientist/activists are just trying to buy some time (e.g., buy offering a wager on cooling, as RC has done), waiting for a strong warming trend to resume. And it very well might, since this is the central prediction of the IPCC. Blogger /activist/scientist Joe Romm gushed with mock enthusiasm when the March temperatures showed a much higher rate of warming than the previous three months. We'll see what sort of announcement he or others put up for the much cooler April temperatures. But all such celebrations, on any side of the debate, do is set the stage for the acceptance of articles like that by Pat Michaels who point out the opposite when it occurs. One way to buy time is to protest, call others names, and muddy the waters. This strategy can work really well when questions of inconsistency take place over a few months and the real world assumes the pattern of behavior found in the central tendency of the IPCC predictions, but if potential inconsistency goes on any longer than this then you start looking like you are protesting too much.

So what is the alternative for those of us who seek action on climate change? I see two options, both predicated on rejecting the linkage between IPCC predictions and current political actions.

1) Recognize that any successful climate policies must be politically robust. This means that they have to make sense to many constituencies for many reasons. Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have effects, and these effects are largely judged to be negative over the long term. Whether or not scientists can exactly predict these effects over decades is an open question. But the failure to offer accurate decadal predictions would say nothing about the judgment that continued increasing carbon dioxide is not a good idea. Further, for any climate policies to succeed they must make sense for a lot of reasons -- the economy, trade, development, pork, image, etc. etc. -- science is pretty much lost in the noise. So step one is to reject the premise of claims like that made by Pat Michaels. The tendency among activist climate scientists is instead to accept those claims.

2) The climate community should openly engage the issue of falsification of its predictions. By giving the perception that fallibility is not only acceptable, but expected as part of learning,it would go a long way toward backing off of the overselling of climate science that seems to have taken place. If the IPCC does not have things exactly correct, and the world has been led to believe that they do, then an inevitable loss of credibility might ensue. Those who believe that the IPCC is infallible will of course reject this idea.

Who knows? Maybe warming will resume in May, 2008 at a rapid rate, and continue for years or decades. Then this discussion will be moot. But what if it doesn't?

May 15, 2008

Comparing Distrubutions of Observations and Predictions: A Response to James Annan

James Annan, a climate modeler, has written a post at his blog trying to explain why it is inconceivable that recent observations of global average temperature trends can be considered to be inconsistent with predictions from the models of the IPCC. James has an increasing snarky, angry tone to his comments which I will ignore in favor of the math (and I'd ask those offering comments on our blog to also be respectful, even if that respect is not returned), and in this post I will explain that even using his approach, there remains a quantitative justification for arguing that recent trends are inconsistent with IPCC projections.

James asks:

Are the models consistent with the observations over the last 8 years?

He answers this question using a standard approach to comparing means from two distributions, a test that I have openly questioned its appropriateness in this context. But lets grant James this methodological point for this discussion.

James defines the past 8 years as the past 8 calendar years, 2000-2007, which we will see is a significant decision. As reported to us by his fellow modelers at Real Climate, James presents the distribution of models as having a mean 8-year trend of 0.19 degrees per decade, with a standard deviation of 0.21. So lets also accept this starting point.

In a post on 8-year trends in observational data Real Climate reported the standard deviation of these trends to be 0.19. (Note this is based on NASA data, and I would be happy to use a different value if a good argument can be made to do so.) I calculated the least-squares best fit line for the monthly data 2000-2007 from the UKMET dataset that James pointed to and arrived at 0.10 degrees/C per decade (James gets 0.11).

So lets take a look at how the distribution of 8-year trends in the models [N(0.19, 0.21)] compares to the analogous 8-year trend in the observations [N(0.10, 0.19)]. This is shown in the following graph with the model distribution in dark blue, and the observations in red.

obsVmods1.100-1207.png

Guess what? Using this approach James is absolutely correct when he says that it would be incorrect to claim that the temperatures observed from 2000-2007 are inconsistent with the IPCC AR4 model predictions. In more direct language, any reasonable analysis would conclude that the observed and modeled temperature trends are consistent.

But now lets take a look at two different periods, first the past eight years of available data, so April 2000 to March 2008 (I understand that April 2008 values are just out and the anomaly is something like half the value of April 2000, so making this update would make a small difference).

obsVmods2.400-308.png

You can clearly see that the amount of overlap between the distributions is smaller than in the first figure above. If one wanted to claim that this amount of overlap demonstrates consistency between models and observations I would not disagree. But at the same time, there is also a case to be made that the distributions are inconsistent, as the amount of overlap is not insignificant. There would be an even stronger case to be made for inconsistency using the satellite data, which shows a smaller trend over this same period.

But now lets take a look at the period January 2001 to present, shown below.

obsVmods3.101-308.png

Clearly, there is a strong argument to be made that these distributions are inconsistent with one another (and again, even stronger with the satellite data).

So lets summarize. I have engaged these exercises to approach the question: "What observations of the climate system would be inconsistent with predictions of IPCC AR4?"

1. Using the example of global average temperatures to illustrate how this answer might be approached, I have concluded that it is not "bogus" or "denialist" (as some prominent climate modelers have suggested) to either ask the question or to suggest that there is some valid evidence indicating inconsistency between observations and model predictions.

2. The proper way to approach this question is not clear. With climate models we are not dealing with balls and urns, as in idealized situations of hypothesis testing. Consider that the greater the uncertainty in climate models -- which results from any research that expands the realization space -- will increase the consistency between observations and models, if consistency is simply defined as some part of the distribution of observations overlapping with the distribution of forecasts. Thus, defining a distribution of model predictions simply as being equivalent to the distribution of realizations is problematic, especially if model predictions are expected to have practical value.

3. Some people get very angry when these issues are raised. Readers should see the reactions to my posts as an obvious example of how the politics of climate change are reflected in pressures not to ask these sort of questions.

One solution to this situation would be to ask those who issue climate predictions for the purposes of informing decision makers -- on any time scale -- to clearly explain at the time the prediction is issued what data are being predicted and what values of those data would falsify the prediction. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a situation where the instinctive response of those issuing the predictions will be to defend their forecasts as being consistent with the observations, no matter what is observed.

Posted on May 15, 2008 09:09 AM View this article | Comments (46)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

May 14, 2008

Lucia Liljegren on Real Climate's Approach to Falsification of IPCC Predictions

Lucia Liljegren has wonderfully clear post up which explains issues of consistency and inconsistency between models and observations using a simple analogy based on predicting the heights of Swedes.

She writes;

I think a simple example using heights is helps me explain the answer to these questions:
1. Is the mean trend in surface temperature over time predicted by the IPCC consistent with the temperature trends we have been experiencing? (That is: is 2C/century consistent with the trend we’ve seen? )
2. Is the lowest uncertainty bound the IPCC shows the public consistent with the trend in GMST (global mean surface temperature) we have seen since 2001?

I think these questions are important to the public and policy makers. They are the questions people at many climate blogs are asking and they are the questions many voters and likely policy makers would like answered.

I think the answer to both questions is "No, the IPCC predictions are inconsistent with recent data."

Please go to her site and read the entire post.

She concludes her discussion as follows:

The IPCC projections remain falsified. Comparison to data suggest they are biased. The statistical tests accounts for the actual weather noise in data on earth.
The argument that this falsification is somehow inapplicable because the earth data falls inside the full range of possibilities for models is flawed. We know why the full range of climate models is huge: It contains a large amount of "climate model noise" due to models that are individually biased relative to the system of interest: the earth.

It will continue to admit what I have always admitted: When applying hypothesis tests to a confidence limit of 5%, one does expect to be wrong 5% of the time. It is entirely possible that the current falsification fall in the category of 5% incorrect falsifications. If this is so, the “falsified” diagnosis will reverse, and not we won’t see another one anytime soon.

However, for now, the IPCC projections remain falsified, and will do so until the temperatures pick up. Given the current statistical state ( a period when large “type 2″ error is expected) it is quite likely we will soon see “fail to falsify” even if the current falsification is a true one. But if the falsification is a “true” falsification, as is most likely, we will see “falsifications” resume. In that case, the falsification will ultimately stick.

For now, all we can do is watch the temperature trends of the real earth.

Posted on May 14, 2008 02:06 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

May 12, 2008

How to Make Two Decades of Cooling Consistent with Warming

The folks at Real Climate have produced a very interesting analysis that provides some useful information for the task of framing a falsification exercise on IPCC predictions of global surface temperature changes. The exercise also provides some insight into how this branch of the climate science community defines the concept of consistency between models and observations, and why it is that every observation seems to be, in their eyes, "consistent with" model predictions. This post explains why Real Climate is wrong in their conclusions on falsification and the why it is that two decades of cooling can be defined as "consistent with" predictions of warming.

In their post, RealClimate concludes:

Claims that a negative observed trend over the last 8 years would be inconsistent with the models cannot be supported. Similar claims that the IPCC projection of about 0.2ºC/dec over the next few decades would be falsified with such an observation are equally bogus.

Real Climate defines observations to be "consistent with" the models to mean that an observation, with its corresponding uncertainty range, overlaps with the spread of the entire ensemble of model realizations. This is the exact same definition of "consistent with" that I have criticized here on many occasions. Why? Because it means that the greater the uncertainty in modeling -- that is, the greater the spread in outcomes across model realizations -- the more likely that observations will be “consistent with” the models. More models, more outcomes, greater consistency – but less certainty. It is in this way that pretty much any observation becomes "consistent with" the models.

As we will see below, the assertion by Real Climate that "a negative observed trend over the last 8 years would be inconsistent with the models cannot be supported" is simply wrong. Real Climate is more on the mark when they write:

Over a twenty year period, you would be on stronger ground in arguing that a negative trend would be outside the 95% confidence limits of the expected trend (the one model run in the above ensemble suggests that would only happen ~2% of the time).

Most people seeking to examine the consistency between models and observations would use some sort of probabilistic threshold, like a 95% confidence interval, which would in this case be calculated as a joint probability of observations and models.

So let’s go through the exercise of comparing modeled and observed trends to illustrate why Real Climate is wrong, or more generously, has adopted a definition of "consistent with" that is so broad as to be meaningless in practice.

First the observations. Thanks to Lucia Liljegren we have the observed trends in global surface temperature 2001-present (which slightly less than 8 years), with 95% confidence intervals, for five groups that keep such record. Here is that information she has presented in degrees Celsius per decade:

UKMET -1.3 +/- 1.8
NOAA 0.0 +/- 1.6
RSS -1.5 +/- 2.2
UAH -0.9 +/- 2.8
GISS 0.2 +/- 2.1

Real Climate very usefully presents 8-year trends for 55 model realizations in a figure that is reproduced below. I have annotated the graph by showing the 95% range for the model realizations, which corresponds to excluding the most extreme 3 model realization on either end of the distribution (2.75 to be exact). (I have emailed Gavin Schmidt asking for the data, which would enable a bit more precision. ) The blue horizontal line at the bottom labeled "95% spread across model realizations" shows the 95% range of 8-year trends present across the IPCC model realizations.

I have also annotated the figure to show in purple the 8+ year trends from the five groups that track global surface temperatures, with the 95% range as calculated by Lucia Liljegren. I have presented each of the individual ranges for the 5 groups, and then with a single purple horizontal line the range across the five observational groups.

Quite clearly there is a large portion of the spread in the observations that is not encompassed by the spread in the models. This part of the observations is cooler than the range provided by the models. And this then leads us to the question of how to interpret the lack of complete overlap.

One interpretation, and the one that makes the most sense to me, is that because there is not an overlap between modeled and observed trends at the 95% level (which is fairly obvious from the figure, but could be easily calculated with the original data) then one could properly claim that the surface temperature observations 2001-present fail to demonstrate consistency with the models of IPCC AR4 at the 95% level. They do however show consistency at some lower level of confidence. Taking each observational dataset independently, one would conclude that UKMET, RSS, and UAH are inconsistent with the models, whereas NASA and NOAA are consistent with them, again at a 95% threshold.

Another interpretation, apparently favored by the guys at Real Climate, is that because there is some overlap between the 95% ranges (i.e., overlap between the blue and purple lines), the models and observations are in fact consistent with one another. [UPDATE: Gave Schmidt at RC confirms this interpretation when he writes in response to a question about the possibility of falsifying IPCC predictions: "Sure. Data that falls unambiguously outside it [i.e., the model range]."] But this type of test for consistency is extremely weak. The Figure below takes the 95% spread in the observations and illustrates how far above and below the 95% spread in the models some overlap would allow. If the test of “consistent with” is defined as any overlap between models and observations, then any rate of cooling or warming between -10 deg C/decade and +13.0 dec C/decade could be said to be “consistent with” the model predictions of the IPCC. This is clearly so absurd as to be meaningless.

So when Real Climate concludes that . . .

Claims that a negative observed trend over the last 8 years would be inconsistent with the models cannot be supported

. . . they are simply incorrect by any reasonable definition of consistency based on probabilistic reasoning. Such claims do in fact have ample support.

If they wish to assert than any overlap between uncertainties in observed temperature trends and the spread of model realizations over an 8-year period implies consistency, then they are arguing that any 8-year trend between -10/C and +13/C (per century) would be consistent with the models. This sort of reasoning turns climate model falsification into a rather meaningless exercise. [UPDATE: In the comments, climate modeler James Annan makes exactly this argument, but goes even further: "even if the model and obs ranges didn't overlap at all, they might (just) be consistent".

Of course in practice the tactical response to claims that observations falsify model predictions will be to argue for expanding the range of realizations in the models, and arguing for reducing the range of uncertainties in the observations. This is one reason why debates over the predictions of climate models devolve into philosophical discussions about how to treat uncertainties.

Finally, how then should we interpret Keenlyside et al.? It is, as Real Climate admits, outside the 95% range of the IPCC AR4 models for its prediction of trends to 2015. But wait, Keelyside et al. in fact use one of the models of the IPCC AR4 runs, and thus this fact could be used to argue that the range of possible 20-year trends is actually larger than that presented by the IPCC. If interpreted in this way, then this would get us back to the interesting conclusion that more models, initialized in different ways, actually work to expand the range of possible futures. Thus we should not be surprised to see Real Climate conclude

Similar claims that the IPCC projection of about 0.2ºC/dec over the next few decades would be falsified with such an observation [of "a negative observed trend"] are equally bogus.

And this gentle readers is exactly why I explained in a recent post that Keelyside et al. now means that a two-decade cooling trend (in RC parlance, a “negative observed trend over 20 years”) is now defined as consistent with predictions of warming.

Inconsistent With? One Answer

UPDATE: Real Climate has already dismissed the paper linked below as a failed effort.

Climate Audit provides a pointer to this paper (PDF) by Koutsoyiannis et al. which has the following abstract:

As falsifiability is an essential element of science (Karl Popper), many have disputed the scientific basis of climatic predictions on the grounds that they are not falsifiable or verifiable at present. This critique arises from the argument that we need to wait several decades before we may know how reliable the predictions will be. However, elements of falsifiability already exist, given that many of the climatic model outputs contain time series for past periods. In particular, the models of the IPCC Third Assessment Report have projected future climate starting from 1990; thus, there is an 18‐year period for which comparison of model outputs and reality is possible. In practice, the climatic model outputs are downscaled to finer spatial scales, and conclusions are drawn for the evolution of regional climates and hydrological regimes; thus, it is essential to make such comparisons on regional scales and point basis rather than on global or hemispheric scales. In this study, we have retrieved temperature and precipitation records, at least 100‐year long, from a number of stations worldwide. We have also retrieved a number of climatic model outputs, extracted the time series for the grid points closest to each examined station, and produced a time series for the station location based on best linear estimation. Finally, to assess the reliability of model predictions, we have compared the historical with the model time series using several statistical indicators including long‐term variability, from monthly to overyear (climatic) time scales. Based on these analyses, we discuss the usefulness of climatic model future projections (with emphasis on precipitation) from a hydrological perspective, in relationship to a long‐term uncertainty framework.

The paper provides the following conclusions:

*All examined long records demonstrate large overyear variability (long‐term fluctuations) with no systematic signatures across the different locations/climates.
*GCMs generally reproduce the broad climatic behaviours at different geographical locations and the sequence of wet/dry or warm/cold periods on a mean monthly scale.

*However, model outputs at annual and climatic (30‐year) scales are irrelevant with reality; also, they do not reproduce the natural overyear fluctuation and, generally, underestimate the variance and the Hurst coefficient of the observed series; none of the models proves to be systematically better than the others.

*The huge negative values of coefficients of efficiency at those scales show that model predictions are much poorer that an elementary prediction based on the time average.

*This makes future climate projections not credible.

*The GCM outputs of AR4, as compared to those of TAR, are a regression in terms of the elements of falsifiability they provide, because most of the AR4 scenarios refer only to the future, whereas TAR scenarios also included historical periods.

Posted on May 12, 2008 12:55 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

May 09, 2008

Real Climate's Bold Bet

The Real Climate guys have offered odds on future temperature changes, which is great because it gives us a sense of their confidence in predictions of future global average temperatures. Unfortunately, RCs foray into laying odds is not as useful as it might be.

The motivation for this bet is the recent Keenlyside et al. paper that has caused a set of mixed reactions among the commenters in the blogosphere. Some commenters here have stridently argued that the predictions in the Keelyside et al. paper are perfectly consistent with predictions of climate models in the IPCC. However, when one such commenter here was asked to show a single IPCC climate model run showing no temperature increase for the 2 decades following the late 1990s he submitted an irrelevant link and disappeared. Others have argued that the Keenlyside et al. projections (and this includes Keenlyside) are inconsistent with the IPCC predictions. Real Climate apparently falls into this latter camp.

The Real Climate Bet (and there is also one for a later period) is that the period 1994-2004 will have a higher average temperature than the period 2000-2010. Since the periods have in common 2000-2004, we can throw those out as irrelevant. Thus, the bet is really about whether the period 1994-1998 will be warmer than the period 2005-2010. And since we know the temperatures for 2005 to present, the bet is really about what will happen in 2009 and 2010. (Using UKMET temps here.)

It is strange to see the Real Climate guys wagering on 2-year climate trends when they already taught us a lesson that 8 years is far to short for trends to be meaningful. But perhaps there is some other reason why they offer this bet. That reason is that they are playing with a stacked deck, which is what you do when looking for suckers. The following figure shows why.

For the Real Climate guys to lose the bet global average temperatures for 2009 and 2010 would have to fall by about 0.30 from the period 2005-present (and I've assumed Jan-Mar as the 2008 value, 2008 obviously could wind up higher or lower). Real Climate has boldly offered 50-50 odds that this will happen. This is a bit like giving 50-50 odds that Wigan will come back from a 3-0 halftime deficit to Manchester United. Who would take that bet?

Another interpretation of the odds provided by RC is that they actually believe that there is a 50% chance that global temperatures will decrease by more than 0.30 over the next few years. Since I don't think they actually believe that, it is safe to conclude that they've offered a suckers bet. Too bad. When Real Climate wants to offer a 50-50 bet in which the bettor gets to pick which side to take in the bet (i.e., the definition of 50-50) then we'll know that they are serious.

Posted on May 9, 2008 08:23 AM View this article | Comments (24)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Risk & Uncertainty

May 08, 2008

Consistent With, Again

On NPR's Fresh Air earlier this week, Al Gore suggests that Typhoon Nargis, which may have killed 100,000 people in Myanmar, is linked to greenhouse gas emissions, or does he? He said "we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."

What could he have meant? If you ask me, I'd say that the "consistent with" chronicles continue . . .

PS. Those wanting to do something positive in the face of this tragedy might visit this site.

Posted on May 8, 2008 02:16 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

Teats on a Bull

Here is a very thoughtful comment sent in by email on the ""consistent with chronicles". I haven't identified the author, since he didn't ask me to post it. But it is worth a read about how climate science is received by one rancher in West Tennessee. I appreciate the feedback.

I am neither an academic nor a scientist. I raise cattle in West Tennessee. I came across your ruminations on the uses and meaning (or lack thereof) of the expression "consistent with" in environmental debates. I enjoyed it very much. You make some very valid, interesting, and to your critics irritating points.
You hear "consistent with" employed in other circumstances as well, as for example when a prosecuting attorney says certain evidence is "consistent with" his or her theory of who committed a crime. However a good defense attorney will almost surely point out that the evidence in question is "consistent with" other explanations as well. Thus, at least in legal dealings, the "consistent with" argument doesn't get one very far.

Which brings me to my point. You're absolutely right to ask what kinds of evidence would be inconsistent with environmental theories, for just the reasons you outline, but of equal or perhaps greater importance is the question "With what other theories or explanations is the same evidence consistent?" It is not so terribly unusual for facts or evidence to be consistent with multiple theories, even ones that contradict one another. I'm clearly not qualified to judge, but could the cited evidence also be "consistent with" environmental theories involving sunspot activity, the Gulf Stream, el Nino, or lord knows what else?

There's another problem I see with the "consistent with" construction: it never addresses the issue of probability. One sees this frequently with the use of "possible." For many folks the claim that something, no matter how implausible, is "possible" is enough to end a discussion. The mere theoretical possibility of something is to their minds proof of its reality. And the truth is it's virtually impossible to prove, especially to such people, that something is impossible. The best one can do is assess probabilities. However, to the true believer, even the highest statistical improbability carries little if any weight. The same, I think, is true for those who offer the "consistent with" argument. Although to their minds they may be equivalent, "consistent with" is not the same thing as "equal to," just as "possible" is not the same thing as "actual."

My personal feeling is that "consistent with" is a hedge term that has about as much meaning, and carries about as much weight, as what we here in West Tennessee call a WAG, or wild ass guess. The number of things a thing can be "consistent with" is so large as to rob the expression of meaning, or communicative value. If my veterinarian looked at one of my cows and informed me that her swollen belly was "consistent with" her being pregnant, I'm not sure I'd find that of much value, as it's also "consistent with" a number of other things, some benign, some fatal.

"Consistent with" doesn't help me make decisions on the farm. With regards to the much more vast and consequential issue of global weather predictions, "consistent with" is to me about as useful as teats on a bull.

Again, you produced a fine article and I enjoyed reading it. Keep pushing environmentalist towards honesty and clarity. A very great deal is at stake, as I'm sure you know.

Iain Murray on Climate Policy

Over at his blog Iain Murray, who is with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has a thoughtful response to my initial post on elements of any successful approach to climate change. I won't try to summarize Iain's lengthy post, so go there read it and come back. (Thanks to BP for the pointer.)

Here are some very quick responses of my own.

1. I appreciate Iain's efforts to "propose an alternative framework that may be more appealing to conservative policy-makers." In the U.S there is a wide gap between Democrats and Republicans on many aspects of climate policy. If this gap is to close in the form of shared agreement on action, it will result from having an open discussion of policies resulting in compromises, and not by the finger-pointing, name calling, and derision that so often accompanies political debates on climate change. As Walter Lippmann once wrote, the goal of politics is not to get people to think alike, but to get people who think differently to act alike.

2. On adaptation Iain and I see to agree more than disagree. I recognize that the concept of "sustainable development" carries with it much symbolic baggage and people read into the concept an awful lot. I don't see a Malthusian perspective in the concept, far from it. I actually see that technological progress that eliminates limits and opens possibilities as key to sustainable development. There is much more to say, but on issues of technology and trade, i see no real significant disagreements here.

3. Iain is correct in pointing out the real costs associated with making carbon-based energy more expensive. This is the main reason that I see that its political prospects are seriously limited. But even so, Iain probably recognizes that what he calls "costs" are viewed by many people as "benefits". That is, many people would like energy to be more pricier, even if it results in costs for some other people . For some, they focus on the non-market costs of carbon-based energy and thus evaluate the costs/benefits with some implicit valuation of the intangibles, but others simply prefer the outcomes associated with pricier energy. I have no expectation that people with vastly different values will come to agreement on costs and benefits associated with pricing carbon, hence, I see its prospects as limited in any case.

4. Iain likes the idea of making carbon-free energy "more affordable" but has some different recommendations than I do on how it might be done. Great. I don't think that anyone has a magic bullet solution, so agreement on the goal ought to be a enormous first step in its achievement. This is one reason why I listed a laundry list of options. I would hope that Iain would agree that the world really hasn't set forth in this direction in any real seriousness, at least not as compared to the intensity of action focused on pricing carbon. But we seem to agree on the goals here.

Iain has some more specific actions described at his blog that are worth a read. If anyone else wants to share their reactions to this discussion they are welcome to do so in the comments or as a guest blog.

May 06, 2008

Elements of Any Successful Approach to Climate Change

This post summarizes, in capsule form, what I believe to be the necessary elements of any successful suite of policies focused on climate mitigation and adaptation. This post is short, and necessarily incomplete with insufficient detail, nonetheless, its purpose is to set the stage for future, in depth discussions of each element discussed below. The elements discussed below are meant to occur in parallel. All are necessary, none by itself sufficient. I welcome comments, critique, and questions.

1. Adaptation

Whatever the world does on mitigation, adaptation will be necessary. And by adaptation I don’t simply mean adaptation to the marginal impacts of human-caused climate change, as presented under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. I mean adaptation to climate, and as such, a concept much more closely related to the original notion of sustainable development. Adaptation is therefore core to any approach to climate change that seeks to ameliorate the effects of climate on people and the environment. Much of my research over the past 15 years has focused on this subject, and long-time readers of this blog will know my position well.

2. Make Carbon Emissions Pricier

Unrestrained emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will no doubt have effects on the global earth system, including the oceans, atmosphere, and land surface. There is a chance that these effects could be relatively benign, but there is also a chance that the effects could be quite severe. I personally lean toward the latter view, but I recognize that there is ample scientific knowledge available for people to selectively construct any position they’d like along this spectrum. I have little expectation that climate scientists, despite their notable work alerting the world to the risks associated with unmitigated emissions, have much prospect for accurately predicting the evolution of the global climate system (and especially its regional manifestations) on the time scale on which decisions related to mitigation and adaptation need to be made. In fact, I think there is a very good chance that some enthusiastic climate modelers will overstretch their claims and hurt their own cause. Even so, I have concluded that it is only prudent to establish some cost to emitting carbon (a global carbon tax is the theoretical ideal).

At the same time, because the global energy system is driven almost entirely by carbon-emitting fuels, putting a price on carbon will necessarily result in higher costs for energy and everything that results from using energy. This is of course the entire point of putting a price on carbon. Anyone suggesting anything different is being misleading. Now some will argue that over the longer term putting a price on carbon will result in benefits, especially when non-market outcomes are considered. Perhaps this is the case, and for purposes of discussion I’d simply grant the point. But in the short term, it is equally true that the costs of energy will increase. For this reason I am not optimistic about the prospects of putting a meaningful price on carbon anywhere, much less via a global treaty. People will react strongly to increasing costs, whether they are associated with energy, food, transportation, or whatever. Strong reactions will be felt in the form of electoral outcomes and thus in policy positions (exhibit A = McCain/Clinton pandering with a gas tax holiday; exhibit B = Last week’s UK elections, etc.). I am certainly not opposed to efforts to put a price on carbon, but at the same time we also need to be fully aware of the realities of politics which suggest that putting a price on carbon may not actually occur or, if it does occur, may be implemented at a meaningless level in small parts of the global economy. Therefore, we’d better be ready with another strategy when these sorts of approaches inevitably fail.

3. Make Carbon Free Energy Cheaper

The flip side to making carbon pricier is to make carbon-free energy sources relatively cheaper. The first step in this part of the strategy is to shift the massive subsidies that government provides to fossil fuel to non-carbon fuel energy sources. This by itself won’t make carbon-free energy systems cheaper, but it will facilitate the deployment and adoption of some currently pre-commercial technologies that may be on the wrong side of being competitive. I can see no justification for continued subsidies of dirty energy, but here as well we need to recognize the political challenges of displacing entrenched interests, keeping in mind for instance the example of the challenges of removing agricultural subsidies around the rich world. Energy subsidies will be equally difficult to displace.

Therefore, perhaps more important are measures that focus government investments on accelerating the development and deployment of carbon-free energy technologies. These measures include robust public funding for research from exploratory to applied; pilot programs to test and demonstrate promising new technologies; public-private partnerships to encourage private sector participation in high risk ventures; training programs to expand the number of scientists and engineers working on a wide variety of energy R&D projects; government procurement programs to provide a predictable market for promising new technologies; prizes for the achievement of important technological thresholds; multilateral funds and international research centers to help build a global innovation capacity; as well as policy incentives to encourage adoption of existing and new energy-efficient technologies, which in turn fosters incremental learning and innovation that often leads to rapidly improving performance and declining costs.

If there are to be targets and timetables associated with international negotiations, then they should focus on the development and deployment of carbon-free energy systems in the context of ever-increasing global demand for energy. Such a focus will be far more meaningful than the easily gamed, mostly symbolic, and reality-detached focus on concentration targets or, even worse, degrees Celsius.

4. Energy Modernization

The world needs more energy, vastly more so. So a central element of any national or international energy policy will necessarily include creating access to reliable, cheap energy. Consider that something like 2 billion people have no access to electricity around the world. It is a, in my view, simply a moral obligation of those around the world with high standards of living to help those who do not. This means focusing on energy modernization, but doing so in full recognition that carbon-based energy technologies, which are so readily available in much of the developing world are poised for ever more intensive development. I recommend a focus on energy modernization not simply for altruistic reasons, but in full recognition that it is in the narrow self-interests of the rich world to help foster new markets, new trading partners, and a growing global economy. In the future the greatest potential for this growth is in the developing world.

5. Air Capture Backstop

All of the hand wringing, name calling, and finger pointing in the world won’t change the fact that steps 2, 3, and 4 may not limit the growth of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at levels now deemed to be acceptable in policy discussions (pick your number – 560, 500, 450, 350, 280, whatever). Sorry, but it is true. Thus, so long as policy makers want to limit the growth in concentrations (which I think makes good sense), then they will want to focus on developing the capability to directly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – a technology called “air capture”.

Even if approaches under 2, 3, and 4 above prove wildly successful I really doubt that such social policies can hit any target concentration within a few hundred ppm anyway. So the development of air capture technologies represents not only a backstop, but also a way down the road to fine tune carbon policies focused on concentrations, should that be desired. I have absolutely no doubts that with air capture as the focus of R&D over a few decades it can be achieved at pretty reasonable costs (but they will still be costs) using approaches today not yet commonly discussed. In fact I view the technical challenges of air capture much (!) more optimistically than suggestions that we can change the lifestyles and energy using habits of more than 6 billion people. In addition, the costs of air capture provide a hard estimate of the true costs of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and thus provide a valuable baseline for evaluating other approaches based on social engineering. In my view air capture is the only form of geoengineering that makes any sense whatsoever.

6. Recognize that Climate Change is Not Only Carbon Dioxide

Stabilizing concentrations of carbon dioxide makes good sense, but we should not fool ourselves into thinking that carbon dioxide emissions are the sole meaningful human forcing of the global earth system at local, regional, or global scales. Thus, we might with some effort successfully modernize the global energy system, and in the process decarbonizes it, but then find ourselves looking squarely at other human activities that affect the climate, and thus have human and environmental impacts.

These activities include other greenhouse gases, but also aerosol emissions, land use change, irrigation, chemical deposition, albedo effects, and others. We have entered an era where humans have a large and profound impact on the world, and to think that it is just carbon dioxide (or that carbon dioxide is all that matters) is myopic and misleading.

These are the elements that I believe together to be necessary in any approach to climate adaptation and mitigation that has any prospects to succeed. I will focus future posts on further discussing the specifics of each element, providing references and justifications, and connecting them each to actual policies that are the subject of current discussion.

Boulder Science Cafe, May 13th 5:30 RedFish

May 13, 2008. Roger Pielke Jr. CIRES, CU Boulder. "Have we underestimated the Carbon Dioxide Challenge?" Details. RedFish, 5:30PM, 2027 13th Street.

Posted on May 6, 2008 12:29 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Site News

May 02, 2008

The Consistent-With Chronicles

Scientists are fond of explaining that recent observations of the climate are "consistent with" predictions from climate models. With this construction, scientists are thus explicitly making the claim that models can accurately predict the evolution of those climate variables. Here are just a few recent examples:

"What we are seeing [in recent hurricane trends] is consistent with what the global warming models are predicting," Thomas Knutson, a research meteorologist at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory in Princeton, N.J., said Friday. link

In a change that is consistent with global warming computer models, the jet streams that govern weather patterns around the world are shifting their course, according to a new analysis by the Carnegie Institution published in Geophysical Research Letters. link

Francis Zwiers, the director of the climate research division of Environment Canada, said research consistently showed the addition of sulfate aerosols and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has changed rainfall patterns in the Arctic. Zwiers and his colleagues made their findings using 22 climate models that looked at precipitation conditions from the second half of the 20th century. Writing in the journal Science, Zwiers said these findings are consistent with observed increases in Arctic river discharge and the freshening of Arctic water masses during the same time period. link

The fact that we are seeing an expansion of the ocean’s least productive areas as the subtropical gyres warm is consistent with our understanding of the impact of global warming. But with a nine-year time series, it is difficult to rule out decadal variation. link

All of this talk of observations being "consistent with" the predictions from climate models led me to wonder -- What observations would be inconsistent with those same models?

Logically, for a claim of observations being "consistent with" model predictions to have any meaning then there also must be some class of observations that are "inconsistent with" model predictions. For if any observation is "consistent with" model predictions then you are saying absolutely nothing, while at the same time suggesting that you are saying something meaningful. In other contexts this sort of talk is called spin.

So I have occasionally used this blog to ask the question -- what observations would be inconsistent with model predictions?

The answer that keeps coming up is "no observations" -- though a few commenters have suggested that a temperature change of 10 degrees C over a decade would be inconsistent, as too would be the glaciation of NYC over the next few years. These responses certainly are responsive, but I think help to make my point.

Others, such as climate modeler James Annan, suggest that my goal is to falsify global warming theory (whatever that is):"no-one is going to "falsify" the fact that CO2 absorbs LW radiation". No. James is perhaps trying to change the subject, as I am interested in exactly what I say I am interested in -- to understand what observations might be inconsistent with predictions from "global warming models," in the words of climate modeler Tom Knutson, cited above.

Others suggest that by asking this questions I am providing skeptics with "talking points." The implication I suppose is that I should not be looking behind the curtain, lest I find a little wizard at the controls and reveal that we are all actually in Oz. How silly is this complaint? If the political agenda of those wanting action on climate change is so sensitive to someone asking questions of climate models that it risks collapsing, then it is a pretty frail agenda to begin with. I actually do not think that it is so frail, and in fact, my view is that the science, and policies justified based on scientific claims, will be stronger by openly discussing these issues.

A final set of reactions has been that climate models only predict trends over the long-term, such as 30 years, and that anyone looking to examine short-term climate behavior is either stupid or willfully disingenuous. It is funny how this same complaint is not levied at those scientists making claims of "consistent with," such as in those examples listed above. Of course, any time period can be used to compare model predictions with observations -- uncertainties will simply need to be presented as a function of the time period selected. When scientists (and others) argue against rigorously testing predictions against observations, then you know that the science is in an unhealthy state.

So, to conclude, so long as climate scientists make public claims that recent observations of aspects of the climate are "consistent with" the results of "global warming models," then it is perfectly appropriate to ask what observations would be "inconsistent with" those very same models. Until this follow up question is answered in a clear, rigorous manner, the incoherent, abusive, and misdirected responses to the question will have to serve as answer enough.

Posted on May 2, 2008 07:36 AM View this article | Comments (55)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

April 30, 2008

Global Cooling Consistent With Global Warming

For a while now I've been asking climate scientists to tell me what could be observed in the real world that would be inconsistent with forecasts (predictions, projections, etc.) of climate models, such as those that are used by the IPCC. I've long suspected that the answer is "nothing" and the public silence from those in the outspoken climate science community would seem to back this up. Now a paper in Nature today (PDF) suggests that cooling in the world's oceans could~~that the world may cool over the next 20 years few decades~~ , according to Richard Woods who comments on the paper in the same issue, "temporarily offset the longer-term warming trend from increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere", and this would not be inconsistent with predictions of longer-term global warming.

I am sure that this is an excellent paper by world class scientists. But when I look at the broader significance of the paper what I see is that there is in fact nothing that can be observed in the climate system that would be inconsistent with climate model predictions. If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with model predictions, then so too is pretty much anything and everything under the sun.

This means that from a practical standpoint climate models are of no practical use beyond providing some intellectual authority in the promotional battle over global climate policy. I am sure that some model somewhere has foretold how the next 20 years will evolve (and please ask me in 20 years which one!). And if none get it right, it won't mean that any were actually wrong. If there is no future over the next few decades that models rule out, then anything is possible. And of course, no one needed a model to know that.

Don't get me wrong, models are great tools for probing our understanding and exploring various assumptions about how nature works. But scientists think they know with certainty that carbon dioxide leads to bad outcomes for the planet, so future modeling will only refine that fact. I am focused on the predictive value of the models, which appears to be nil. So models have plenty of scientific value left in them, but tools to use in planning or policy? Forget about it.

Those who might object to my assertion that models are of no practical use beyond political promotion, can start by returning to my original question: What can be observed in the climate over the next few decade that would be inconsistent with climate model projections? If you have no answer for this question then I'll stick with my views.

Posted on April 30, 2008 12:42 AM View this article | Comments (82)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

April 25, 2008

Malaria and Greenhouse Gases

Did you know that today is "World Malaria Day"? I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't; a search of Google News shows 233 stories on "world malaria day" published in the past 24 hours. A search of "climate change" over the past 24 hours shows 45,819 stories. This post is about the inevitable conflict in objectives that results when we frame the challenge of global warming in terms of "reducing emissions" rather than "energy modernization." The result is inevitably a battle between mitigation and adaptation, when in reality they should be complements.

Why does malaria matter? According to Jeffrey Sachs:

The numbers are staggering: there are 300 to 500 million clinical cases every year, and between one and three million deaths, mostly of children, are attributable to this disease. Every 40 seconds a child dies of malaria, resulting in a daily loss of more than 2,000 young lives worldwide. These estimates render malaria the pre-eminent tropical parasitic disease and one of the top three killers among communicable diseases.

The Economist reported a few weeks ago on efforts to eradicate malaria. The article referenced a study by McKinsey and Co. on the "business case" (PDF) for eradicating malaria. Here are the reported 5-year benefits:

• Save 3.5 million lives
• Prevent 672 million malaria cases

• Free up 427,000 hospital beds in sub-Saharan Africa

• Generate more than $80 billion in increased GDP for Africa

I want to focus on the prospects for increasing African GDP, for as we have learned via the Kaya Identity, an increase in GDP will necessarily mean an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. So what are the implications of eradicating malaria for future greenhouse gas emissions from Africa?

To answer this question I obtained data on African greenhouse gas emissions from CDIAC, and I subtracted out South Africa, which accounts for a large share of current African emissions. I found that the average annual increase from 1990-2004 was 5.2%, which I will use as a baseline for projecting business-as-usual emissions growth into the future.

The next question is what effect the eradication of malaria might have on African GDP. The McKinsey & Co. report referenced a paper by Gallup and Sachs (2001, link) which speculates (and I think that is a fair characterization) that complete eradication could boost GDP growth by as much as 3% per year. This would take African emissions growth rates to 8.2%, which is still well short of what has been observed in China this decade, and thus not at all unreasonable. So I'll use this as an upper bound (not as a prediction, to be clear). So if we graph future emissions under my definition of business-as-usual and also the Gallup/Sachs upper bound, we get the following curves to 2050.

Malaria Scenarios.png

The figure shows that by eradicating malaria, it is conceivable that there will be an corresponding increase in annual African emissions of more than 11 GtC above BAU. Today, the entire world has about 9 GtC. For those following our debate with Joe Romm earlier this week, this would mean that he would have to come up with another way to get 10 more "wedges," as rapid African growth is included in none of the BAU emissions scenarios. Put another way, the success of his proposed policies depends on not eradicating malaria since rapid African GDP growth busts his wedge budget.

The implications should be obvious: If a goal of climate policy is simply to "reduce emissions" then this goal clearly conflicts with efforts to eradicate malaria, which will inevitably lead to an increase in emissions. But if the goal is to modernize the global energy system -- including the developing the capacity to provide vast quantities of carbon-free energy, then there is no conflict here.

This distinction helps to explain why there persists an adaptation vs. mitigation debate, and why it is that advocates of adaptation (to which eradicating malaria falls under) are often excoriated as "deniers" or "delayers" -- adaptation just doesn't help the emissions reduction challenge. The continued denigration of those who support adaptation will continue until we reframe the climate debate in terms of energy modernization and adaptation, which are complementary approaches to sustainable development.

Over at The New Scientist Fred Pearce takes a broader view and warns of "green fascism" on the issue of development and population:

But there is another question that I find increasingly being asked. Should we be trying to stop others having babies, especially people in poor countries with fast-growing populations?
I must say I thought this kind of illiberal thinking had been banished from the environmental movement. But it keeps seeping back. When I give public talks on climate change, I am often asked if all the efforts in the rich world won't be wiped out by rising populations in the poor world.

Isn't overpopulation more dangerous than overconsumption? I say no. But the unpalatable truth is that a lot of environmental thinking over the past half century has been underpinned by an unhealthy preoccupation with the breeding propensity of Asians and Africans. . .

Only recently, US groups opposed to all migration tried to get their policies adopted by the blue-chip environment group, the Sierra Club. To many they sounded like a fringe group. Actually they were an echo of the earlier mainstream.

And the echo is becoming louder. We hear it in the climate change debate. No matter that the average European or North American has carbon emissions 10 times greater than the average Indian or African, somehow it is those pesky breeding foreigners who are really to blame.

And now food shortages are growing and we will get more. Ehrlich, we are bound to be told, was right after all. You have been warned: green fascism could soon be on the march.

It is long overdue to rethink how we think about the climate debate.

April 23, 2008

Joe Romm’s Fuzzy Math

[UPDATE: Joe Romm replies in the comments: "Roger -- Thanks for catching my C vs CO2 error.those are very hard to avoid. And thank you for this post. I probably should have elaborated on this issue already -- so I'll just do it in a new post, which will take me a few hours to put together. As you'll see, there actually isn't a gap in my math -- there is a gap in Socolow's and Pacala's math that most people (you included) miss. I'll leave it at that, for now, and Post the link when I am finished."]

Readers here will know that Joe Romm has been extremely critical of the idea that we need any new technological advances to achieve stabilization of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at a level such as 450 ppm. Now Joe helpfully lays out his plan for how stabilization at such a low level might be achieved. It turns out that there is a significant gap in Joe’s math. Even the remarkably ambitious (some would say impossibly fantastic) range of implementation activities that he proposes cannot even meet his own stated goals for success. The only way for him to close the mathematical gap that he has is to rely on – get this -- assumptions of spontaneous decarbonization of the global economy (and by this I mean specifically reductions in energy per economic growth and reductions in carbon per unit energy). In fact, the emissions reductions that he needs to occur automatically (i.e., assumed) for his math to work out are larger than those he proposes through implementation.

Joe relies on a useful concept from Pacala and Socolow (2004, PDF) called the "stabilization wedge" defined as follows:

A wedge represents an activity that reduces emissions to the atmosphere that starts at zero today and increases linearly until it accounts for 1 GtC/year of reduced carbon emissions in 50 years.

Each wedge thus equates to a reduction of 25 GtC over 50 years.

Joe starts out by observing that we are at about 8.4 GtC ("30 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year") and "rising 3.3% per year" (for consistency I am expressing all units in GtC, though do note that Joe switches back and forth with carbon dioxide). He says that "We need to peak around 2015 to 2020 at the latest, then drop at least 60% by 2050 (to 4 billion tons a year or less)." Here I think that Joe actually means 4 GtC and not carbon dioxide, which we’ll adopt as Joe’s chosen mid-century target value. Joe presents 14 proposed wedges worth of implementation: 4 are focused on efficiency, 4 on sequestration, and 6 on carbon-free energy totaling about 12.5 terawatts (compare).

OK, let’s look at the math that Joe provides and how his proposed actions square with his goal. Let’s set aside political realism and all that, and just focus on the simple arithmetic of mitigation. If emissions continue to rise at 3.3% per year then by 2058 total global emissions will be about 42 GtC. With Joe’s 14 wedges all successfully implemented that would equate to an emissions reduction of 33% to 28 GtC per year, falling 24 GtC (i.e., 24 wedges)short of his goal of 4 GtC.

Well, you might say that emissions rising at 3.3% per year is unrealistic; after all, in the last two decades of the last century the global economy became more efficient and the world relied on less carbon intensive sources of fuel. The rate of this decline from 1980-2000 was about 1.0% per year, so maybe it’ll happen again at this rate from 2008-2058. Why not? Increasing emissions at the lower rate of 2.3% per year would indeed make a huge difference, meaning that total emissions in 2058 would be about 26 GtC – representing a reduction equal to the contribution of 16 wedges!! Yet even with this generous assumption of 16 free wedges, after we subtract Joe’s 14 wedges we’d still be left with an annual emissions gap of 12 GtC.

But wait, the careful reader might object, and report to us that Joe already assumes vast improvements in efficiencies -- in fact 4 total of his 14 wedges. Is it reasonable to assume that we can get 20 (16 free + 4 from Joe) wedges of improved energy efficiency and decarbonization of the energy supply? Maybe, maybe not, but the assumption sure helps the math. And yet it still doesn’t get us all of the way to Joe’s goal.

What about if we shorten the time frame? Joe did suggest that we need to implement each wedge over four decades and not five: "If we could do the 14 wedges in four decades, we should be able to keep CO2 concentrations to under 450 ppm." Of course, one wedge over four decades is equal to 20 GtC not 25 GtC, so we’ll call this a "short wedge."

A 3.3% growth in emissions to 2048 would result in annual emissions totaling about 31 GtC. Subtracting 14 of Joe’s short wedges would still leave us 13 GtC short of his goal of 4 GtC. OK, I guess that it’s probably time to invoke those assumptions again. With a return to the 1980-2000 rate of decarbonization of the global economy and a 2.3% rate of emissions increase, the 2048 emissions would be about 21 GtC. If we subtract out Joe’s 14 short wedges that still has Joe missing his target by 3 "short wedges," which we could probably erase by upping the assumed decarboniztion of the global economy to about 1.5% per year.

In short, the only way that Joe Romm’s ambitious solution even comes close to the mark is by assuming a significant spontaneous decarbonization of the global economy (i.e., reductions in energy and carbon intensities). Because Joe does not tell us how these spontaneous reductions will occur, his math is, at best, fuzzy. It seems quite odd that Joe, who has said that the fate of the planet is at stake, is willing to bet our future on baseline carbon dioxide emissions increasing at a rate of less than 2.0% per year, plus some fantastically delusional expectations of the possibilities of policy implementation (and the political realism of Joe's solution will have to wait for another post). It may be unwelcome and uncomfortable for some, but Joe’s fuzzy math explains exactly why innovation must be at the core of any approach to mitigation that has a chance of succeeding.

Is it possible that assumed decarbonization of the global economy carries the weight of future emissions reductions? Sure, its possible. Is this something you want to bet on? Maybe some do, but I'd be much more confident with an approach that can succeed even if carbon dioxide growth rates exceed 2.0% per year.

Posted on April 23, 2008 02:39 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

April 22, 2008

The Central Question of Mitigation

[Updated: In the comments Skipper points out a units error (Thanks!). That would be 20,000 nuclear plants, not 2,000!]

The central question can be found at the bottom of this long, technical post. In 1998 Hoffert et al. published a seminal paper in Nature (PDF) which argued that:

Stabilizing atmospheric CO2 at twice pre-industrial levels while meeting the economic assumptions of "business as usual" implies a massive transition to carbon-free power, particular in developing nations. There are no energy systems technologically ready at present to produce the required amounts of carbon-free power.

Hoffert et al. provide a figure which illustrates the amount of carbon-free energy that will be needed assuming that concentrations of carbon dioxide are to be stabilized at 550 ppm, and the global economy grows at 2.9% per year to 2025 and 2.3% per year thereafter. I have updated this figure to 2008 (estimated) values as indicated below.

The figure shows carbon free energy required to achieve stabilization at 550 ppm carbon dioxide as a function of the rate of average energy intensity decline. The figure also shows 1990 total energy consumption (about 11 terawatts, TW) and the share of this valuefrom carbon-free sources (about 1.2 TW). I have updated both of these values to 2008 using data from the EIA, which I extrapolated to 2008 values, for which I arrive at 17.4 TW of total energy consumption of which 2.4 TW are carbon-free.

Hoffert et al. estimated that we'd need 10-30 TW of carbon free primary energy production by 2050, assuming energy intensity declines of 1.0-2.0% over the first 5 decades of the 21st century. So far at least, that assumption has proved optimistic, as actual energy intensity has increased, as indicated by the blue dot on the leftward-extended horizontal axis. If energy intensity does not improve beyond this value then the world will need 22 TW of carbon-free energy by 2025, and if this value works out to a net 0.5% decline through 2025, then this figure would be halved to 11 TW. For 2050 the values are 51 and 25 TW respectively.

The units of energy can be difficult to interpret. How much is 10 TW of energy? A run-of-the-mill nuclear power plant provides about 500 megawatts; so if you have 2,000 of these then you have 1 terawatt. So 20,000 nuclear plants -- or the equivalent -- by 2025 would do the trick of providing 10 TW.

In a subsequent paper in Science 2002 Hoffert et al. discuss the options available to meet technological challenge of providing 10 TW of carbon-free energy:

Combating global warming by radical restructuring of the global energy system could be the technology challenge of the century. We have identified a portfolio of promising technologies here--some radical departures from our present fossil fuel system. Many concepts will fail, and staying the course will require leadership. Stabilizing climate is not easy. At the very least, it requires political will, targeted research and development, and international cooperation. Most of all, it requires the recognition that, although regulation can play a role, the fossil fuel greenhouse effect is an energy problem that cannot be simply regulated away.

They responded to critiques of their 2002 paper with this (emphasis added):

Market penetration rates of new technologies are not physical constants. They can be strongly impacted by targeted research and development, by ideology, and by economic incentives. Apollo 11 landed on the Moon less than a decade after the program started. We are confident that the world's engineers and scientists can rise to the even greater challenge of stabilizing global warming. But it does not advance the mitigation cause to gloss over technical hurdles or to say that the technology problem is already solved.

Any discussion of the technologies needed to stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations is incomplete without showing the arithmetic of energy production and consumption. This simple math is too often overlooked in the highly politicized to and fro over mitigation.

The central question of the mitigation challenge is thus the following: What technologies will provide the world's future power needs, and do so in a carbon-free manner? Show your work.

April 21, 2008

A Post-Partisan Climate Politics?

Californina Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger provides a positive and optimistic view of of climate policy in a speech yesterday at Yale. You can watch it here. Here is an excerpt:

So I urge you to continue to be open‑minded on our environment. Do not dismiss or do not accept an idea because it has a Republican label or a Democratic label or a conservative label or a liberal label. Think for yourself. This is especially true on environment. So I have great faith in your ability to find new answers and to find new approaches. Don't accept what the old people say. Don't accept the old ways. Don't accept the old ways or the old politics of Democrats and Republicans. Stir things up. Be fresh and new the way you look at things.

Is a post-partisan climate politics possible?

Please Tell Me What in the World Joe Romm is Complaining About?

Joe Romm has continued his hysterical, content-free attacks on me and my colleagues for daring to suggest a view not 100% the same as his own. How dare we. After taking a close look at some of Joe’s writing, it turns out that he seems to agree with just about everything I’ve written on energy policy, and his continued (mis)characterizations of my views simply don’t square with what I’ve actually written.

Here are some examples:

On whether current projections of future emissions growth may possibly underestimate the mitigation challenge, Joe agrees with us that they just might:

[Socolow and Pacala] assume "Our BAU [business as usual] simply continues the 1.5% annual carbon emissions growth of the past 30 years." Oops! Since 2000, we’ve been rising at 3% per year (thank you, China). That means instead of BAU doubling to 16 GtC in 50 years, we would, absent the wedges, double in 25 years. That would mean each wedge needs to occur in half the time, assuming our current China-driven pace is the new norm (which is impossible to know, but I personally doubt it is). . . A similar problem to this is that many of the economic models used by the IPCC assume BAU rates of technology improvement and energy efficiency that are very unlikely to occur absent strong government action, so they are probably overly optimistic.

This last statement is of course exactly what we say in our Nature paper. So our argument about the possibility of understating the magnitude of the mitigation challenge that that Romm has criticized repeatedly (without actually questioning our numbers, but writing a lot of overheated prose), he in fact agrees with. Interesting. Weird.

In addition, I have never written anything against the deployment of existing carbon-free technologies. Quite the opposite. So when Romm says that I have called for an R&D-only approach he is either ignorant or lying, to be blunt. In fact I have argued for a vigorous short-term focus, such as in testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2006 (PDF:

When it comes to effective substantive action on mitigation, I would argue that the available research and experience shows quite clearly that progress is far more likely when such actions align a short-term focus with the longer-term concerns. In practice, this typically means focusing such actions on the short-term, with the longer-term concerns taking a back seat. Examples of such short-term issues related to mitigation include the costs of energy, the benefits of reducing reliance on fossil fuels from the Middle East, the innovation and job-creating possibilities of alternative energy technologies, particulate air pollution, transportation efficiencies, and so on.

And last year Dan Sarewitz and I wrote more specifically of how such a challenge would be met in practice (PDF. After reading Romm's writings, I cannot figure out at all what in the world Joe Romm would disagree with in the following:

Nevertheless, the broad and diverse portfolio of policies and programs necessary to catalyze a long-term technological transformation to a low-carbon energy system is reasonably well understood, even if the path and timing of the transition cannot be precisely engineered. These measures include robust public funding for research spanning the gamut from exploratory to applied; pilot programs to test and demonstrate promising new technologies; public-private partnerships to incentivize private sector participation in high risk ventures (such as those now used to induce pharmaceutical companies to develop tropical disease vaccines); training programs to expand the number of scientists and engineers working on a wide variety of energy R&D projects; government procurement programs that can provide a predictable market for promising new technologies; prizes for the achievement of important technological thresholds; multilateral funds for collaborative international research; international research centers to help build a global innovation capacity (such as the agricultural research institutes at the heart of the Green Revolution); as well as policy incentives to encourage adoption of existing and new energy-efficient technologies, which in turn fosters incremental learning and innovation that often leads to rapidly improving performance and declining costs.
In fact, significant aspects of such a portfolio were proposed and modestly funded during the Clinton Administration in the mid 1990s (Holdren and Baldwin, 2002), but they were politically doomed from the outset because they were too narrowly promoted as climate change policies, rather than as advancing a broad set of national interests and public goals and goods. They did not survive into the Bush Administration; nor did they significantly find their way into the international climate regime. Indeed, the Kyoto approach is a disincentive to implementing many of the sorts of measures listed above because they will not contribute to a nation’s ability to meet its short-term targets.

So Joe Romm’s continued, overheated, and plain weird attacks are difficult to interpret given that that he (a) has written that he agrees with our analysis of the possibility that current baseline expectations for future energy use may underestimate the challenge of mitigation, and (b) he completely ignores the fact that I have consistently supported a broad approach to innovation, including a focus on R&D, but much more. It is true that Joe Romm and I disagree about the value of adaptation, but his complaints of late have been about mitigation. But even if we disagree a bit on the specifics of climate policy, so what? Is his energy really best spent attacking others trying to address this challenge in good faith?

I certainly can’t figure out his incessant attacks and name-calling, but it looks increasingly like they have nothing to do with the merits of our views on mitigation, since they appear to be pretty compatible. Should Joe continue to play the mischaracterization and attack game, I will respond as needed, but I am hoping that he can instead focus on making positive arguments for particular policies, and leave the junior high school chest thumping where it belongs.

April 20, 2008

Kristof on PWG

Nicholas Kristof has a column in the Sunday NYT on the recent Nature paper by Tom Wigley, Chris Green, and me. Here is an excerpt:

Three respected climate experts made that troubling argument in an important essay in Nature this month, offering a sobering warning that the climate problem is much bigger than anticipated. That’s largely because of increased use of coal in booming Asian economies.
For example, imagine that we instituted a brutally high gas tax that reduced emissions from American vehicles by 25 percent. That would be a stunning achievement — and in just nine months, China’s increased emissions would have more than made up the difference.

China and the United States each produces more than one-fifth of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. China’s emissions are much smaller per capita but are soaring: its annual increase in emissions is greater than Germany’s total annual emissions.

Please read the whole thing.

And if you are new to our site -- Welcome! -- and you can find our Nature paper here (in PDF), a short essay on adaptation here (in PDF), and my book The Honest Broker, here.

Posted on April 20, 2008 02:10 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

April 17, 2008

Climate Change Interview with John Holdren

Regular readers may find it surprising to see me post on climate change, but you don't see this every day.

Harvard's John Holdren is currently on television (at least on the East Coast) discussing climate change for two segments with a national figure. The big deal, which includes the name of the interviewer, after the jump.

If you looked at the timestamp, you might have guessed, but Dr. Holdren is on The Late Show with David Letterman. Dave is being relatively serious, joking only about noticing climate change when a pond in his backyard would boil in the summers. Letterman describes himself as someone who's come around on the issue, and I think it's genuine, as I recall him noting other signs of climate change at various times during his show over the last several years.

Holdren is acquitting himself well, unlike certain other noted scientists who have appeared on popular television to discuss scientific issues (Dr. Agre, I'm looking at you). He's nearly jargon free, and aside from the gaffe of not getting up until after the show breaks for commercial, appeared to be a consummate pro. Nice job.

Those in other time zones can probably catch the show later this evening. Dr. Holdren is the second guest. I suspect it will be available online at some point, if not at CBS.com, then at other providers.

Posted on April 17, 2008 10:32 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Bruggeman, D. | Climate Change

Geoengineering: Who Decides?

An April 16 interview on the BBC (mp3) on the topic of geoengineering by Sarah Montague with Ken Caldeira of Stanford and David Keith from the University of Calgary raises some interesting issues about how the climate science community seeks to influence political outcomes through its decisions about what research to conduct and discuss in public.

Dr. Keith was first asked if geoengineering offers a "realistic prospect for a solution to global warming":

Keith: I think that "solution" is much too big a word. The sort of things we are talking about are not solutions in the sense that they would not compensate for the environmental damage of all of the carbon dioxide we’re putting in the air, but they might still be things that in some bad circumstances we’d want to do to limit the worst damage of that carbon dioxide. So I think of these more as band aids, but band aid is a pejorative word, but it is also something that we use.
Sarah M: And could contribute?

Keith: Yes

After Ken Caldeira recommends doing more research to evaluate the potential effectiveness of geoengineering he is asked whether such strategies could indeed provide "part of the solution";

Caldeira: Yes, none of these solutions will completely reverse the effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but as David points out it looks as if many of these schemes have the potential to reduce the consequences of carbon dioxide emissions. . .

The conversation next turned to the political implications of geoengineering, and specifically its effects on what options are considered in debate on climate change.

Sarah M: I suppose the problem with any idea like this [geoengineering] Professor Keith is that you are possibly distracting from the business of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
David Keith: Absolutely, I think that this has been people’s biggest fear in talking about this at all, that the idea that some of this risk management or band aid solutions are out there might make people less committed to cutting carbon dioxide emissions and I think that was a sort of universal fear that you heard at the conference [of the European Geosciences Union] and among various people who work on these technologies is exactly that.

So, to recap: scientists think that geoengineering has the potential "to reduce some of the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions" but some scientists think that scientists should not discuss the prospects for geoengineering because it will distract from other approaches to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, decisions about what research to conduct and what is appropriate to discuss is shaped by the political preferences of scientists. This won’t be news to scholars of science in society, but it should be troubling because it is unfortunately characteristic of the climate science community. I personally have seen this dynamic at work when engaging in discussions of adaptation and also the true magnitude of the mitigation challenge.

Of course, neither Caldeira or Keith are among those who want to limit research or talk about geoengineering, but they obviously are well aware of those people among their colleagues (as am I). The interview ends with an rather glib policy recommendation by Caldeira:

Caldeira: . . . The question of which is better to do, which is more environmentally sensitive, to let the polar bears go extinct or put some dust in the upper atmosphere? And I think that it is not clear that choosing the extinction of polar bears is the more environmentally friendly choice.

Perhaps this question was meant to provoke an intellectual "thought experiment," but since it wasn’t presented as such, I’d be interested in hearing from Ken or anyone else about any available research that might suggest that geoengineering offers the prospect of altering the probabilities of future polar bear extinction. It is exactly this sort of imprecise, scientifically unsupportable discussion of policy alternatives that the scientific community should avoid.

Finally, let me make my own position clear. I prefer that both research and discussion of geoengineering take place. I am confident that the vast majority of such technologies can be shown to be a very bad idea on the merits of the policy arguments for and against. The one exception I'd suggest is the direct air capture of carbon dioxide, which some people don’t even include as a geoengineering technology. One thing I am sure of is that scientists should encourage political debate over policy options for responding to accumulating greenhouse gases to take place out in the open, involving policy makers and the public, and resist the urge to try to tilt the political playing field by altering what they allow their colleagues to work on or discuss in public. The climate debate has too much of this behavior already.

Bush CO2 Plan in Context

For those of you who might wish to place the plans announced by President Bush yesterday into context, according to data from the US EIA (xls):

US CO2 emissions from 2026-2030 are projected to increase by only 0.84% per year. So stabilizing at 2025 levels is not an ambitious goal, given the small rate of increase projected to be occurring for the US at that time. To put this another way, the average annual increase in US emissions from 2025 to 2030 will be equal to about 2.5 days of China’s projected 2030 emissions also using projections from the EIA (which in fact probably represents a dramatic underestimate of where China’s emissions are actually headed, as we suggested in Nature two weeks ago). For those wanting to spin things the other way, you might point out that the proposed five year effects on carbon dioxide of Bush's plans 2026-2030 are about twice the magnitude of the proposed five year effects of the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol.

Posted on April 17, 2008 07:13 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

April 16, 2008

Peter Webster on Predicting Tropical Cyclones

Some wise words from Georgia Tech's Peter Webster on our ability to predict the future incidence of tropical cyclones (or TCs, which includes hurricanes):

Unless we can explain physically the history of the number and intensity of TCs in the recent past, then determining the number and intensity of TCs in the future will be either an extrapolation of very poor data sets or a belief in incomplete and inexact models.

Posted on April 16, 2008 12:05 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Prediction and Forecasting

April 15, 2008

Biofuels and Mitigation/Adaptation

In Europe the debate over biofuels production targets has become the most recent example of the larger debate over mitigation versus adaptation. Biofuels have been held up by some as offering a carbon-neutral alternative to fossil fuels, and thus contributing in some way to the mitigation of climate change. The European Union has gone so far as to adopt biofuel production targets.

At the same time the world has seen food prices increase dramatically in recent times with some people pointing a finger at biofuels as contributing to those price increases. The increased price of food means that those with the most tenuous access to nutrition could slip into malnutrition or worse. This is why one UN official called biofuels production policies a "crime against humanity."

Deutsche Welle has a nice overview:

The European Union said it is sticking to its biofuel goals despite mounting criticism from top environmental agencies and poverty advocates.
"There is no question for now of suspending the target fixed for biofuels," Barbara Helfferich, spokeswoman for EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said Monday, April 14.

But her boss struck a different tone, acknowledging that the EU had underestimated problems caused by biofuels and saying that the 27-nation block planned to "move very carefully."

Yet the EU is wary of abandoning biofuels amid worries that doing so could derail its landmark climate change and energy package. In it, Europe pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Part of the package includes setting a target for biofuels to make up 10 percent of automobile fuel.

Biofuel a culprit in food crisis

Jean ZieglerBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Ziegler called biofuel a "crime against humanity"

In recent months food prices have increased sharply. Biofuels are seen as one of several culprits. Land that used to be planted with food crops has been converted to biofuel production, which has increased prices.

UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told German radio Monday that the production of biofuels is "a crime against humanity" because of its impact on global food prices.

The UN's Ziegler isn't alone in his criticism of biofuel.

The debate over biofuels illustrates that the debate over mitigation and adaptation is not just academic, but reflected in real world outcomes. It also highlights that policies can have unintended consequences. If we factor in recent research that claims that the carbon-cutting potential of biofules has been overstated, then it appears that the high hopes for biofuels as a contributor to mitigation probably need to be scaled back dramatically.

Posted on April 15, 2008 04:55 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology and Globalization

April 11, 2008

Kudos to Kerry Emanuel

I have always held Kerry Emanuel in high regard, because he calls things like he sees them, but he also listens to others who might not share his views. He is, in short, a great scientist.

So it was not too surprising to see that Kerry's views have evolved on the issue of hurricanes and climate change, as science has progressed. A Houston Chronicle story reports today the following:

One of the most influential scientists behind the theory that global warming has intensified recent hurricane activity says he will reconsider his stand.
The hurricane expert, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this week unveiled a novel technique for predicting hurricane activity. The new work suggests that, even in a dramatically warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries.

The research, appearing in the March issue of Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is all the more remarkable coming from Emanuel, a highly visible leader in his field and long an ardent proponent of a link between global warming and much stronger hurricanes.

His changing views could influence other scientists.

"The results surprised me," Emanuel said of his work, adding that global warming may still play a role in raising the intensity of hurricanes but what that role is remains far from certain.

I emailed Kerry to ask if the story accurately reflected his views. He replied that it was a bit exaggerated, but basically OK. Those engaged in the political debate over climate change who are skeptical of a link between hurricanes and climate change might try to make some hay from this news report. But here at Prometheus we'd suggest viewing Kerry's evolving view in the much broader context, which we have shared on multiple occasions, namely:

there are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term.

So don't get to excited about the latest paper in hurricane climatology, the field evolves slowly, and the views of of our best scientists evolve with it.

Lucia Liljegren on Real Climate Spinmeisters

Lucia Liljegren has a considered post up on Real Climate's odd post on my recent letter to Nature Geoscience. I apologize for our comment problems on that thread, but perhaps this one will work better, and you can always comment at Lucia's site, or try to get through the screeners at Real Climate. Is it just me or has the Real Climate discussion board become completely empty of anything resembling scientific discussion?

Posted on April 11, 2008 02:56 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

Holding the Poor Hostage

Anyone who wants to see how the misplaced opposition to adaptation actually hurts poor people need look further than thie report out today from ClimateWire:

Environmental and humanitarian activist groups plan to formally ask the World Bank to back away from plans to create a $500 million trust fund aimed at helping poor nations cope with climate change.
The letter, which representatives of several organizations confirmed Thursday is being drafted and will be signed by more than 100 organizations, comes as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund launch their 2008 spring meeting, attended by finance ministers from across the world.

Among the reasons cited for opposing adaptation funds is that the World Bank is supporting the development of a giant coal plant in India:

Groups said their overarching concern, though, is the World Bank's fossil fuel-rich energy portfolio. The bank's approval this week of $450 million for a major coal-fired power plant in India, many said, undermines its attempts to go green.
"There's a lot of concern about the World Bank taking over of the [adaptation program] because of their ongoing funding of fossil fuel projects," said Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, a nonprofit group based in Washington that advocates for clean energy and against foreign aid to the international oil industry.

"It is not a credible institution for managing these funds, especially given its poor environmental track record," added Karen Orenstein, extractive industries campaign coordinator with the environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth.

"If the World Bank is truly interested in being a leader in fighting climate change, they shouldn't start out by financing a huge mega-coal project," she said.

So you read that right, lets take away money that could have positive benefits improving the lives of people in the developing world because of concerns about a fossil fuel project. This is a real-world example of how continuing efforts to place adaptation in opposition to mitigation have a material effect on people's lives.

Does anyone really think that opposing energy development and adaptation will make the climate agenda more appealing to people in India? Why can't these groups support adaptation and clean energy at the same time, rather than placing them in opposition?

Posted on April 11, 2008 07:27 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Energy Policy

April 10, 2008

Real Climate on My Letter to Nature Geosciences

The folks at the Real Climate blog have offered up some comments on my letter to Nature Geosciences (PDF) which appeared last week. In the condescending tone that we have come to expect from Real Climate, they helpfully frame their comments in terms of teaching me some lessons. I encourage you to read the whole post, but here is my response (submitted for their posting approval) to their three main points, which I've highlighted in bold:

Thanks for this discussion. Full text of the letter can be found here:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2592-2008.07.pdf

1. IPCC already showed a very similar comparison as Pielke does, but including uncertainty ranges.

RESPONSE: Indeed, and including the uncertainty ranges would not change my conclusion that:

"Temperature observations fall at
the low end of the 1990 IPCC forecast range
and the high end of the 2001 range. Similarly,
the 1990 best estimate sea level rise projection
overstated the resulting increase, whereas the
2001 projection understated that rise."

2. If a model-data comparison is done, it has to account for the uncertainty ranges - both in the data (that was Lesson 1 re noisy data) and in the model (that's Lesson 2).

RESPONSE: I did not do a "model-data comparison". One should be done, though, I agree.

3. One should not mix up a scenario with a forecast - I cannot easily compare a scenario for the effects of greenhouse gases alone with observed data, because I cannot easily isolate the effect of the greenhouse gases in these data, given that other forcings are also at play in the real world.

RESPONSE: Indeed. However, I made no claims about attribution, so this is not really relevant to my letter.

Thanks again, and I'll be happy to follow the discussion.

Posted on April 10, 2008 01:13 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

April 09, 2008

Interview with Frank Laird

Center faculty affiliate Frank Laird is interviewed over at the Breakthrough Institute on energy policy and climate change.

Posted on April 9, 2008 06:52 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

April 08, 2008

Carbon Intensity of the Economy

It is always good when debates can be resolved by appeals to data, because it helps to eliminate ambiguity.

Joe Romm expressed concern that I had shown a graph of energy intensity of the global economy to suggest that the overall decarbonization of the global economy did not decrease over the poeriod 1890-1970. That was this figure:

Romm explained to his readers how serious a mistake I had made:

Obviously carbon per GDP can go in a completely different direction than energy per GDP. If Pielke’s analytical mistake isn’t crystal clear to anyone reading this blog, please let me know. So my problem with him isn’t semantics. Pielke’s argument is simply wrong. His analysis is flawed.

OK Joe, lets look at carbon per GDP over the same time period:

CI of GDP.png

Readers are now in a position to judge for themselves whether or not the argument I made is materially affected in this case by using one figure over the other. The alternative perhaps is that Joe Romm is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. As I said, thank goodness for data.

Posted on April 8, 2008 03:43 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

Joe Romm’s Dissembling

Joe Romm is someone who I’ve never met, but he has taken on a somewhat odd obsession with attacking me over the past few weeks, and I have come to the conclusion that he is dishonest and uninterested in constructive discussion.

I have come to this conclusion after reading his most recent diatribe, which takes a semantic issue, inflates it with a lot of heated rhetoric, and pretends that it is something meaningful when it is not.

The molehill that Romm seeks to make a mountain out of is over the difference between "decarbonization of the economy" versus "decarbonization of primary energy supply."

The difference between the concepts, and their relationship, is easily explained by the Kaya Identity, which is the basis for all emissions scenarios, including those used by the IPCC. The Kaya Identity holds that four factors can be used to develop scenarios of future emissions:

P = Population
GDP/P = Per capita wealth
Total Energy/GDP = Energy intensity
Carbon/Total Energy = Carbon intensity

Carbon emissions = P * GDP/P * TE/GDP * C/TE

You can see from the cancellation of the terms that the units match on both sides. If you take carbon intensity and energy intensity together, you get C/GDP which is often referred to as "carbon intensity of the economy" to avoid confusion with "carbon intensity of primary energy." Because total energy of the economy is dominated by fossil fuels, trends in "energy intensity" and "carbon intensity of the economy" are very closely related.

A close look at the Kaya Identity shows that carbon emissions can go down by only one of several ways:

Reduce P
Reduce GDP/P
Reduce TE/GDP
Reduce C/TE

In our Nature article we stated quite clearly that:

Decarbonization of the global energy system depends mainly on reductions in energy intensity and carbon intensity. These result from technological changes that improve energy efficency and/or replace carbon-emitting systems with ones that have lower (or no) net emissions.

In other words, we do not think that either population is going to decrease or per capita wealth, so the focus must be on carbon intensity and energy intensity, which we clearly define as "decarbonization of the global energy system" (and not decarbonization of total energy). We wrote in exactly this manner to be absolutely clear about our meaning.

Similarly in a blog post I wrote:

During and following the industrial revolution, the world experienced a long period of carbonization of the global economy . . .

Note that I did not say "carbonization of total energy supply" as Romm would have his readers believe. Romm is either horribly sloppy in his reading habits or willfully malicious in his intent.

Joe Romm’s focus on semantics and definitions is the classic approach of someone who feels that they can’t win a debate on substance, and must resort to dissembling and misdirection. I for one will no longer give Joe Romm the benefit of the doubt. His actions may fool a few who wish to be fooled, but ultimately he is just discrediting himself with such behavior.

Posted on April 8, 2008 12:43 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Climate Change

Green Car Congress on PWG

Here is a link to an excellent summary and thoughtful discussion of our Nature Commentary (PWG) at Green Car Congress written by Jack Rosebro.

Posted on April 8, 2008 08:44 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Risk & Uncertainty

April 07, 2008

Joe Romm on Air Capture Research

Joe Romm, whose voluminous, hysterical attacks on me and my co-authors Tom Wigley and Chris Green have become somewhat cartoonish, has far more in common with my views than he thinks. Here is what he says on a recent Real Climate post on air capture:

But we should surely do a fair amount of research on air capture, since, by not later than the 2020s, we’re going to get desperate for emissions reductions, and by the 2030s, we’re going to be very desperate and willing to pursue expensive options we that aren’t yet politically realistic.

Investment in research to support a potential breakthrough new technology -- what a great idea Joe!

Posted on April 7, 2008 08:03 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

Gwyn Prins on PWG in The Guardian

Gwyn Prins, a professor at the London School of Economics who is also a friend and collaborator, has a thoughtful op-ed in The Guardian with his views on the significance of our Nature commentary of last week. Here is an excerpt:

The global economy is not decarbonising - it is recarbonising. This was noticed by the experts in the IPCC but not reported in its Summary for Policymakers, the politically negotiated document mostly read by politicians and journalists. If the free rider of decarbonisation is not available, the challenge to move quickly to a radically different type of global climate policy is all the greater.
What would a materially effective policy do? It would break the link between poverty reduction and carbon emission. It would recognise that the developing world needs to consume - and will consume - more energy, not less. It would recognise that attempting to control human-created carbon emissions by setting binding output targets and relying on artificial carbon markets and dodgy offsets, as Kyoto does, has not and never will work.

Such policy would shift to the input side, and concentrate on radical improvements in the production and use of energy. It would focus first on the sectors of all economies that are the heaviest consumers of energy: power generation, building, cement and metals production. The sectors that western environmentalists have prioritised hitherto, such as road and air transport, should be much further down the list. If all automobile use in the US stopped tonight, the reduction in global emissions would be less than 6%. Instead, there must be a much larger commitment to fundamental energy technology research and development.

Read it here.

Posted on April 7, 2008 03:05 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

BBC Special on Adaptation

Last week BBC4 aired a special on adaptation to climate change, in which I am interviewed along with Richard Tol, Mark Lynas, Tim Flannery, and others. You can read a transcript here.

Posted on April 7, 2008 01:17 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 02, 2008

Commentary in Nature

[Update #4: The guys at Grist Magazine apparently have not yet read our paper, which probably explains why one of their commentators explains that everything we say is right but common wisdom, while another says that everything we say is wrong. At least they have their bases covered. Why don't these guys at Grist actually read the paper before commenting? One wonders.]

[Update #3: Andy Revkin of the NYT provides some comments as well here.]

[Update #2: John Tierney of the NYT times provides excerpts of an extended set of comments that I shared with him here.]

[Update: Here is a short interview I did with Scitizen link.]

Tom Wigley, Chris Green, and I have a Commentary in today's Nature on the technology challenge of stabilization. It has already generated some discussion and this discussion will be the focus of some of my posts over the next weeks.

Meantime, please have a look at this summary that Tom, Chris, and I prepared:

PWG on PWG

The challenge of stabilizing the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere may be much more difficult that currently realized. In a commentary published April 3, 2008 in Nature, Roger Pielke, Jr. (University of Colorado), Tom Wigley (National Center for Atmospheric Research) and Chris Green (McGill University) argue that the magnitude of the technology challenge associated with stabilizing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may have been significantly underestimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The reason for this underestimate lies in the assumptions of decarbonization common to all scenarios of future emissions growth used by the IPCC. These assumptions may be far too optimistic, and if so, will hide from view the magnitude of the technology challenge associated with stabilizing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In this commentary the authors reveal these assumptions, and discuss their significance for policy making.

Indeed, the authors present evidence that the first decade of the 21st century has seen greater emissions of CO2 than projected by IPCC due to rapid economic development, particularly in Asia. In recent years, the world as a whole has begun to re-carbonize, breaking a long-term trend in which carbon dioxide per unit energy was assumed instead to continue to decline indefinitely.

Stabilization of the concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is the primary objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), approved by almost all counties, including the USA. Stabilization requires, eventually, reducing the emissions of these gases by large amounts relative to today, a task commonly referred to as "mitigation." For CO2, mitigation requires replacing current and likely future fossil-fuel-based energy systems by carbon neutral energy sources -- that is, sources of energy that are either fossil-fuel free, are accompanied by the capture and storage of CO2, or are otherwise carbon-neutral.

The costs of mitigation are generally estimated by comparing emissions under a baseline scenario where emissions evolve in the absence of climate policies, with a scenario in which the emissions are reduced (via climate policy) to achieve a chosen atmospheric concentration, called a stabilization target. Pielke, Wigley and Green note that the standard baseline scenarios considered for these calculations already include large amounts of carbon-neutral technologies that are assumed to be developed and implemented spontaneously. In the cases the authors consider, 57 to 96% of the cumulative emissions reduction required for CO2 stabilization at around 500 ppm have been assumed by IPCC to occur automatically, meaning that the majority of the emissions reduction needed to stabilize concentrations is assumed to occur automatically..

Rather than starting with assumptions about future spontaneous technological innovations, the authors’ calculations begin with a set of "frozen technology" scenarios as baselines, i.e., emissions scenarios in which energy technologies are assumed to remain at present levels. This contrasts with previous approaches, which use baselines that already include major technology changes, and, consequently, large spontaneous increases in carbon-neutral energy sources. With a "frozen technology" approach, the full scope of the carbon-neutral technology challenge is placed into clear view.

With the full scope of the technology challenge placed into view, the question then arises as to how much of this challenge will occur spontaneously, and how much must be driven by new policies. Pielke and his colleagues suggest that the amount of spontaneous development of carbon-neutral energy sources has been overestimated in previous analyses, diverting attention away from technological innovation, thereby underestimating the need for policy-driven technology development.

The authors conclude by saying "… there is no question whether technological innovation is necessary – it is. The question is, to what degree should policy focus explicitly on motivating such innovation? The IPCC plays a risky game in assuming that the spontaneous advancement of technological innovation will carry most of the burden of achieving future emissions reductions, rather than focusing on those conditions necessary and sufficient for such innovations to occur."

Posted on April 2, 2008 12:56 PM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty | Technology Policy

Letter to Nature Geoscience

Nature's Climate Feedback blog provides a nice summary of a correspondence that I authored published today in Nature Geoscience:

Today in a letter to Nature Geoscience (subscription required), Roger Pielke, Jr, questions whether models from that 2001 generation improve on the predictive power of their forbears.
Pielke checks predictions from all four IPCC reports, dating back to 1990, against reality. Each report made a series of 'if-then' statements about the likely results of various emissions scenarios; in hindsight, Pielke can pick out which of these possible greenhouse experiments has actually been running on Earth since 1990 and compare the results to the IPCC's shifting hypotheses.

Whereas the 2001 projections undershot the observed temperatures and sea levels, the 1990 projections overshot them, he concludes. Projections of temperature and sea level fell substantially between the 1990 and 1995 IPCC reports, when aerosols were added to models and carbon-cycle simulations were tweaked. But because they dropped too far, the adjusted post-1995 projections "are not obviously superior in capturing climate evolution", says Pielke.

Posted on April 2, 2008 08:16 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

March 29, 2008

Setting a Trap for the Next President

An editorial in todays New York Times reports that the Bush Administration (and specifically the U.S. EPA) is considering some action on climate change:

On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act clearly empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to address greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The ruling instructed the agency to determine whether global warming pollution endangers public health and welfare — an "endangerment finding" — and, if so, to devise emissions standards for motor vehicles.
One year has passed, and despite repeated promises from President Bush and the E.P.A. administrator, Stephen Johnson, nothing has happened. And it seems increasingly likely that nothing will happen while Mr. Bush remains in office. Last week, Mr. Johnson notified Congress that he had discovered new regulatory complexities and decided against immediate action. Instead, he planned to offer an "advanced notice of proposed rule-making," which requires a lengthy comment period and a laborious bureaucratic process that would almost certainly stretch beyond the end of Mr. Bush’s term.

The NYT fails to see one important aspect of this strategy. Issuing an "Advanced Notice of Proposed Regulation" (ANPR) is in fact a significant step in the regulatory process. Importantly, in the regulatory process it turns the burden of of proof around from the need to show harm in order for regulation to occur, to the need to show safety for the regulation not to occur. Proving that a substance is safe, under the assumption that it is harmful, is a much more difficult challenge than the opposite.

So if the Bush Administration were in fact to issue an ANPR it would be a fairly significant act, especially for this administration. It would signal that greenhouse gas regulations are in fact coming.

But the important question is when. The Times notes correctly that the regulatory process would stretch beyond Bush's term. And of course this might be precisely the point of issuing an ANPR. It would saddle the next Administration with the challenge of figuring out how to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from autos. As we have recently seen in Europe, creating and implementing such regulations is a messy affair.

Not long ago I wrote of this possibility in my column for Bridges (PDF):

So if a Democrat is elected in November 2008, which appears likely, it seems eminently plausible that the Bush Administration would help the new administration get off to a running start by leaving them with a proposed rule, under the EPA, for the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions. Even the possibility of such a late-hour action is probably enough for the declared Democratic presidential candidates to be very careful about calling for dramatic action on climate change, lest – if elected – they find themselves getting what they asked for.
Because no one really yet knows how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by any significant amount, a strong proposed rule on climate change issued in the final months of the Bush Administration would create all sorts of political difficulties for the next president, just as those late-hour rules proposed by President Clinton did for President Bush. If reducing emissions indeed proves to be easy, as some have suggested, President Bush would get credit for taking decisive action. If it proves difficult and costly, as many suggest, then the next administration would bear the political backlash.

Common wisdom that the Bush Administration will not act meaningfully on climate change may in the end prove to be correct. But, at the same time, remember that lame ducks are unpredictable creatures.

My guess -- and it is nothing more than a guess -- is that the announcement of an ANPR on automobile emissions will occur -- if it is to occur at all -- after the November election, and only if a Democrat is elected. Of course, if McCain wins the election and the Bush Administration still announces the ANPR, then you can assume that there is still little love lost between the two, as the ANPR would saddle McCain with some sure problems during his presidency.

Finally, if you'd like to read the story of how Jimmy Carter's late-hour ANPR on stratospheric ozone eventually paved the way for domestic regulations and then international accords, please have a look at the following paper:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., and M. M. Betsill, 1997: Policy for Science for Policy: Ozone Depletion and Acid Rain Revisited. Research Policy, 26, 157-168. (PDF)

Posted on March 29, 2008 08:04 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Environment | Science + Politics

March 27, 2008

Those Nice Guys at Grist

The Gristmill Blog is an interesting place, not least because of the heaps of scorn they frequently direct my way. In their latest rant Dave Roberts takes issue with a poorly-worded story by Alan Zarembo in yesterday's L.A. Times (which we've discussed and clarified here) by attacking me.

Dave now says that my views on climate change are in fact the mainstream:

In short, the solutions [Pielke] advocates are the same ones pushed by just about everyone in the climate debate: a mix of adaptation and mitigation.

Of course it was not so long ago that Dave himself said quite bluntly of adaptation in June, 2006:

There's one way to directly address climate change, and that's reducing the GHG emissions that drive it. In the context of the climate-change debate, advocating for adaptation means advocating for a non-response. It means advocating for nothing. I, for one, am not going to provide that kind of political cover for those who are protecting their corporate contributors.

Unfortunately the anti-adaptation views that Dave held in 2006 are still widely shared in the policy and advocacy communities. For example, less than a year ago Tim Flannery called adaptation "morally repugnant" and a "form of genocide."

[UPDATE: A reader suggests that a fuller quote from Tim Flannery is more appropriate. I do not disagree. Here is what the reader pointed to from Flannery: "I think that adaptation, except in the more trivial ways, is a very dangerous route to go down.... I see adaptation, if we take it too far, as really a form of genocide."]

Al Gore is notably against adaptation as well. And several of us characterized the continuing policy challenges in a Commentary in Nature last year (PDF).

So while it is good to see that Dave appears to have mostly come around on adaptation and now sees it as an essential part of responding to climate change, there still is a lot of work to do. It is pretty bizarre that he has to go on the attack when his main point seems to be that he agrees with my views. Its about time. Now if only we can get Grist's Joe Romm straight on energy policy. We'll tackle that next week;-)

Posted on March 27, 2008 03:04 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Environment

March 26, 2008

LA Times on Adaptation

Pielke LA Times.gif

The image above is from a LA Times story by Alan Zarembo and is based on some of our reserach on future hurricane damages under changes in both climate and society. Zarembo provides a perspective on a group of scholars and advocates that I once called "nonskeptical heretics." Nonskeptical because they accept the science presented by the IPCC (as noted by Zarembo), and heretics because they take strong issue with many of the closely held assumptions that have come to frame the debate over climate policies.

Zarembo characterizes one of the most insidious assumptions -- that support for adaptation necessarily means a loss of support for mitigation:

Other scientists say that time is running out to control carbon dioxide emissions and that the call to adapt is providing a potentially dangerous excuse to delay. . . Although most scientists agree that adaptation should play a major role in absorbing the effects of climate change, they say that buying into the heretics' arguments will dig the world into a deeper hole by putting off greenhouse gas reductions until it is too late.

Well, no. It is a strawman to argue that strong support for adaptation means that one cannot also provide strong support for mitigation. A problem arises for mitigation-first proponents when they invoke things like hurricanes, malaria, and drought as justification for mitigation when clearly adaptive responses will be far more effective. Those who persist in linking mitigation to reducing such climate impacts will always find themselves on the wrong side of what research has shown -- namely, climate change is a much smaller factor in such impacts than societal factors (compare the graph above). It is true. Get over it.

The best arguments for mitigation were presented by Zarembo coming from Steve Schneider, who rightly pointed to the uncertain but highly consequential impacts of human-caused climate change:

"You can't adapt to melting the Greenland ice sheet," said Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University. "You can't adapt to species that have gone extinct."

If advocacy for action on mitigation emphasized these very large scale long-term impacts, rather than disasters, disease, etc., then there would be no need for adaptation and mitigation to be presented as opposing approaches. Consider that none of the people quoted in the Zarembo story who I know (including me) have suggested that adaptation can replace mitigation, particularly for issues like sea level rise and specifies extinction. So the argument that adaptation can't deal with sea level rise over a century or more is somewhat of a strawman as well.

The reality is that whatever the world decides to do on mitigation, we will have no choice but to improve our adaptation to climate. Humans have been improving their adaptation to climate forever and will continue to do so. Since we are going to adapt, we should do it wisely. And this means rejecting bad policy arguments when offered in the way of substitutes for adaptation, like the tired old view that today's disaster losses are somehow a justification for changes to energy policies. Misleading policy arguments and should be pointed out as such, because they hurt both the cause of adaptation, but ironically the cause of mitigation as well.

If mitigation advocates do not like being told that their misleading arguments poorly serve policy debate, well, they should probably try to come up with a more robust set of arguments. Arguing that support for adaptation undercuts support for mitigation is a little like making the argument that support for eating healthy and getting exercise (adapting one's lifestyle) undercuts support for heart surgery research (mitigating the effects of heart disease). Obviously we should seek both adaptation and mitigation in the context of heart disease.

If the case for action on energy policy is so overwhelmingly strong (and again, I think that it is), then there should be no reason to resort to misleading arguments completely detached from the conclusions of a wide range of analyses. Misleading arguments may be politically expedient in the short term, but cannot help the mitigation cause in the long run. And dealing with the emissions of greenhouse gases will take place over the long run. Meantime, we'll adapt.

Posted on March 26, 2008 07:28 AM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty | Science + Politics

March 25, 2008

Why adaptation is not sufficient

Just after I post suggesting that it would be more constructive to get out of the zero-sum construction of adaptation and mitigation, the LA Times has a story featuring Roger Pielke, Jr. and others saying we should give up on mitigation and focus on adaptation: "His research has led him to believe that it is cheaper and more effective to adapt to global warming than to fight it."

[Correction: Roger informs me that this quotation mischaracterizes his position as posing a dichotomy between adaptation and mitigation. I apologize for taking the reporter's words at face value without checking their veracity first. The comment that follows, then, does not refer specifically to Roger's views, but I leave it because the false perception that we must choose between adaptation and mitigation is common and I wish to make clear that it's wrong.]

That's just not going to do it, in part because it ignores the value of ecosystem services. I would like anti-mitigationists to address how adaptation will address ecosystems, particularly the effect of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems.

I am also very concerned about the economic effects of disrupting terrestrial ecosystems on agriculture. I have a hard time believing anti-mitigation arguments based on cost-benefit analyses that set a zero value on threats to ecosystem services simply because they don't know how to quantify those.

Beyond the effects on ecosystems, water scarcity is a significant threat and the policy literature is littered with the remains of papers suggesting that technological fixes would solve water scarcity problems. One of my favorites is Alvin Weinberg in the 1960s suggesting that nuclear-powered desalination would resolve the Israeli/Arab conflict in short order. If droughts become more severe in many parts of the world, history suggests that adaptation is likely to be much more difficult and expensive than we think.

Adaptation is absolutely necessary because no matter what we do we can't stop some amount of climate change over the coming century, but without mitigation we're looking at very big downside risks, not so much in the maximum-likelihood case, but in exactly the sort of low-probability/high-consequence stuff to which, according to Pielke's flood policy research, our political system is very bad at adapting even in the absence of anthropogenic climate change.

So if our political system stinks at managing floods, coastal storm risks, and fresh-water resources in the absence of anthropogenic climate change, why would it manage better if climate change does turn out to significantly increase the mean severity and/or variance of the distribution?

Adaptation is important but I would like to propose that farm subsidies would be a much more deserving budget category to raid in order to pay for it than GHG mitigation. This is particularly apt because agriculture will need to do much more adapting than most economic sectors.

Or we could try for a coupled mitigation-adaptation funding scheme: Impose a carbon tax at the well head, the mine shaft, or the port of entry and use the proceeds to pay for adaptation. Would this not be an elegant Pigovian solution which would let the market decide how to balance mitigation and adaptation?

Are both of these suggestions naive and unlikely to get through a committee on the Hill? Of course, but neither is it likely that we'll see anyone in Congress pushing to reallocate billions of dollars from Lieberman-Warner toward helping Bangladesh to deal with rising sea levels or sub-Saharan Africa to adapt its agriculture to drought.

But to cast climate policy as a zero-sum division of resources, especially when the total pie is so inadequately small, is tediously unimaginative. [Deleted reference to this position as representing Pielke's views]

Posted on March 25, 2008 11:23 PM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Gilligan, J. | Climate Change

March 24, 2008

Why no candidate positions on adaptation?

Over at the NY Times, Nicki Bennett makes a guest post on Nicholas Kristoff's "On the Ground" blog about climate change and Dhaka Bangladesh. After some fairly boilerplate stuff about how climate change is likely to affect people there, she raises an important point that we don't see reported sufficiently:

Back at the office, feeling curious, I decide to conduct a quick (and totally unscientific) experiment to check how much people in the United States actually care about the issue: I log onto the websites of the main U.S. presidential candidates to see if they have a position on climate change. Some of them talk about cutting greenhouse gas emissions. None talk about paying money into the climate change “adaptation” fund. And none are talking about the impact of climate change on poor people – or what they might do about the fact that places like Bangladesh and New Orleans are already being bashed by climate-related disasters and slowly losing land to rising sea levels.

This makes me think about how we seem to hear from many proponents of adaptation policy only when they are setting mitigation and adaptation against each other as slices in a zero-sum climate policy pie.

It would be nice to hear more discussion of adaptation independently of mitigation. I wonder whether separating the two issues more in public discourse would make it easier to press for adaptation policy by making it harder for candidates to say in essence, "I gave at the office with my mitigation policy."

Posted on March 24, 2008 10:26 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Gilligan, J. | Climate Change

New Paper on Climate Contrarians by Myanna Lahsen

I'd like to alert readers of this blog to an article of mine just out
in this issue of Global Environmental Change. It analyzes a prominent
subset of US climate contrarians, providing a more multi-faceted and
complex account than generally available of why they chose to join the
anti-environmental backlash. One of them, Frederick Seitz, died recently, making this a poignant time to examine him as well as his
similarly influential colleagues in historical perspective, as I do in
this article. Below is the reference and the abstract of the article:

Lahsen, Myanna. "Experiences of Modernity in the Greenhouse: A Cultural Analysis of a Physicist 'Trio' Supporting the Conservative Backlash Against Global Warming." Global Environmental Change (2008), Vol. 18/1 pp 204-219. (PDF)

In the context of President George W. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto
Protocol intended to combat human-induced climate change, it appears
important to improve understanding of powerful efforts to reframe
global climate change as a non-problem. This paper draws on
ethnographic research among U.S. scientists involved with climate
science and politics to improve understanding of the U.S. controversy
over global climate change by attending to structuring cultural and
historical dimensions. The paper explores why a key subset of
scientists – the physicist founders and leaders of the George C.
Marshall Institute – chose to lend their scientific authority to the
"environmental backlash," the counter-movement that has mobilized to
defuse widespread concern about perceived environmental threats,
including human-induced climate change. The paper suggests that the
physicists joined the backlash to stem changing tides in science and
society and to defend their preferred understandings of science,
modernity, and of themselves as a physicist elite – understandings
challenged by recent transformations in American science and society
that express themselves, among other places, in the widespread concern
about human-induced climate change.

Posted on March 24, 2008 09:34 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Science + Politics

March 19, 2008

6 Days in 2012: Effect of the CDM on Carbon Emissions

This is a somewhat technical post on a fairly narrow issue. This week in class we had the pleasure of a visit by Wolfgang Sterk from the Wuppertal Institute (in Germany), who provided a really excellent presentation on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol and the European Emissions Trading Scheme.

His presentation discussed, and also raised some further questions about, the effectiveness of the CDM. So out of curiosity I have asked, and answered below, the question: What effect does the CDM have on carbon dioxide emissions to 2012?

The answer can be determined by looking at the excellent database of CDM projects provided by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Kanagawa, Japan.

What I did first is exclude all non-carbon dioxide-related projects in the CDM database. I then included projects that are "registered" (in the works) and "issued" (in the pipeline), and assumed that all projects so listed will be in fact implemented with 100% success.

Through 2012, the total reductions in future carbon dioxide emissions under the CDM totals about 175 millions tons of carbon, or about 35 million tons of carbon per year.

How much is this amount of carbon?

This means that the cumulative emissions that would have occurred on January 1, 2012 will now occur before noon on January 7, 2012. You read that right. The cumulative effect of the CDM on carbon dioxide emissions is to delay total emissions by about 6.5 days.

To be fair the CDM was never designed to be a solution to the climate problem. But even so, this seems to me to be an exceedingly small impact for such an incredibly complex program. I can not explain how complex it is (see the PDF linked in the following sentence). In fact, simply taking an unscientific qualitative ratio of complexity (PDF) to effectiveness (6 and a half days delay in cumulative emissions), I have come to the conclusion that the CDM offers little hope of contributing much to the challenge of transforming the global energy system. If it is part of the solution, then it is an understatement to say that that it it is a very, very, very, very small part.

Posted on March 19, 2008 02:44 PM View this article | Comments (9)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

March 18, 2008

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Now according to Grist Magazine's Joe Romm I am a "delayer/denier" because I've asked what data would be inconsistent with IPCC predictions. Revealed truths are not to be questioned lest we take you to the gallows. And people wonder why some people see the more enthusiastic climate advocates akin to religious zealots.

I am happy to report that it is quite possible to believe in strong action on mitigation and adaptation while at the same time ask probing questions of our scientific understandings.

Posted on March 18, 2008 10:51 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Science + Politics

March 17, 2008

UK Emissions

UK CO2.png

The graph above is from a report (PDF) of the UK government's National Audit Office, which explains some of the difficulties in accounting for carbon emissions at the national level.

The report has received some attention for this figure and what the following passage means for emissions reduction targets currently under consideration by the UK Parliament:

Figure 13 demonstrates that there have been no reductions in UK carbon dioxide emissions if measured on the basis of the Accounts rather than on the basis of the IPCC/Kyoto reporting requirements.

One point worth making is that the difference between UK Environmental Accounts and Kyoto accounting stems from international aviation and shipping (not included by Kyoto) and the treatment of tourists and nonresidents in the UK. These sort of issues obviously play a large role in the ability of countries to meet Kyoto targets. One wonders what the effect on the ability of countries to meet Kyoto targets would be if carbon emissions were accounted for on an UK Environmental Accounting Basis.

It would seem that the passage of ambitious targets and timetables for UK emissions reductions has been made less likely by this report, and yet at the same time it can't be good news for those wanting that third runway at Heathrow.

Posted on March 17, 2008 11:07 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

March 15, 2008

Update on Falsifiability of Climate Predictions

UPDATE 2:40PM 3-15-08: Within a few hours of this post, as we might have expected, rather than contributing to the substantive discussion, a climate scientist chooses instead to tell us how stupid we are for even discussing such subjects. We are told that "until the temperature obviously and unambiguously turns up again, this kind of stuff is going to continue." Isn't that what this post says? For the "stuff" read on below.

Regular readers will recall that not long ago I asked the climate community research community to suggest what climate observations might be observed on decadal time scales that might be inconsistent with predictions from models. While Real Climate has decided to take a pass on this question other scientists and interested observers have taken up the challenge, no doubt with interest added by the recent cooling in the primary datasets of global temperature.

A very interesting perspective is provided by Lucia Liljegren, who has several interesting posts on observations versus predictions. The figure above is from her analysis. Her complete analysis can be found here. She has several follow up posts in which she discusses other aspects of the analysis and links to a few other, similar explorations of this issue. She writes:

No matter which major temperature measuring group we examine, or which reasonable criteria for limiting our choices we select, it appears that possible that something not anticipated by the IPCC WG1 happened soon after they published their predictions for this century. That something may be the shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation; it may be something else. Statistics cannot tell us.
It may turn out that this something is a relatively infrequent but climatologically important, feature that results in unusually cold weather . Events that happen at a rate of 1% do happen– at a rate of 1%. So, if recent flat trend is the 1% event, then 30 year trend in temperatures will resume.

For what it’s worth: I believe AGW is real, based on physical arguments and longer term trends, I suspect we will discover that GCM’s are currently unable to predict shifts in the PDO. The result is the uncertainty intervals on IPCC projections for the short term trend were much too small.

Of course, the reason for the poor short term predictions may turn out to be something else entirely. It remains to those who make these predictions to try to identify what, if anything, resulted in this mismatch between projections and short term data. Or to stand steadfast and wait for La Nina to break and the weather to begin to warm.

Those wanting to quibble with her analysis would no doubt observe that the uncertainty around IPCC predictions for the short term is undoubtedly larger that then IPCC itself presented. Lucia in fact suggests this in her analysis, making one wonder if uncertainties are indeed larger than presented, why didn't the IPCC say so?

In 2006 my father and I wrote about the possible effects on the climate debate of short-term predictions that do not square with observations:

predictions represent a huge gamble with public and policymaker opinion. If more-or-less steady global warming does not occur as forecast by these models, not only will professional reputations be at risk, but the need to reduce threats to the wide spectrum of serious and legitimate environmental concerns (including the human release of greenhouse gases) will be questioned by some as having been oversold. For better or worse, a failure to accurately predict the changes in the global average surface temperature, global average tropospheric temperature, ocean average heat content change, or Arctic sea ice coverage would raise questions on the reliance of global climate models for accurate prediction on multi-decadal time scales.

In one of the comments in response to that post a climate scientist (and Real Climate blogger) took us to task for raising the issue suggesting that there was no really reason to speculate about such things given that, "I’ve pointed out that in the obs, there is no sign of > 2 yr decreasing trends."

Another climate scientist commented that climate models were completely on target:

Re the possibility that the Earth is acting in a way that the models hadn’t predicted, I must say I’m pretty relaxed about that. Let’s wait a few more years and see, eh?

I have not yet seen rebuttals to Lucia's analysis, or others like it (she points to a few), which are not peer-reviewed analyses, yet certainly of some merit and worth considering. There continues to be good reasons for climate scientists to begin more openly discussing the limitations of short-term climate predictions and the implications for understanding uncertainties. They have these discussions among themselves all of the time. For example, with a view quite similar to my own, Real Climate's Gavin Schimdt suggests that if the full context of a prediction from a climate model is not understood, then:

model results have an aura of exactitude that can be misleading. Reporting those results without the appropriate caveats can then provoke a backlash from those who know better, lending the whole field an aura of unreliability.

None of this discussion means that the basic conclusion that greenhouse gases affect the climate system is wrong, or that action to mitigate emissions do not make sense. What it does mean is that we should be concerned about the overselling of climate predictions and the corresponding risks to public credibility and advocacy built upon these predictions.

Posted on March 15, 2008 06:15 AM View this article | Comments (22)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Risk & Uncertainty

March 03, 2008

The Deficit Model Bites Back

We have often argued that efforts to communicate science in order to realize political objectives rarely work and sometimes backfire. This is of course a critique of the so-called "deficit model" of science communication.

Here is another example from Kellstedt et al. from the journal Risk Analysis (PDF), with implications for all of those efforts to educate people about the science of climate change:

Perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to the assumptions underlying the knowledge-deficit model, as well as the marketing of movies like Ice Age and An Inconvenient Truth, the effects of information on both concern for global warming and responsibility for it are exactly the opposite of what were expected. Directly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less responsible he or she feel for it; and indirectly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less concerned he or she is for it. These information effects, while striking, are consistent with the findings of Durant and Legge(47) with respect to genetically modified foods, and with those of Evans and Durant(48) with respect to embryo research. Thus, we contribute another parcel of evidence that the knowledge-deficit model is inadequate for understanding mass attitudes about scientific controversies. . .
. . . despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming and climate change are real phenomena that create risks for the earth’s future, among the mass public, the more confidence an individual has in scientists, the less responsible he or she tends to feel for global warming, and the less concerned he or she is about the problem. Perhaps this simply reflects an abundance of confidence that scientists can engineer a set of solutions to mitigate any harmful effects of global warming.13 But it can not be comforting to the researchers in the scientific community that the more trust people have in them as scientists, the less concerned they are about their findings.

Of course, if my point is to educate you about the futility of education, then I've gotten myself into an interesting paradox, haven't I?

Posted on March 3, 2008 02:56 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Education

February 28, 2008

Matthews and Caldeira on the Mitigation Challenge

Just when you thought that the mitigation challenge was dismal, Matthews and Caldeira publish a paper in GRL suggesting that things are in fact worse than that:

In the absence of human intervention to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere [e.g., Keith et al., 2006], each unit of CO2 emissions must be viewed as leading to quantifiable and essentially permanent climate change on centennial timescales. We emphasize that a stable global climate is not synonymous with stable radiative forcing, but rather requires decreasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. We have shown here that stable global temperatures within the next several centuries can be achieved if CO2 emissions are reduced to nearly zero. This means that avoiding future human-induced climate warming may require policies that seek not only to decrease CO2 emissions, but to eliminate them entirely.

Have we mentioned that air capture is coming? And that is whether we like it or not.

Posted on February 28, 2008 02:28 PM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

February 25, 2008

Air Capture in the U.S. Congress

Senator John Barosso (R-WY) has introduced a bill promoting a technology policy for air capture research, including prizes for technological achievements. From the press release:

U.S. Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyo., has introduced a bill aimed at developing technology to remove existing excess green houses gases from the atmosphere and permanently sequester them.
The "Greenhouse Gas Emission Atmospheric Removal Act," or GEAR Act, will establish an award system for scientists and researchers.

"My proposal takes a new look at climate change," Barrasso said. "This approach removes excess greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere. The GEAR Act aims to tap into human potential and the American spirit to develop the technological solutions we need to address climate change."

"Where ever you find yourself on the issue of climate change, we can agree on one important dynamic – change not only awaits us - it is banging on the door. We need to change it on our terms before Washington ’s massive bureaucracy changes it for us."

"It makes sense that we explore proposals to remove and permanently sequester excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to slow or reverse climate change. The best way to develop the technology we need to achieve this is through a system of financial awards, or prizes, for achieving technological goals established by Congress."

"Putting strict limits on our economy is not the answer to climate change. A healthy economy that spurs American ingenuity makes more sense to me."

Mark Northam, Director of the School of Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming , said: "Removal of greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere is the Holy Grail of climate change mitigation solutions. As currently envisioned, successful technologies will mimic natural processes and over time will help to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at acceptable levels."

The full text of the bill follows after the jump.

S. 2614
To facilitate the development, demonstration, and implementation of technology for use in removing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

FEBRUARY 8 (LEGISLATIVE DAY, FEBRUARY 6), 2008

Mr. BARRASSO introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A BILL

To facilitate the development, demonstration, and implementation of technology for use in removing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the "Greenhouse Gas Emission Atmospheric Removal Act" or the "GEAR Act".

SEC. 2. STATEMENT OF POLICY.

It is the policy of the United States to provide incentives to encourage the development and implementation of technology to permanently remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere on a significant scale.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) COMMISSION.-The term "Commission" means the Greenhouse Gas Emission Atmospheric Removal Commission established by section 5(a).

(2) GREENHOUSE GAS.-The term "greenhouse gas" means-

(A) carbon dioxide;

(B) methane;

(C) nitrous oxide;

(D) sulfur hexafluoride;

(E) a hydrofluorocarbon;

(F) a perfluorocarbon; and

(G) any other gas that the Commission determines is necessary to achieve the purposes of this Act.

(3) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.-The term "intellectual property" means-

(A) an invention that is patentable under title 35, United States Code; and

(B) any patent on an invention described in subparagraph (A).

(4) SECRETARY.-The term "Secretary" means the Secretary of Energy.

SEC. 4. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION ATMOSPHERIC REMOVAL PROGRAM.

The Secretary, acting through the Commission, shall provide to public and private entities, on a competitive basis, financial awards for the achievement of milestones in developing and applying technology that could significantly slow or reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by permanently capturing or sequestrating those gases without significant countervailing harmful effects.

SEC. 5. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION ATMOSPHERIC REMOVAL COMMISSION.

(a) Establishment.-There is established within the Department of Energy a commission to be known as the "Greenhouse Gas Emission Atmospheric Removal Commission".

(b) Membership.-

(1) COMPOSITION.-The Commission shall be composed of 11 members appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who shall provide expertise in-

(A) climate science;

(B) physics;

(C) chemistry;

(D) biology;

(E) engineering;

(F) economics;

(G) business management; and

(H) such other disciplines as the Commission determines to be necessary to achieve the purposes of this Act.

(2) TERM; VACANCIES.-

(A) TERM.-A member of the Commission shall serve for a term of 6 years.

(B) VACANCIES.-A vacancy on the Commission-

(i) shall not affect the powers of the Commission; and

(ii) shall be filled in the same manner as the original appointment was made.

(3) INITIAL MEETING.-Not later than 30 days after the date on which all members of the Commission have been appointed, the Commission shall hold the initial meeting of the Commission.

(4) MEETINGS.-The Commission shall meet at the call of the Chairperson.

(5) QUORUM.-A majority of the members of the Commission shall constitute a quorum, but a lesser number of members may hold hearings.

(6) CHAIRPERSON AND VICE CHAIRPERSON.-The Commission shall select a Chairperson and Vice Chairperson from among the members of the Commission.

(7) COMPENSATION.-A member of the Commission shall be compensated at level III of the Executive Schedule.

(c) Duties.-The Commission shall-

(1) subject to subsection (d), develop specific requirements for-

(A) the competition process;

(B) minimum performance standards;

(C) monitoring and verification procedures; and

(D) the scale of awards for each milestone identified under paragraph (3);

(2) establish minimum levels for the capture or net sequestration of greenhouse gases that are required to be achieved by a public or private entity to qualify for a financial award described in paragraph (3);

(3) in coordination with the Secretary, offer those financial awards to public and private entities that demonstrate-

(A) a design document for a successful technology;

(B) a bench scale demonstration of a technology;

(C) technology described in subparagraph (A) that-

(i) is operational at demonstration scale; and

(ii) achieves significant greenhouse gas reductions; and

(D) operation of technology on a commercially viable scale that meets the minimum levels described in paragraph (2); and

(4) submit to Congress-

(A) an annual report that describes the progress made by the Commission and recipients of financial awards under this section in achieving the demonstration goals established under paragraph (3); and

(B) not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, a report that describes the levels of funding that are necessary to achieve the purposes of this Act.

(d) Public Participation.-In carrying out subsection (c)(1), the Commission shall-

(1) provide notice of and, for a period of at least 60 days, an opportunity for public comment on, any draft or proposed version of the requirements described in subsection (c)(1); and

(2) take into account public comments received in developing the final version of those requirements.

(e) Peer Review.-No financial award may be provided under this Act until such time as the proposal for which the award is sought has been peer reviewed in accordance with such standards for peer review as the Commission shall establish.

SEC. 6. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CONSIDERATIONS.

(a) In General.-Title to any intellectual property arising from a financial award provided under this Act shall vest in 1 or more entities that are incorporated in the United States.

(b) Reservation of License.-The United States-

(1) may reserve a nonexclusive, nontransferable, irrevocable, paid-up license, to have practiced for or on behalf of the United States, in connection with any intellectual property described in subsection (a); but

(2) shall not, in the exercise of a license reserved under paragraph (1), publicly disclose proprietary information relating to the license.

(c) Transfer of Title.-Title to any intellectual property described in subsection (a) shall not be transferred or passed, except to an entity that is incorporated in the United States, until the expiration of the first patent obtained in connection with the intellectual property.

SEC. 7. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out this Act.

SEC. 8. TERMINATION OF AUTHORITY.

The Commission and all authority of the Commission provided under this Act terminate on December 31, 2020.

Posted on February 25, 2008 12:00 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Technology Policy

A Sense of Proportion

3rd runway protest.jpg

At London's Heathrow airport today environmental activists evaded security and climbed onto the tail of a British Air 777 to protest plans for building a third runway at the airport.

Meantime, last month the Chinese government announced plans to build 97 new airports in the next 12 years.

China announced plans Saturday to build nearly 100 new airports by 2020 to cater for soaring demand.
The proposals will mean eight out of every ten residents will live within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of an airport within 12 years, the General Administration of Civil Aviation said.

It put the cost of building the 97 new airports at 450 billion yuan (61.6 billion dollars).

Air traffic volume rose 16 percent to 185 million passengers in 2007, according to official figures.

The General Administration predicts passenger traffic will grow by 11.4 percent a year between now and 2020, and freight traffic by 14 percent.

The number of airports serving more than 30 million passengers a year will rise from three now to 13, it said.

Posted on February 25, 2008 09:20 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

February 22, 2008

New blog on carbon offsets and sequestration

Several students in our Science and Technology Policy class here at the University of Colorado are writing blogs for their projects this semester. I'd like to introduce you to them over a couple of posts. The first is called The Emission and covers issues related to carbon offsets, sequestration, and all things related to policy focusing on the carbon side of things. Please check it out!

Posted on February 22, 2008 04:32 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Climate Change

February 18, 2008

Climate Model Predictions and Adaptation

At a recent conference on adaptation in London, I co-authored a presented paper (with Suraje Dessai, Mike Hulme, and Rob Lempert) on the the role of climate model forecasts in support of adaptation. Our argument is that climate models don't forecast very well on time and spatial scales of relevance to decision makers facing adaptation choices, and even if they did, given irreducible uncertainties robust decision making is a better approach than seeking to optimize.

For more evidence of why it is that climate models are of little predictive use in adaptation decision making, consider the recent discussion of cooling in Antarctica and the southern oceans from RealClimate:

The pioneer climate modelers Kirk Bryan and Syukuro Manabe took up the question with a more detailed model that revealed an additional effect. In the Southern Ocean around Antarctica the mixing of water went deeper than in Northern waters, so more volumes of water were brought into play earlier. In their model, around Antarctica "there is no warming at the sea surface, and even a slight cooling over the 50-year duration of the experiment." In the twenty years since, computer models have improved by orders of magnitude, but they continue to show that Antarctica cannot be expected to warm up very significantly until long after the rest of the world’s climate is radically changed.
Bottom line: A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming. For a long time the models have predicted just that.

Today CSIRO in Australia reports that southern oceans have in fact been warming:

The longest continuous record of temperature changes in the Southern Ocean has found that Antarctic waters are warming and sea levels are rising, an Australian scientist said Monday.

I have no doubt that these observations of warming will also be found, somehow, to be consistent with predictions of climate models. And that is the problem; climate scientists, especially those involved in political advocacy for action on climate change, steadfastly refuse to describe what observations over the short term (i.e., when most adaptation decisions are made) would be inconsistent with model predictions. So all observations are consistent with predictions of climate models.

The reason for this situation of total ambiguity is a perceived need to maintain the public credibility of climate model predictions over the very long term in support of political action on climate change in the face of relentless attacks for politically motivated skeptics. So what do we get? Nonsensical and useless pronouncements such as a cooling southern ocean and a warming southern ocean are both consistent with climate model predictions, thus we can trust the models.

The lesson for decision makers grappling with adaptation to future climate changes? Make sure that your decisions are robust to a wide range of future possibilities, and use caution in seeking to optimize based on this or that prediction of the near-term future.

Posted on February 18, 2008 09:01 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

February 15, 2008

Carbon Emissions Success Stories

Andy Revkin has an interesting post up about per capita emissions in various countries around the world. What countries have a per capita emissions level consistent with an 80 percent reduction from the world's current total emissions?

hypothetical emissions.png

The answer, as can be seen above in an image that I use in lectures (data from US EIA), is Haiti and Somalia. If everyone in the world lived as they do in these two countries, we'd have the emissions challenge licked.

What about the eco-sensitive UK? Sorry, if everyone lived as they do in the UK global carbon emissions would be more than twice the current world total. What about everyone lived as they do in eco-friendly Sweden? Sorry, emissions would be about one and a half times the current world total. United States? Don't even ask. China? just slightly below the current world total (and growing fast).

Bottom line? No country, save Haiti and Somalia, is currently producing emissions at a level even remotely consistent with levels consistent with an 80% reduction in the world's totals. Hence, all of the finger pointing and debates in political negotiations are based on relative hypocrisy ("We're doing relatively less bad that you are!") or faith-based assumptions in the efficacy of future policies ("Our targets are more aggressive than yours!").

There remains huge hurdles to achieving emissions reductions of the sort called for in current political debate. Until we see evidence of it actually occurring, somewhere, we should be very cautious about picking what policies will ultimately achieve results. Instead, we should try a diversity of approaches and see what works.

Posted on February 15, 2008 10:39 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

February 13, 2008

The Consistent-With Game: On Climate Models and the Scientific Method

I have been intrigued by the frequent postings over at Real Climate in defense of the predictive ability of climate models. The subtext of course is political – specifically that criticisms of climate models are an unwarranted basis for criticizing climate policies that are justified or defended in terms of the results of climate models. But this defensive stance risks turning climate modeling from a scientific endeavor to a pseudo-scientific exercise in the politics of climate change.

In a post now up, Real Climate explains that cooling of Antarctica is consistent with the predictions of climate models:

A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming.

And we have learned from Real Climate that all possible temperature trends of 8 years in length are consistent with climate models, so too are just about any possible observed temperature trends in the tropics, so too is a broad range of behavior of mid-latitude storms, as is the behavior of tropical sea surface temperatures, so too is a wide range of behaviors of the tropical climate, including ENSO events, and the list goes on.

In fact, there are an infinite number of things that are not inconsistent with the predictions of climate models (or if you prefer, conditional projections). This is one reason why a central element of the scientific method focuses on the falsifiability of hypotheses. According to Wikipedia (emphasis added):

Falsifiability (or refutability or testability) is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, it means that it is capable of being criticized by observational reports. Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science. Some philosophers and scientists, most notably Karl Popper, have asserted that a hypothesis, proposition or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable.

Are climate models falsifiable?

I am not sure. Over at Real Climate I asked the following question on its current thread:

There are a vast number of behaviors of the climate system that are consistent with climate model predictions, along the lines of your conclusion:
"A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming."

I have asked many times and never received an answer here: What behavior of the climate system would contradict models of global warming? Specifically what behavior of what variables over what time scales? This should be a simple question to answer.

Thanks!

As often is the case, Real Climate lets their commenters provide the easy answers to difficult questions. Here are a few choice responses that Real Climate viewed as contributing to the scientific discussion:

If Pielke wants to contribute constructively to this area of science, he should become a climate modeler himself and discuss such questions in the scientific literature. Otherwise, unless he can present some strong reason for doubting the competence or objectivity of people who do such work, he should listen to people who do work in the area.

. . .
Roger, your question is rather broad and vague. What aspect of the science are you seeking to falsify? See, that is precisely the problem when you have a theory that draws support from such a broad range of phenomena and studies as does the current theory of climate. It is rather like saying, "How would we falsify the theory of evolution?" When a theory has made many predictions and explained many diverse phenomena, it is quite difficult to falsify as a whole. You may be able to look at pieces of it and add to the understanding. Climate science is quite a mature field; future revolutions are quite unlikely. Changes will come but will likely be incremental. It is very hard to envision a development that would significantly alter our understanding of greenhouse forcing unless our whole understanding of climate is radically wrong, and that seems unlikely.

The good news is that there are a range of serious scholars working on the predictive skill of climate models. And there are some folks, myself included, who think that climate models are largely of exploratory or heuristic value, rather than predictive (or consolidative). (And perhaps a post on why this distinction is of crucial importantce may be a good idea here.) But you won’t hear about them at Real Climate.

Once you start playing the "consistent with" or "not inconsistent with" game, you have firmly placed yourself into a Popperian view of models as hypotheses to be falsified. And out of fear that legitimate efforts at falsifiability will be used as ammunition by skeptics (and make no mistake, they will) in the politics of climate change, issues of falsification are simply ignored or avoided. A defensive posture is adopted instead. And as Naomi Oreskes and colleagues have observed, this is a good way to mislead with models.

One of the risks of playing the politics game through science is that you risk turning your science – or at least impressions of it – into pseudo-science. If policy makers and the public begin to believe that climate models are truth machines -- i.e., nothing that has been, will be, or could be observed could possibly contradict what they say -- then a loss of credibility is sure to follow at some point when experience shows them not to be (and they are not). This doesn’t mean that humans don’t affect the climate or that we shouldn’t be taking aggressive action, only that accurate prediction of the future is really difficult. (For the new reader I am an advocate for strong action on both adaptation and mitigation, despite what you might read in the comments at RC.)

So beware the "consistent with" game being played with climate models by activist scientists, it is every bit as misleading as the worst arguments offered by climate skeptics and a distraction from the challenge of effective policy making on climate change.

For Further Reading:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2003: The role of models in prediction for decision, Chapter 7, pp. 113-137 in C. Canham and W. Lauenroth (eds.), Understanding Ecosystems: The Role of Quantitative Models in Observations, Synthesis, and Prediction, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. (PDF)

Sarewitz, D., R.A. Pielke, Jr., and R. Byerly, Jr., (eds.) 2000: Prediction: Science, decision making and the future of nature, Island Press, Washington, DC.

Posted on February 13, 2008 03:01 PM View this article | Comments (58)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Science + Politics

February 01, 2008

Guest Comment: Sharon Friedman, USDA Forest Service - Change Changes Everything

It is true that the calculus of environmental tradeoffs will be inevitably and irretrievably changed due to consideration of climate change. Ideas that were convenient (convenient untruths) like “the world worked fine without humans, if we remove their influence it will go back to what it should be” have continued to provide the implicit underpinning for much scientific effort. In short, people gravitated to the concept that "if we studied how things used to be" (pre- European settlement) we would know how they "should" be, with no need for discussions of values or involving non-scientists. This despite excellent work such as the book Discordant Harmonies by Dan Botkin, that displayed the scientific flaws in this reasoning (in 1992).

What's interesting to me in the recent article, "The Preservation Predicament", by Cornelia Dean in The New York Times
is the implicit assumption that conservationists and biologists will be the ones who determine whether investing in conservation in the Everglades compared to somewhere else, given climate change, is a good idea - perhaps implying that sciences like decision science or economics have little to contribute to the dialog. Not to speak of communities and their elected officials.

I like to quote the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) governance principles:

Indigenous and local communities are rightful primary partners in the development and implementation of conservation strategies that affect their lands, waters, and other resources, and in particular in the establishment and management of protected areas.

Is it more important for scientists to "devise theoretical frameworks for deciding when, how or whether to act" (sounds like decision science) or for folks in a given community, or interested in a given species, to talk about what they think needs to be done and why? There are implicit assumptions about what sciences are the relevant ones and the relationship between science and democracy, which in my opinion need to be debated in the light of day rather than assumed.

Sharon Friedman
Director, Strategic Planning
Rocky Mountain Region
USDA Forest Service

January 30, 2008

Witanagemot Justice And Senator Inhofe’s Fancy List

Anyone interested in the intersection of science and politics has to be watching with some amusement and more than a little dismay at the spectacle of professional immolation that the climate science community has engaged in following the release of Senator James Inhofe’s list of 400+ climate skeptics.

The amusement comes from the fact that everyone involved in this tempest in a teapot seems to be working as hard as possible in ways contrary to their political interests.

From the perspective of Senator Inhofe, by producing such a list he has raised the stakes associated with any scientist going public with any concerns about the scientific consensus on climate change. Not only would announcement of such concerns lead one to risk being associated with one of the most despised politicians in the climate science community, but several climate scientists have taken on as their personal responsibility the chore of personally attacking people who happen to find themselves on the Senator’s list. What young scholar would want to face the climate science attack dogs? Of course, those sharing the Senator’s political views may not mind being on such a list, but this does nothing more than further politicize climate science.

And this leads to the repugnant behavior of the attack dog climate scientists who otherwise would like to be taken seriously. By engaging in the character assassination of people who happen to find themselves on Senator Inhofe’s list they reinforce the absurd notion that scientific claims can be adjudicated solely by head counts and a narrow view of professional qualifications. They can’t. (See this enlightening and amusing discussion by Dan Sarewitz of leading experts arguing over who is qualified to comment on climate issues.) But by suggesting that knowledge claims can be judged by credentials the attack dog scientists reinforce an anti-democratic authoritarian streak found in the activist wing of the climate science community. Of course, from the perspective of the activist scientists such attacks may be effective if they dissuade other challenges to orthodoxy, but surely climate scientists deserving of the designation should be encouraging challenges to knowledge claims, rather than excoriating anyone who dares to challenge their beliefs.

I recently chatted with Steve Rayner and Gwyn Prins, authors of the brilliant and provocative essay The Wrong Trousers (PDF), who found themselves , somewhat bizarrely, on Senator Inhofe’s list. Neither has expressed anything resembling views challenging claims of human-caused climate change, however they are (rightly) critical of the political approach to climate change embodied by Kyoto. I asked them what they thought about being on the Senator’s list. Steve Rayner asked if there was some way to sue the Senator for defamation, tongue only partly in cheek. Gwyn Prins offered the following gem:

I think that pointing out that the mere fact of this funny headcounting is worthy of note: In the Anglo-Saxon witanagemot justice was achieved by oath-swearing so the number and the status of your oath-swearers mattered more than the facts of the matter; and this issue is being adjudicated on both sides – denialists and climate puritans – in just such a manner.

He is right of course, and this brings us to the dismay. The climate science community – or at least its most publicly visible activist wing – seems to be working as hard as possible to undercut the legitimacy and the precarious trust than society provides in support of activities of the broader scientific community. Senator Inhofe is a politician, and plays politics. If activist climate scientists wish to play the Senator’s game, then don’t be surprised to see common wisdom viewing these activists more as political players than trustworthy experts. If this is correct then maybe the Senator is a bit more astute than given credit for.

Ultimately, the mainstream climate science community might share with their activist colleagues the same sort of advice Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC) offered to former President Bill Clinton – "chill."

Posted on January 30, 2008 01:15 AM View this article | Comments (21)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

January 26, 2008

Updated IPCC Forecasts vs. Observations

Carl Mears from Remote Sensing Systems, Inc. was kind enough to email me to point out that the RSS data that I had shared with our readers a few weeks ago contained an error that RSS has since corrected. The summary figure above is re-plotted with the corrected data (RSS is the red curve). At the time I wrote:

Something fishy is going on. The IPCC and CCSP recently argued that the surface and satellite records are reconciled. This might be the case from the standpoint of long-term linear trends. But the data here suggest that there is some work left to do. The UAH and NASA curves are remarkably consistent. But RSS dramatically contradicts both. UKMET shows 2007 as the coolest year since 2001, whereas NASA has 2007 as the second warmest. In particular estimates for 2007 seem to diverge in unique ways. It'd be nice to see the scientific community explain all of this.

For those interested in the specifics, Carl explained in his email:

The error was simple -- I made a small change in the code ~ 1 year ago that resulted in a ~0.1K decrease in the absolute value of AMSU TLTs, but neglected to reprocess data from 1998-2006, instead only using it for the new (Jan 2007 onward) data. Since the AMSU TLTs are forced to match the MSU TLTs (on average) during the overlap period, this resulted in an apparent drop in TLT for 2007. Reprocessing the earlier AMSU data, thus lowering AMSU TLT by 0.1 from 1998-2006, resulted in small changes in the parameters that are added to the AMSU temperatures to make them match MSU temperatures, and thus the 2007 data is increased by ~0.1K. My colleagues at UAH (Christy and Spencer) were both very helpful in diagnosing the problem.

It is important to note that the RSS correction does not alter my earlier analysis of the IPCC predictions (made in 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007) and various observations. Thanks again to Carl for alerting me to the error and giving me a chance to update the figures with the new information!

Posted on January 26, 2008 01:10 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 20, 2008

I'm So Confused

Last week I received an email from our Chancellor, Bud Peterson, warning me and my CU colleagues of the perils of engaging in political advocacy activities as a university employee. Here is an excerpt:

TO: Boulder Campus Teaching & Research Faculty, Staff, Deans, Directors, Dept Chairs
FROM: Office of the Chancellor

SENDER: Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson

DATE: January 18, 2008

SUBJECT: Guidelines on Campaign-Related Activities by Members of the University Community

Dear Colleagues:

In light of the many political campaigns currently, or soon to be, underway at the national, state and local levels, I would like to provide you with a set of guidelines we, as members of the University community, should keep in mind as we consider our own activities and level of involvement. The guidelines were developed by the Office of the University Counsel, and if you have questions, I urge you to contact Counsel's office at 303-492-7481.

GUIDELINES ON CAMPAIGN-RELATED ACTIVITIES BY MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY
COMMUNITY

IN GENERAL, UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEES MAY NOT:

* Engage in any activity during working hours designed to urge electors to vote for or against any campaign issues, which include campaigns for public office, state-wide campaign issues or referred measures, and local campaign issues or levies.

* Employees wishing to participate in a campaign activity should take personal leave.

* Use office supplies or equipment, including computers, telephones, printers or facsimile machines to create materials urging electors to vote for or against a campaign issue.

* Use their University email accounts to urge electors to vote for or against a campaign issue, or to forward materials that urge electors to vote for or against a campaign issue.

* Use University-hosted websites to urge electors to vote for or against a campaign issue.

At the same time Chancellor Peterson has endorsed faculty participation in a January 31 political advocacy effort called "Focus the Nation," which seeks to motivate action on climate change.

Here is how The Colorado Daily describes the activity:

There's also a hint of politics involved: the teach-in is scheduled for Jan. 31, shortly before statewide primaries and caucuses, and is timed to place pressure on political candidates. [Colorado's caucus is Feb. 5].
"We wanted to do it right in the height of the early primaries to ensure that climate change is at the forefront of the issues," [Garrett] Brennan [media director for Focus the Nation] said.

After all, raising awareness about climate change is one thing, he said. Actually solving it is another.

"The solutions are pretty cut and dry," Brennan said. "You're not going to create an art installation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Raising awareness - making it personal to people - is multidisciplinary. The solutions are policies that are going to get passed."

That could be one reason that voter-registration group New Era Colorado will be on campus that day, displaying poster-board profiles that detail each candidate's stance on environmental issues.

The website for Focus the Nation lists the policy actions that it wishes to focus our nation's attention on and for me to discuss in the classroom, and here are a few of the options that I am supposed to provide to my students:

To stabilize global warming at the low end of the possible range (3-4 degrees F) will require deep cuts in global warming pollution beginning in about 2020. In the US, reductions in emissions of roughly 15%-20% per decade will be needed.
Place a tax on each ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) embodied in fossil fuels. Set the tax high enough to initially stabilize nationwide emissions, and then have the tax rise over time, generating steady cuts in pollution. Use tax revenue to (1) compensate lower income Americans for higher energy prices, and (2) to assist impacted workers, especially in coal mining.

To the extent that coal use is unavoidable, only allow coal plants that capture and permanently sequester their emissions in geologic formations.

Cap total carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution emitted in the US through a system of a fixed number of permits; auction the permits to emitters; use auction revenue to (1) compensate lower income Americans for higher energy prices, and (2) to assist impacted workers, especially in coal mining.

By 2030, require by law that all new buildings in the US be "carbon neutral" (no net emissions of global warming pollution from fossil fuel combustion).

Set the emerging biofuels sector on a sustainable basis through: (1) A Low Carbon Fuel Standard that sets a goal for reducing carbon intensity in the total light and heavy duty vehicles fuels mix by10 percent by 2020, and (2) Mount a major effort to research, develop, demonstrate and deploy sustainable biofuels feedstocks and technologies.

Prevent CO2 emissions and remove atmospheric CO2 through forest conservation, management and restoration. Include forests in cap & auction system, allowing the trade of forest emissions reductions that are real, additional, verifiable, and permanent.

For the United States as a whole, adopt California’s standards requiring a 23% reduction in global warming pollution from new vehicles sold by 2012, and a 30% reduction in global warming pollution from new vehicles sold by 2016.

I am so confused.

Focus the Nation is unadulterated political advocacy. But my campus forbids me to use my official time, paid for by taxpayers, to advocate for particular campaign issues. But global warming is so important. But my Chancellor forbids me to engage in political advocacy as part of my job. But my Chancellor is the keynote speaker for our Focus the Nation activities. But my job is to teach not indoctrinate. But I actually agree with many of the proposed policies. But it is not my job to use my platform as a professor to tell students what to think; I am supposed to teach them how to think and come to their own conclusions. But if I don't go along I'll be castigated as one of those bad guys, like a Holocaust denier or slave owner. But doing the right thing is so obvious.

Thank goodness I am on sabbatical.

Posted on January 20, 2008 03:10 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Education | Science + Politics

January 18, 2008

Temperature Trends 1990-2007: Hansen, IPCC, Obs

The figure below shows linear trends in temperature for Jim Hansen's three 1988 scenarios (in shades of blue), for the IPCC predictions issued in 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007 (in shades of green), and for four sets of observations (in shades of brown). I choose the period 1990-2007 because this is the period of overlap for all of the predictions (except IPCC 2007, which starts in 2000).

temp trends.png

Looking just at these measures of central tendency (i.e., no formal consideration of uncertainties) it seems clear that:

1. Trends in all of Hansen's scenarios are above IPCC 1995, 2001, and 2007, as well as three of the four surface observations.

2. The outlier on surface observations, and the one consistent with Hansen's Scenarios A and B is the NASA dataset overseen by Jim Hansen. Whatever the explanation for this, good scientific practice would have forecasting and data collection used to verify those forecasts conducted by completely separate groups.

3. Hansen's Scenario A is very similar to IPCC 1990, which makes sense given their closeness in time, and assumptions of forcings at the time (i.e., thoughts on business-as-usual did not change much over that time).

The data for the Hansen scenarios was obtained at Climate Audit from the ongoing discussion there, and the IPCC and observational data is as described on this site over the past week or so in the forecast verification exercise that I have conducted. This is an ongoing exercise, as part of a conversation across the web, so if you have questions or comments, please share them, either here, or if our comment interface is driving you nuts (as it is with me), then comment over at Climate Audit where I'll participate in the discussions.

Posted on January 18, 2008 11:54 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 16, 2008

UKMET Short Term Global Temperature Forecast

UKMET Short Term Forecast.png

This figure shows a short-term forecast of global average temperature issued by the UK Meteorological Service, with some annotations that I've added and described below. The forecast is discussed in this PDF where you can find the original figure. This sort of forecast should be applauded, because it allows for learning based on experience. Such forecasts, whether eventually shown to be wrong or right, can serve as powerful tests of knowledge and predictive skill. The UK Met Service is to be applauded. Now on to the figure itself.

The figure is accompanied by this caption:

Observations of global average temperature (black line) compared with decadal ‘hindcasts’ (10-year model simulations of the past, white lines and red shading), plus the first decadal prediction for the 10 years from 2005. Temperatures are plotted as anomalies (relative to 1979–2001). As with short-term weather forecasts there remains some uncertainty in our predictions of temperature over a decade. The red shading shows our confidence in predictions of temperature in any given year. If there are no volcanic eruptions during the forecast period, there is a 90% likelihood of the temperature being within the shaded area.

The figure shows both hindcasts and a forecast. I've shaded the hindcasts in grey. I've added the green curve which is my replication of the global temperature anomalies from the UKMET HADCRUT3 dataset extended to 2007. I've also plotted as a blue dot the prediction issued by UKMET for 2008, which is expected to be indistinguishable from the temperature of years 2001 to 2007 (which were indistinguishable from each other). The magnitude of the UKMET forecast over the next decade is almost exactly identical to the IPCC AR4 prediction over the same time period, which I discussed last week.

I have added the pink star at 1995 to highlight the advantages offered by hindcasting. Imagine if the model realization begun in 1985 had been continued beyond 1995, rather than being re-run after 1995. Clearly, all subsequent observed temperatures would have been well below that 1985 curve. One important reason for this is of course the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which was not predicted. And that is precisely the point -- prediction is really hard, especially when conducted in the context of open systems, and as is often said, especially about the the future. Our ability to explain why a prediction was wrong does not make that prediction right, and this is a point often lost in debate about climate change.

Again, kudos to the UK Met Service. They've had the fortitude to issue a short term prediction related to climate change. Other scientific bodies should follow this lead. It is good for science, and good for the use of science in decision making.

Posted on January 16, 2008 02:15 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 15, 2008

Verification of IPCC Sea Level Rise Forecasts 1990, 1995, 2001

Here is a graph showing IPCC sea level rise forecasts from the FAR (1990), SAR (1995), and TAR (2001).

IPCC Sea Level.png

And here are the sources:

IPCC Sea Level Sources.png

Observational data can be found here. Thanks to my colleague Steve Nerem.

Unlike temperature forecasts by the IPCC, sea level rise shows no indication that scientists have a handle on the issue. As with temperature the IPCC dramatically decreased its predictions of sea level rise in between its first (1990) and second (1995) assessment reports. It then nudged down its prediction a very small amount in its 2001 report. The observational data falls in the middle of the 1990 and 1995/2001 assessments.

Last year Rahmstorf et al. published a short paper in Science comparing observations of temperature with IPCC 2001 predictions (Aside: it is remarkable that Science allowed them to ignore IPCC 1990 and 1995). Their analysis is completely consistent with the temperature and sea level rise verifications that I have shown. On sea level rise they concluded:

Previous projections, as summarized by IPCC, have not exaggerated but may in some respects even have underestimated the change, in particular for sea level.

This statement is only true if one ignores the 1990 IPCC report which overestimated both sea level rise and temperature. Rahmstorf et al. interpretation of the results is little more than spin, as it would have been equally valid to conclude based on the 1990 report:

Previous projections, as summarized by IPCC, have not underestimated but may in some respects even have exaggerated the change, both for sea level and temperature.

Rather than spin the results, I conclude that the ongoing debate about future sea level rise is entirely appropriate. The fact that the IPCC has been unsuccessful in predicting sea level rise, does not mean that things are worse or better, but simply that scientists clearly do not have a handle on this issue and are unable to predict sea level changes on a decadal scale. The lack of predictive accuracy does not lend optimism about the prospects for accuracy on the multi-decadal scale. Consider that the 2007 IPCC took a pass on predicting near term sea level rise, choosing instead to focus 90 years out (as far as I am aware, anyone who knows differently, please let me know).

This state of affairs should give no comfort to anyone: over the 21st century sea level is expected to rise, anywhere from an unnoticeable amount to the catastrophic, and scientists have essentially no ability to predict this rise, much less the effects of various climate policies on that rise. As we've said here before, this is a cherrypickers delight, and a policy makers nightmare. It'd be nice to see the scientific community engaged in a bit less spin, and a bit more comprehensive analysis.

Posted on January 15, 2008 12:59 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 14, 2008

James Hansen on One Year's Temperature

NASA's James Hansen just sent around a commentary (in PDF here) on the significance of the 2007 global temperature in the context of the long-term temperature record that he compiles for NASA. After Real Climate went nuts over how misguided it is to engage in a discussion of eight years worth of temperature records, I can''t wait to see them lay into Jim Hansen for asserting that one year's data is of particular significance (and also for not graphing uncertainty ranges):

The Southern Oscillation and the solar cycle have significant effects on year-to-year global temperature change. Because both of these natural effects were in their cool phases in 2007, the unusual warmth of 2007 is all the more notable.

But maybe it is that data that confirms previously held beliefs is acceptable no matter how short the record, and data that does not is not acceptable, no matter how long the record. But that would be confirmation bias, wouldn't it?

Anyway, Dr. Hansen does not explain why the 2007 NASA data runs counter to that of UKMET, UAH or RSS, but does manage to note the "incorrect" 2007 UKMET prediction of a record warm year. Dr. Hansen issues his own prediction:

. . . it is unlikely that 2008 will be a year with an unusual global temperature change, i.e., it is likely to remain close to the range of (high) values exhibited in 2002-2007. On the other hand, when the next El Nino occurs it is likely to carry global temperature to a significantly higher level than has occurred in recent centuries, probably higher than any year in recent millennia. Thus we suggest that, barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years.

I wonder if this holds just for the NASA dataset put together by Dr. Hansen or for all of the temperature datasets.

Posted on January 14, 2008 04:27 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Updated Chart: IPCC Temperature Verification

I've received some email comments suggesting that my use of the 1992 IPCC Supplement as the basis for IPCC 1990 temperature predictions was "too fair" to the IPCC because the IPCC actually reduced its temperature projections from 1990 to 1992. In addition, Gavin Schmidt and a commenter over at Climate Audit also did not like my use of the 1992 report. So I am going to take full advantage of the rapid feedback of the web to provide an updated figure, based on IPCC 1990, specifically, Figure A.9, p. 336. In other words, I no longer rely on the 1992 supplement, and have simply gone back to the original IPCC 1990 FAR. Here then is that updated Figure:

IPCC Verification 90-95-01-07 vs Obs.png

Thanks all for the feedback!

Posted on January 14, 2008 02:46 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Pachauri on Recent Climate Trends

Last week scientists at the Real Climate blog gave their confirmation bias synapses a workout by explaining that eight years of climate data is meaningless, and people who pay any attention to recent climate trends are "misguided." I certainly agree that we should exhibit cautiousness in interpreting short-duration observations, nonetheless we should always be trying to explain (rather than simply discount) observational evidence to avoid the trap of confirmation bias.

So it was interesting to see IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri exhibit "misguided" behavior when he expressed some surprise about recent climate trends in The Guardian:

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.
"One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.

He added that sceptics about a human role in climate change delighted in hints that temperatures might not be rising. "There are some people who would want to find every single excuse to say that this is all hogwash," he said.

Ironically, by suggesting that their might be some significance to recent climate trends, Dr. Pachauri has provided ammunition to those very same skeptics that he disparages. Perhaps Real Climate will explain how misguided he is, but somehow I doubt it.

For the record, I accept the conclusions of IPCC Working Group I. I don't know how to interpret climate observations of the early 21st century, but believe that there are currently multiple valid hypotheses. I also think that we can best avoid confirmation bias, and other cognitive traps, by making explicit predictions of the future and testing them against experience. The climate community, or at least its activist wing, studiously avoids forecast verification. It just goes to show, confirmation bias is more a more comfortable state than dissonance -- and that goes for people on all sides of the climate debate.

Posted on January 14, 2008 08:02 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Verification of IPCC Temperature Forecasts 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2007

Last week I began an exercise in which I sought to compare global average temperature predictions with the actual observed temperature record. With this post I'll share my complete results.

Last week I showed a comparison of the 2007 IPCC temperature forecasts (which actually began in 2000, so they were really forecasts of data that had already been observed). Here is that figure.

surf-sat vs. IPCC.png

Then I showed a figure with a comparison of the 1990 predictions made by the IPCC in 1992 with actual temperature data. Some folks misinterpreted the three curves that I showed from the IPCC to be an uncertainty bound. They were not. Instead, they were forecasts conditional on different assumptions about climate sensitivity, with the middle curve showing the prediction for a 2.5 degree climate sensitivity, which is lower than scientists currently believe to the most likely value. So I have reproduced that graph below without the 1.5 and 4.5 degree climate sensitivity curves.

IPCC 1990 verification.png

Now here is a similar figure for the 1995 forecast. The IPCC in 1995 dramatically lowered its global temperature predictions, primarily due to the inclusion of consideration of atmospheric aerosols, which have a cooling effect. You can see the 1995 IPCC predictions on pp. 322-323 of its Second Assessment Report. Figure 6.20 shows the dramatic reduction of temperature predictions through the inclusion of aerosols. The predictions themselves can be found in Figure 6.22, and are the values that I use in the figure below, which also use a 2.5 degree climate sensitivity, and are also based on the IS92e or IS92f scenarios.

IPCC 1995 Verification.png

In contrast to the 1990 prediction, the 1995 prediction looks spot on. It is worth noting that the 1995 prediction began in 1990, and so includes observations that were known at the time of the prediction.

In 2001, the IPCC nudged its predictions up a small amount. The prediction is also based on a 1990 start, and can be found in the Third Assessment Report here. The most relevant scenario is A1FI, and the average climate sensitivity of the models used to generate these predictions is 2.8 degrees, which may be large enough to account for the difference between the 1995 and 2001 predictions. Here is a figure showing the 2001 forecast verification.

IPCC 2001 Verification.png

Like 1995, the 2001 figure looks quite good in comparison to the actual data.

Now we can compare all four predictions with the data, but first here are all four IPCC temperature predictions (1990, 1995, 2001, 2007) on one graph.

IPCC Predictions 90-95-01-07.png

IPCC issued its first temperature prediction in 1990 (I actually use the prediction from the supplement to the 1990 report issued in 1992). Its 1995 report dramatically lowered this prediction. 2001 nudged this up a bit, and 2001 elevated the entire curve another small increment, keeping the slope the same. My hypothesis for what is going on here is that the various changes over time to the IPCC predictions reflect incrementally improved fits to observed temperature data, as more observations have come in since 1990.

In other words, the early 1990s showed how important aerosols were in the form of dramatically lowered temperatures (after Mt. Pinatubo), and immediately put the 1990 predictions well off track. So the IPCC recognized the importance of aerosols and lowered its predictions, putting the 1995 IPCC back on track with what had happened with the real climate since its earlier report. With the higher observed temperatures in the late 1990s and early 2000s the slightly increased predictions of temperature in 2001 and 2007 represented better fits with observations since 1995 (for the 2001 report) and 2001 (for the 2007 report).

Imagine if your were asked to issue a prediction for the temperature trend over next week, and you are allowed to update that prediction every 2nd day. Regardless of where you think things will eventually end up, you'd be foolish not to include what you've observed in producing your mid-week updates. Was this behavior by the IPCC intentional or simply the inevitable result of using a prediction start-date years before the forecast was being issued? I have no idea. But the lesson for the IPCC should be quite clear: All predictions (and projections) that it issues should begin no earlier than the year that the prediction is being made.

And now the graph that you have all been waiting for. Here is a figure showing all four IPCC predictions with the surface (NASA, UKMET) and satellite (UAH, RSS) temperature record.

IPCC Verification 90-95-01-07 vs Obs.png

You can see on this graph that the 1990 prediction was obviously much higher than the other three, and you can also clearly see how the IPCC temperature predictions have creeped up as observations showed increasing temperatures from 1995-2005. A simple test of my hypothesis is as follows: In the next IPCC, if temperatures from 2005 to the next report fall below the 2007 IPCC prediction, then the next IPCC will lower its predictions. Similarly, if values fall above that level, then the IPCC will increase its predictions.

What to take from this exercise?

1. The IPCC does not make forecast verification an easy task. The IPCC does not clearly identify what exactly it is predicting nor the variables that can be used to verify those predictions. Like so much else in climate science this leaves evaluations of predictions subject to much ambiguity, cherrypicking, and seeing what one wants to see.

2. The IPCC actually has a pretty good track record in its predictions, especially after it dramatically reduced its 1990 prediction. This record is clouded by an appearance of post-hoc curve fitting. In each of 1995, 2001, and 2007 the changes to the IPCC predictions had the net result of improving predictive performance with observations that had already been made. This is a bit like predicting today's weather at 6PM.

3. Because the IPCC clears the slate every 5-7 years with a new assessment report, it is guarantees that its most recent predictions can never be rigorously verified, because, as climate scientists will tell you, 5-7 years is far too short to say anything about climate predictions. Consequently, the IPCC should not predict and then move on, but pay close attention to its past predictions and examine why the succeed or fail. As new reports are issued the IPCC should go to great lengths to place its new predictions on an apples-to-apples basis with earlier predictions. The SAR did a nice job of this, more recent reports have not. A good example of how not to update predictions is the predictions of sea level rise between the TAR and AR4 which are not at all apples-to-apples.

4. Finally, and I repeat myself, the IPCC should issue predictions for the future, not the recent past.

Appendix: Checking My Work

The IPCC AR4 Technical Summary includes a figure (Figure TS.26) that shows a verification of sorts. I use that figure as a comparison to what I've done. Here is that figure, with a number of my annotations superimposed, and explained below.

IPCC Check.png

Let me first say that the IPCC probably could not have produced a more difficult-to-interpret figure (I see Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate has put out a call for help in understanding it). I have annotated it with letters and some lines and I explain them below.

A. I added this thick horizontal blue line to indicate the 1990 baseline. This line crosses a thin blue line that I placed to represent 2007.

B. This thin blue line crosses the vertical axis where my 1995 verification value lies, represented by the large purple dot.

C. This thin blue line crosses the vertical axis where my 1990 verification value lies, represented by the large green dot. (My 2001 verification is represented by the large light blue dot.)

D. You can see that my 1990 verification value falls exactly on a line extended from the upper bound of the IPCC curve. I have also extended the IPCC mid-range curve as well (note that my extension superimposed falls a tiny bit higher than it should). Why is this? I'm not sure, but one answer is that the uncertainty range presented by the IPCC represents the scenario range, but of course in the past there is no scenario uncertainty. Since emissions have fallen at the high end of the scenario space, if my interpretation is correct, then my verification is consistent with that of the IPCC.

E. For the 1995 verification, you can see that similarly my value falls exactly on a line extended from the upper end of the IPCC range. This would also be consistent with the IPCC presenting the uncertainty range as representing alternative scenarios. The light blue dot is similarly at the upper end of the blue range. What should not be missed is that the relative difference between my verifications and those of the IPCCs are just about identical.

A few commenters over at Real Climate, including Gavin Schmidt, have suggested that such figures need uncertainty bounds on them. In general, I agree, but I'd note that none of the model predictions presented by the IPCC (B1, A1B, A2, Commitment -- note that all of these understate reality since emissions are following A1FI, the highest, most closely) show any model uncertainty whatsoever (nor any observational uncertainty, nor multiple measures of temperature). Surely with the vast resources available to the IPCC, they could have done a much more rigorous job of verification.

In closing, I guess I'd suggest to the IPCC that this sort of exercise should be taken up as a formal part of its work. There are many, many other variables (and relationships between variables) that might be examined in this way. And they should be.

Posted on January 14, 2008 01:57 AM View this article | Comments (19)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 11, 2008

Real Climate's Two Voices on Short-Term Climate Fluctuations

Real Climate has been speaking with two voices on how to compare observations of climate with models. Last August they asserted that one-year's sea ice extent could be compared with models:

A few people have already remarked on some pretty surprising numbers in Arctic sea ice extent this year (the New York Times has also noticed). The minimum extent is usually in early to mid September, but this year, conditions by Aug 9 had already beaten all previous record minima. Given that there is at least a few more weeks of melting to go, it looks like the record set in 2005 will be unequivocally surpassed. It could be interesting to follow especially in light of model predictions discussed previously.

Today, they say that looking at 8 years of temperature records is misguided:

John Tierney and Roger Pielke Jr. have recently discussed attempts to validate (or falsify) IPCC projections of global temperature change over the period 2000-2007. Others have attempted to show that last year's numbers imply that 'Global Warming has stopped' or that it is 'taking a break' (Uli Kulke, Die Welt)). However, as most of our readers will realise, these comparisons are flawed since they basically compare long term climate change to short term weather variability.

So according to Real Climate one-year's ice extent data can be compared to climate models, but 8 years of temperature data cannot.

Right. This is why I believe that whatever one's position of climate change is, everyone should agree that rigorous forecast verification is needed.

Post Script. I see at Real Climate commenters are already calling me a "skeptic" for even discussing forecast verification. For the record I accept the consensus of the IPCC WGI. If asking questions about forecast verification is to be tabooo, then climate science is in worse shape than I thought.

Posted on January 11, 2008 09:25 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 10, 2008

Verification of 1990 IPCC Temperature Predictions

1990 IPCC verification.png

I continue to receive good suggestions and positive feedback on the verification exercise that I have been playing around with this week. Several readers have suggested that a longer view might be more appropriate. So I took a look at the IPCC's First Assessment Report that had been sitting on my shelf, and tried to find its temperature prediction starting in 1990. I actually found what I was looking for in a follow up document: Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment (not online that I am aware of).

In conducting this type of forecast verification, one of the first things to do is to specify which emissions scenario most closely approximated what has actually happened since 1990. As we have discussed here before, emissions have been occurring at the high end of the various scenarios used by the IPCC. So in this case I have used IS92e or IS92f (the differences are too small to be relevant to this analysis), which are discussed beginning on p. 69.

With the relevant emissions scenario, I then went to the section that projected future temperatures, and found this in Figure Ax.3 on p. 174. From that I took from the graph the 100-year temperature change and converted it into an annual rate. At the time the IPCC presented estimates for climate sensitivities of 1.5 degree, 2.5 degrees, and 4.5 degrees, with 2.5 degrees identified as a "best estimate." In the figure above I have estimated the 1.5 and 4.5 degree values based on the ratios taken from graph Ax.2, but I make no claim that they are precise. My understanding is that climate scientists today think that climate sensitivity is around 3.0 degrees, so if one were to re-do the 1990 prediction with a climate sensitivity of 3.0 the resulting curve would be a bit above the 2.5 degree curve shown above.

On the graph you will also see the now familiar temperature records from two satellite and two surface analyses. It seems pretty clear that the IPCC in 1990 over-forecast temperature increases, and this is confirmed by the most recent IPCC report (Figure TS.26), so it is not surprising.

I'll move on to the predictions of the Second Assessment Report in a follow up.

Posted on January 10, 2008 07:03 PM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 09, 2008

Forecast Verification for Climate Science, Part 3

By popular demand, here is a graph showing the two main analyses of global temperatures from satellite, from RSS and UAH, as well as the two main analyses of global temperatures from the surface record, UKMET and NASA, plotted with the temperature predictions reported in IPCC AR4, as described in Part 1 of this series.

surf-sat vs. IPCC.png

Some things to note:

1) I have not graphed observational uncertainties, but I'd guess that they are about +/-0.05 (and someone please correct me if this is wildly off), and their inclusion would not alter the discussion here.

2) A feast for cherrypickers. One can arrive at whatever conclusion one wants with respect to the IPCC predictions. Want the temperature record to be consistent with IPCC? OK, then you like NASA. How about inconsistent? Well, then you are a fan of RSS. On the fence? Well, UAH and UKMET serve that purpose pretty well.

3) Something fishy is going on. The IPCC and CCSP recently argued that the surface and satellite records are reconciled. This might be the case from the standpoint of long-term liner trends. But the data here suggest that there is some work left to do. The UAH and NASA curves are remarkably consistent. But RSS dramatically contradicts both. UKMET shows 2007 as the coolest year since 2001, whereas NASA has 2007 as the second warmest. In particular estimates for 2007 seem to diverge in unique ways. It'd be nice to see the scientific community explain all of this.

4) All show continued warming since 2000!

5) From the standpoint of forecast verification, which is where all of this began, the climate community really needs to construct a verification dataset for global temperature and other variables that will be (a) the focus of predictions, and (b) the ground truth against which those predictions will be verified.

Absent an ability to rigorously evaluate forecasts, in the presence of multiple valid approaches to observational data we run the risk of engaging in all sorts of cognitive traps -- such as availability bias and confirmation bias. So here is a plea to the climate community: when you say that you are predicting something like global temperature or sea ice extent or hurricanes -- tell us is specific detail what those variables are, who is measuring them, and where to look in the future to verify the predictions. If weather forecasters, stock brokers, and gamblers can do it, then you can too.

Posted on January 9, 2008 08:12 AM View this article | Comments (9)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 08, 2008

Forecast Verification for Climate Science, Part 2

Yesterday I posted a figure showing how surface temperatures compare with IPCC model predictions. I chose to use the RSS satellite record under the assumption that the recent IPCC and CCSP reports were both correct in their conclusions that the surface and satellite records have been reconciled. It turns out that my reliance of the IPCC and CCSP may have been mistaken.

I received a few comments from people suggesting that I had selectively used the RSS data because it showed different results than other global temperature datasets. My first reaction to this was to wonder how the different datasets could show different results if the IPCC was correct when it stated (PDF):

New analyses of balloon-borne and satellite measurements of lower- and mid-tropospheric temperature show warming rates that are similar to those of the surface temperature record and are consistent within their respective uncertainties, largely reconciling a discrepancy noted in the TAR.

But I decided to check for myself. I went to the NASA GISS and downloaded its temperature data and scaled to a 1980-1999 mean. I then plotted it on the same scale as the RSS data that I shared yesterday. Here is what the curves look like on the same scale.

Well, I'm no climate scientist, but they sure don't look reconciled to me, especially 2007. (Any suggestions on the marked divergence in 2007?)

What does this mean for the comparison with IPCC predictions? I have overlaid the GISS data on the graph I prepared yesterday.

AR4 Verificantion Surf Sat.png

So using the NASA GISS global temperature data for 2000-2007 results in observations that are consistent with the IPCC predictions, but contradict the IPCC's conclusion that the surface and satellite temperature records are reconciled. Using the RSS data results in observations that are (apparently) inconsistent with the IPCC predictions.

I am sure that in conducting such a verification some will indeed favor the dataset that best confirms their desired conclusions. But, it would be ironic indeed to see scientists now abandon RSS after championing it in the CCSP and IPCC reports. So, I'm not sure what to think.

Is it really the case that the surface and satellite records are again at odds? What dataset should be used to verify climate forecasts of the IPCC?

Answers welcomed.

Posted on January 8, 2008 05:55 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 07, 2008

Forecast Verification for Climate Science

Last week I asked a question:

What behavior of the climate system could hypothetically be observed over the next 1, 5, 10 years that would be inconsistent with the current consensus on climate change?

We didn’t have much discussion on our blog, perhaps in part due to our ongoing technical difficulties (which I am assured will be cleared up soon). But John Tierney at the New York Times sure received an avalanche of responses, many of which seemed to excoriate him simply for asking the question, and none that really engaged the question.

I did receive a few interesting replies by email from climate scientists. Here is one of the most interesting:

The IPCC reports, both AR4 (see Chapter 10) and TAR, are full of predictions made starting in 2000 for the evolution of surface temperature, precipitation, precipitation intensity, sea ice extent, and on and on. It would be a relatively easy task for someone to begin tracking the evolution of these variables and compare them to the IPCC’s forecasts. I am not aware of anyone actually engaged in this kind of climate forecast verification with respect to the IPCC, but it is worth doing.

So I have decided to take him up on this and present an example of what such a verification might look like. I have heard some claims lately that global warming has stopped, based on temperature trends over the past decade. So global average temperature seems like a as good a place as any to provide an example.

I begin with the temperature trends. I have decided to use the satellite record provided by Remote Sensing Systems, mainly because of the easy access of its data. But the choice of satellite versus surface global temperature dataset should not matter, since these have been reconciled according to the IPCC AR4. Here is a look at the satellite data starting in 1998 through 2007.

This dataset starts with the record 1997/1998 ENSO event which boosted temperatures a good deal. It is interesting to look at, but probably not the best place to start for this analysis. A better place to start is with 2000, but not because of what the climate has done, but because this is the baseline used for many of the IPCC AR4 predictions.

Before proceeding, a clarification must be made between a prediction and a projection. Some have claimed that the IPCC doesn’t make predictions, it only makes projections across a wide range of emissions scenarios. This is just a fancy way of saying that the IPCC doesn’t predict future emissions. But make no mistake, it does make conditional predictions for each scenario. Enough years have passed for us to be able to say that global emissions have been increasing at the very high end of the family of scenarios used by the IPCC (closest to A1F1 for those scoring at home). This means that we can zero in on what the IPCC predicted (yes, predicted) for the A1F1 scenario, which has best matched actual emissions.

So how has global temperature changed since 2000? Here is a figure showing the monthly values, indicating that while there has been a decrease in average global temperature of late, the linear trend since 2000 is still positive.

But monthly values are noisy, and not comparable with anything produced by the IPCC, so let’s take a look at annual values.

The annual values result in a curve that looks a bit like an upwards sloping letter M.

The model results produced by the IPCC are not readily available, so I will work from their figures. In the IPCC AR4 report Figure 10.26 on p. 803 of Chapter 10 of the Working Group I report (here in PDF) provides predictions of future temperature as a function of emissions scenario. The one relevant for my purposes can be found in the bottom row (degrees C above 1980-2000 mean) and second column (A1F1).

I have zoomed in on that figure, and overlaid the RSS temperature trends 2000-2007 which you can see below.

AR4 Verification Example.png

Now a few things to note:

1. The IPCC temperature increase is relative to a 1980 to 2000 mean, whereas the RSS anomalies are off of a 1979 to 1998 mean. I don’t expect the differences to be that important in this analysis, particularly given the blunt approach to the graph, but if someone wants to show otherwise, I’m all ears.

2. It should be expected that the curves are not equal in 2000. The anomaly for 2000 according to RSS is 0.08, hence the red curve begins at that value. Figure 10.26 on p. 803 of Chapter 10 of the Working Group I report actually shows observed temperatures for a few years beyond 2000, and by zooming in on the graph in the lower left hand corner of the figure one can see that 2000 was in fact below the A1B curve.

So it appears that temperature trends since 2000 are not closely following the most relevant prediction of the IPCC. Does this make recent temperature trends inconsistent with the IPCC? I have no idea, and that is not the point of this post. I'll leave it to climate scientists to tell us the significance. I assume that many climate scientists will say that there is no significance to what has happened since 2000, and perhaps emphasize that predictions of global temperature are more certain in the longer term than shorter term. But that is not what the IPCC figure indicates. In any case, 2000-2007 may not be sufficient time for climate scientists to become concerned that their predictions are off, but I’d guess that at some point, if observations don’t match predictions they might be of some concern. Alternatively, if observations square with predictions, then this would add confidence.

Before one dismisses this exercise as an exercise in randomness, it should be observed that in other contexts scientists associated short term trends with longer-term predictions. In fact, one need look no further than the record 2007 summer melt in the Arctic which was way beyond anything predicted by the IPCC, reaching close to 3 million square miles less than the 1978-2000 mean. The summer anomaly was much greater than any of the IPCC predictions on this time scale (which can be seen in IPCC AR4 Chapter 10 Figure 10.13 on p. 771). This led many scientists to claim that because the observations were inconsistent with the models, that there should be heightened concern about climate change. Maybe so. But if one variable can be examined for its significance with respect to long-term projections, then surely others can as well.

What I’d love to see is a place where the IPCC predictions for a whole range of relevant variables are provided in quantitative fashion, and as corresponding observations come in, they can be compared with the predictions. This would allow for rigorous evaluations of both the predictions and the actual uncertainties associated with those predictions. Noted atmospheric scientist Roger Pielke, Sr. (my father, of course) has suggested that three variables be looked at: lower tropospheric warming, atmospheric water vapor content, and oceanic heat content. And I am sure there are many other variables worth looking at.

Forecast evaluations also confer another advantage – they would help to move beyond the incessant arguing about this or that latest research paper and focus on true tests of the fidelity of our ability to forecast future states of the climate system. Making predictions and them comparing them to actual events is central to the scientific method. So everyone in the climate debate, whether skeptical or certain, should welcome a focus on verification of climate forecasts. If the IPCC is indeed settled science, then forecast verifications will do nothing but reinforce that conclusion.

For further reading:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2003: The role of models in prediction for decision, Chapter 7, pp. 113-137 in C. Canham and W. Lauenroth (eds.), Understanding Ecosystems: The Role of Quantitative Models in Observations, Synthesis, and Prediction, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. (PDF)

Sarewitz, D., R.A. Pielke, Jr., and R. Byerly, Jr., (eds.) 2000: Prediction: Science, decision making and the future of nature, Island Press, Washington, DC. (link) and final chapter (PDF).

Posted on January 7, 2008 05:12 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 02, 2008

Natural Disasters in Australia

Here (in PDF) is an interesting analysis by researchers at Macquarie University in Australia:

The collective evidence reviewed above suggests that social factors – dwelling numbers and values – are the predominant reasons for increasing building losses due to natural disasters in Australia. The role of anthropogenic climate change is not detectable at this time. This being the case, it seems logical approach that in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent investments be made to reduce society’s vulnerability to current and future climate and climate variability.

We are aware of few policies explicitly developed to help Australian communities adapt to future climate change (Leigh et al., 1998). One positive example is improved wind loading codes introduced in the 1980s as part of a National Building Code of Australia. These codes have been mentioned already and were introduced for all new housing construction following the destruction of Darwin by Tropical Cyclone Tracy in 1974. As a result, dramatic reductions in wind-induced losses were observed following Tropical Cyclones Winifred (1986) and Aivu (1989) (Walker, 1999) and most recently, Larry (2006) (Guy Carpenter, 2006). While these measures were introduced in response to the immediate threat from current climatic events, the benefits will hold true under any future.

An increased threat from bushfires under global climate change is often assumed. However, our analyses suggest that while the prevalence of conditions leading to bushfires is likely to increase, the impact is unlikely to be as dramatic as the combined changes of all of the other factors that have so far failed to materially affect the likelihood of bushfires losses over the last century. This is not to ignore the threat posed by global climate change, but, at least in the case of fire in Australia, the main menace will continue to be the extreme fires. The threat to the most at-risk homes on the bushland-urban interface can only be diminished by improved planning regulations that restrict where and how people build with respect to distance from the forest. Again these are political choices.

Posted on January 2, 2008 02:17 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

January 01, 2008

Is there any weather inconsistent with the the scientific consensus on climate?

Two years ago I asked a question of climate scientists that never received a good answer. Over at the TierneyLab at the New York Times, John Tierney raises the question again:

What behavior of the climate system could hypothetically be observed over the next 1, 5, 10 years that would be inconsistent with the current consensus on climate change? My focus is on extreme events like floods and hurricanes, so please consider those, but consider any other climate metric or phenomena you think important as well for answering this question. Ideally, a response would focus on more than just sea level rise and global average temperature, but if these are the only metrics that are relevant here that too would be very interesting to know.

The answer, it seems, is "nothing would be inconsistent," but I am open to being educated. Climate scientists especially invited to weigh in in the comments or via email, here or at the TierneyLab.

And a Happy 2008 to all our readers!

Posted on January 1, 2008 10:26 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Scientific Assessments

December 26, 2007

End-of-2007 Hurricane-Global Warming Update

There are a few new papers out on hurricanes (or more generally, tropical cyclones) and global warming that motivate this update.

Before sharing these new papers, let me provide a bit of background.

Regular readers will know that I began studying hurricanes during my post-doc years at NCAR, and even co-authored a book on them (PDF) with my father. I've been fortunate to get to know many of the people in the science community who study hurricanes and also to become familiar with the literature on hurricanes and climate change.

Let me also remind readers that I believe that there is little policy significance in the debate over hurricanes and global warming. Why not? Because no matter who is right, it won't do much to alter the ranking of alternative policies focused on addressing future storm impacts. This is an argument I make in this recent paper, which I'll point to for interested readers:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2007. Future Economic Damage from Tropical Cyclones: Sensitivities to Societal and Climate Changes, Proceedings of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 365:2717-2729.(PDF)

But from a political perspective, the issue remains of considerable importance, as those advocating action on energy policies based on stemming the impacts from future cyclones place themselves far out on a thin limb. As tempting as it is to invoke the impacts of hurricanes as a justification for action on climate-related energy policies, it really should be a "no go zone."

In 2004, I along with Chris Landsea, Max Mayfield, Jim Laver, and Richard Pasch decided to prepare a short, accessible summary on the state of the debate over hurricanes and climate change, which ultimately was published as a peer-reviewed paper in 2005 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (PDF). In that paper we concluded that the debate over hurricanes (and their impacts) and climate change would not be resolved anytime soon, and we provided three reasons for this:

First, no connection has been established between greenhouse gas emissions and the observed behavior of hurricanes (Houghton et al. 2001; Walsh 2004). Emanuel (2005) is suggestive of such a connection, but is by no means definitive. In the future, such a connection may be established [e.g., in the case of the observations of Emanuel (2005) or the projections of Knutson and Tuleya (2004)] or made in the context of other metrics of tropical cyclone intensity and duration that remain to be closely examined. Second, the peer-reviewed literature reflects that a scientific consensus exists that any future changes in hurricane intensities will likely be small in the context of observed variability (Knutson and Tuleya 2004; Henderson-Sellers et al. 1998), while the scientific problem of tropical cyclogenesis is so far from being solved that little can be said about possible changes in frequency. And third, under the assumptions of the IPCC, expected future damages to society of its projected changes in the behavior of hurricanes are dwarfed by the influence of its own projections of growing wealth and population (Pielke et al. 2000). While future research or experience may yet overturn these conclusions, the state of the peer-reviewed knowledge today is such that there are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term.

If I might pat ourselves on our collective backs for a moment, these conclusions that we reached in 2005 were echoed in 2006 by a much more comprehensive assessment report prepared by the World Meteorological Organization:

A consensus of 125 of the world’s leading tropical cyclone researchers and forecasters says that no firm link can yet be drawn between human-induced climate change and variations in the intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones.

And then in 2007 by the IPCC. IPCC lead author Neville Nicholls characterized the report's conclusions on hurricanes and climate change as follows:

We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link.

So our 2005 paper has held up really well. Did we get some recognition from the IPCC for providing an accurate assessment of the state of the scientific debate and its relevance? Well, no. But maybe we at least could point to a citation in the relevant IPCC chapter, which of course summarized all of the peer-reviewed literature? Actually the IPCC ignored our review. It is not that they were unaware of it. The lead author for the relevant chapter (Chapter 3 of WG 1), Kevin Trenberth, said of our paper at the time it was released:

I think the role of the changing climate is greatly underestimated by Roger Pielke Jr. I think he should withdraw this article. This is a shameful article.

So, despite providing an accurate assessment of hurricanes and global warming in 2005 which was ultimately backed up by WMO and IPCC, given Kevin Trenberth's obvious bias against our views, we weren't really surprised to see our paper go uncited by the IPCC chapter that Kevin was lead author on. I did notice that Trenberth was somehow able to find room to mention his own work 95 times in that chapter, but I digress.

So our assessment of the state of the hurricane-global warming has held up really well. And in fact, I'd say that our assertion of the lack of a conclusive connection seems even stronger today. Over recent weeks I have become aware of 4 significant new papers on hurricanes and climate change that raise important questions about many aspects of the debate. I highlight these four papers not because they point toward certainty in the debate, quite the opposite: they indicate that the debate is alive and well, and uncertainty continues to reign on this subject. And unless you are paying attention to the literature, you'll probably never hear of these papers.

The first paper is one I mentioned a few weeks ago by Vecchi/Soden published in Nature . That paper suggested that identifying the signal of global warming in tropical cyclone behavior would be challenging in the context of ongoing climate variability. I wondered why that paper escaped media attention, despite being published in Nature and being a major contribution to the ongoing debate. Here are three other papers that will probably also escape media attention.

Statistician William Briggs has two new papers. One is in press with the Journal of Climate, and is titled "On the changes in number and intensity of North Atlantic tropical cyclones" (PDF). That paper concludes:

We find that to conclude that there has been an increase in the number of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic basin depends on from what date you start looking. Looking from 1900 gives strong evidence that an increase has taken place; however, data early from that period are certainly tainted by inadequate and missing observations, so the confidence we have in this evidence is greatly reduced. Starting from (the years around) 1966 does not give evidence of a linear increase, but starting from (the years around) 1975 does. These potential increases are noted after controlling for the effects of CTI, NAOI, and the AMO. These differences due to start date could be real, perhaps because of some underlying cyclicity in the data that coincidentally bottomed out around 1975 (after controlling for AMO etc.), or it may just be a good lesson that it's possible to pick and choose your starting date to argue either way: yes, there's been an increase, or no, there hasn't been.

Briggs is presenting a second paper at the upcoming AMS meeting in which he applies the same technique to other basins, in a paper titled, "Changes in number and intensity of tropical cyclones" (PDF). That paper concludes:

We find little evidence that the mean of the distribution of individual storm intensity, measured by storm days, track length, or individual storm PDI, has changed (increased or decreased) since 1975 over all the oceans. Again, there were certain noted increases in the Indian oceans, which may be real or may be due to flaws in the data: this is evidenced by the posteriors from these oceans being very sensitive to the priors used. We did, however, find an unambiguous increase in the variance of the distribution of storm intensity over all oceans. We also found that two components of intensity, storm days and track length, have likely decreased since 1990 over most oceans. Thus, we conclude that mean intensity has not been increasing, at least since 1975, and certainly not since 1990.

A fourth paper has just been published in the journal Risk Analysis by Kenneth Bogen, Edwin Jones, and Larry Fischer, titled, "Hurricane Destructive Power Predictions Based on Historical Storm and Sea Surface Temperature Data." That paper concludes:

Results obtained clearly challenge recent hypotheses about the effect of rising SST on future hurricane destructive potential . . .In contrast to a significant post-1970 positive trend in NAO SST and previous claims that this trend is linked to increased hurricane activity (Goldenberg et al., 2001; Emanuel, 2005; Trenberth, 2005; Webster et al., 2005; Hoyos et al., 2006; Santer et al., 2006; Trenberth & Shea, 2006), this study found little evidence of APDI trend or of a substantial APDI correlation with SST.

These papers suggest that the science of hurricane and global warming is healthy and new voices are bringing new ideas and methods to the debate. This is all good news. But it should also be apparent that the issue remains highly uncertain and contested. If anything, uncertainties have increased since we published our 2005 paper.

So I am going to stand pat with our conclusions first presented in 2005 in that shameful (but accurate) article:

[T]here are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term.

That is where things stand on this subject at the close of 2007.

Posted on December 26, 2007 05:22 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

December 21, 2007

On the Political Relevance of Scientific Consensus

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) has released a report in which he has identified some hundreds of scientists who disagree with the IPCC consensus. Yawn. In the comments of Andy Revkin's blog post on the report you can get a sense of why I often claim that arguing about the science of climate change is endlessly entertaining but hardly productive, and confirming Andy's assertion that "A lot of us live in intellectual silos."

In 2005 I had an exchange with Naomi Oreskes in Science on the significance of a scientific consensus in climate politics. Here is what I said then (PDF):

IN HER ESSAY "THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS on climate change" (3 Dec. 2004, p. 1686), N. Oreskes asserts that the consensus reflected in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) appears to reflect, well, a consensus. Although Oreskes found unanimity in the 928 articles with key words "global climate change," we should not be surprised if a broader review were to find conclusions at odds with the IPCC consensus, as "consensus" does not mean uniformity of perspective. In the discussion motivated by Oreskes’ Essay, I have seen one claim made that there are more than 11,000 articles on "climate change" in the ISI database and suggestions that about 10% somehow contradict the IPCC consensus position.
But so what? If that number is 1% or 40%, it does not make any difference whatsoever from the standpoint of policy action. Of course, one has to be careful, because people tend to read into the phrase "policy action" a particular course of action that they themselves advocate. But in the IPCC, one can find statements to use in arguing for or against support of the Kyoto Protocol. The same is true for any other specific course of policy action on climate change. The IPCC maintains that its assessments do not advocate any single course of action.

So in addition to arguing about the science of climate change as a proxy for political debate on climate policy, we now can add arguments about the notion of consensus itself. These proxy debates are both a distraction from progress on climate change and a reflection of the tendency of all involved to politicize climate science.

The actions that we take on climate change should be robust to (i) the diversity of scientific perspectives, and thus also to (ii) the diversity of perspectives of the nature of the consensus. A consensus is a measure of a central tendency and, as such, it necessarily has a distribution of perspectives around that central measure (1). On climate change, almost all of this distribution is well within the bounds of legitimate scientific debate and reflected within the full text of the IPCC reports. Our policies should not be optimized to reflect a single measure of the central tendency or, worse yet, caricatures of that measure, but instead they should be robust enough to accommodate the distribution of perspectives around that
central measure, thus providing a buffer against the possibility that we might learn more in the future (2).

ROGER A. PIELKE JR.
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research,
University of Colorado, UCB 488, Boulder, CO
80309–0488, USA.

References
1 D. Bray,H. von Storch, Bull.Am.Meteorol. Soc. 80, 439 (1999).
2. R. Lempert, M. Schlesinger, Clim. Change 45, 387 (2000).

December 19, 2007

A Follow Up on Media Coverage and Climate Change

Last week I asked a few reporters and scholars why it is that a major paper in Nature last week on hurricanes and global warming received almost no media coverage whereas another paper released last summer received quite a bit more. Andy Revkin raised the issue on his blog which stimulated many more responses. With this post I’d like to report back on what I’ve heard, and what I’ve concluded, at least tentatively, on the role of the media in the climate debate.

First, there are a wide range of explanations for the differences in media coverage of the two papers. Here is a summary of what I heard (warning: not all explanations are consistent with each other):

*The media is biased toward sensational stories, and Vecchi/Soden was not sensational.
*The relevant media was distracted by the Bali climate meeting.

*The relevant media was distracted by the AGU meeting.

*The relevant media had an interest in stories that added to pressure to act on climate change in Bali.

*The media has (recently) begun to downplay research that suggests uncertainty in climate science.

*Nature did not promote the Vecchi/Soden paper, whereas NCAR aggressively promoted Webster/Holland.

*Vecchi/Soden buried their main message, so the news value was hard to see.

*The hurricane/climate change issue is “s/he said-s/he said” and not interesting.

*Hurricane season is over.

One question I asked of several people is the apparent paradox between the recent "balance as bias" thesis which holds that skeptical voices are given too much play in debate over climate change with the claims from several people I spoke to that the media tends to favor alarming stories in the climate debate. The best answer I got to this came from a reporter:

In general, news coverage favors the sensational rather than the mundane. For example, there were tons of stories this year on the arctic sea ice extent. Next year, if the sea ice doesn’t set a record, the coverage will be less by orders of magnitude.
However, within stories on global warming, there is a great pressure to be balanced. So if we have scientists saying human activity is causing the melting, there’s a desire to represent another viewpoint, no matter how much in the minority it may be.

So there’s an overall bias for sensationalism (or alarmism, when it comes to global warming). The simple reason is this attracts eyeballs. But within stories there’s an effort for balance.

To test this out the hypothesis of a general bias against skeptical voices I searched Google News for references (2004 to present) to "climate change" and "hurricanes" for both "William Gray" who advocates no discernible effect of global warming on hurricanes and "Kerry Emanuel" who advocates a very strong effect. There were 268 stories quoting Emanuel and 297 quoting Gray. This would suggest that, on the hurricane issue at least, there is no indication that the media has disfavored skeptical voices. These data don’t say much about the media favoring the sensational, as Gray’s presence in news stories might just be "balance" in a sensationalized story. More work would need to be done to say anything on that.

Looking to the academic literature Mullainathan and Shleifer (2002, full cite and link below) provide the best piece of research that I have seen on media bias. They focus on ideological biases and also what they call "spin." which is the same thing as favoring (or creating) sensational stories as suggested above. They suggest that (emphasis added):

. . . competition is an important argument for free press: despite the ideological biases of individual news suppliers, the truth comes out through competition. We show that, with Bayesian readers, this is indeed the case: competition undoes the biases from ideology. With readers who are categorical thinkers, however, the consequences of competition are more complex. We show that, in the absence of ideology, competition actually reinforces the adverse effects of spin on accuracy. Not only do the media outlets bias news reporting, but the stories reinforce each other. As each paper spins stories, it increases the incentives of later outlets to spin. This piling on of stories means non-ideological competition worsens the bias of spin. Moreover, spin can exacerbate the influence of one-sided ideology. When the first news outlet that uncovers the story is ideological and later ones are not, the first one sets the tone and later ones reinforce this spin. This can explain why and how inside sources leak information to news outlets: their principal motivation is to control how the story is eventually spun.
Our theory of news reporting falls between two extremes. The traditional view is that readers demand, and media outlets supply, pure information about political and economic markets, and thereby facilitate better consumer and voter choice (Coase 1974, Besley and Burgess 2001, Besley and Prat 2002, Djankov et al. 2002, Stromberg 2001, Dyck and Zingales 2002). The opposite but also plausible view, pursued by Mencken (1920) and Jensen (1976), sees the media as entertainment, with no obvious grounding in reality. The perspective of this paper is that media outlets provide neither unadulterated information, nor pure entertainment. News outlets may be biased for ideological reasons. And consumers, while not desiring pure entertainment as might be the case with sensational or human interest stories, do indirectly affect news content because of how they process information. So for reasons of ideology news outlets may bias information to please their owners, and for reasons of consumer psychology they may bias the information to please their readers.

These results have significant implications for media accuracy. They explain, in particular, how the media in the aggregate are likely to get to the bottom of a news story with significant ideological dimension. Ideological diversity serves as a safeguard against spin. Our results are consistent with Richard Posner's (1999) highly favorable assessment of the press in the coverage of the Clinton affair. Our results also show why media bias is most severe in the cases where no or little ideological diversity bears on the story, such as the investigation of Wen Ho Lee. In this case, the bias comes from spin, and spin causes the followers to pile on. Competition among media outlets is not a solution to the problem of spin - indeed, it makes the problem worse. Our paper makes the case for extreme ideological diversity in the media - in such diversity lies the best hope against spin.

If these findings are anywhere close to the mark, then they offer a powerful counterargument to the "balance as bias" thesis. The climate issue is characterized by a wide range of ideological perspectives, and it seems hard to justify why any of those perspectives should not be represented by the media. That means reporting on a wide range of political perspectives and the justifications for those views offered by those holding those perspectives, even if the reporter, or the vast majority of scientists or other groups, happens to disagree with either the politics or justifications. Where there is diversity balance is not bias, but bias is bias.

S. Mullainathan and A. Shleifer. 2002. Media Bias, NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES, Working Paper 9295 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, October 2002, © 2002 by Sendhil Mullainathan and Andrei Shleifer. http://www.nber.org/papers/w9295

For further reading, see this New York Times book review on media bias by Richard Posner.

Posted on December 19, 2007 01:31 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Journalism, Science & Environment

December 18, 2007

Climate Policy as Farce

According to The Telegraph to deal with the issue of climate change the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Sir David King, has encouraged a "cultural change" among women to prefer men who save energy, rather than hog it, such as by driving Ferrari's. And for those of you unfamiliar with UK newspapers, it is important to point out that The Telegraph is not the UK's version of The Onion.

Here is an excerpt:

Professor Sir David King said governments could only do so much to control greenhouse gas emissions and it was time for a cultural change among the British public.
And he singled out women who find supercar drivers "sexy", adding that they should divert their affections to men who live more environmentally-friendly lives.

His comments were greeted with anger by sports car drivers who insisted that their vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions were tiny compared with those from four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Sir David, who is due to retire as the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser at the end of the year, said individuals needed to change their behaviour.

"I was asked at a lecture by a young woman about what she could do and I told her to stop admiring young men in Ferraris," he said.

"What I was saying is that you have got to admire people who are conserving energy and not those wilfully using it."

Sir David, who persuaded the Government to start using the Toyota Prius, a hybrid car that claims to have lower emissions than most conventional cars, added: "Government has so many levers that it can pull - when it comes to the business sector it is quite effective.

"As soon as you come to the individual, however, they will buy a Ferrari, not because it is cheap to run or has low carbon dioxide emissions, but because young women think it is sexy to see men driving Ferraris. That is the area where a culture change is needed."

Meanwhile, Europe is divided about strengthening regulations on emissions from autos:

Emergency talks aimed at setting EU targets to reduce CO2 car emissions are being held today amid fears that bitter wrangling between car manufacturing countries could delay or even derail the process entirely.
The European Commission is due to adopt a draft regulation tomorrow on reducing carbon emissions from passenger cars to 120 grams per kilometre within five years, but a bitter fallout between European heavyweights has plunged the key negotiations into crisis. Member states with car manufacturers that traditionally produce heavy, energy-hungry cars are concerned that the emission targets will unfairly benefit those businesses that make lighter, more efficient vehicles.

France and Germany, in particular, are believed to be at loggerheads over the Commission's proposals. French manufacturers such as Peugeot-Citroen have already reduced their carbon emissions to 140g for their cars, whereas German companies such as BMW, Mercedes and Daimler still lag behind on emission targets because their vehicles are heavier and higher performance models. Sweden, which also tends to make larger cars, is also thought to be unhappy about the proposals, while Italy is backing France.

What is lost among this empty moralizing and trade disputes is that a zero-emission Ferrari would require no need to change the libidinal desires of young women (granting Prof. King's dubious premise), nor an embarrassing trade dispute between countries committed to reducing emissions.

These anecdotes -- frustrating and farcical as they may be -- illustrate a serious underlying point: Much of climate debate is exactly backwards. Advocates are spending far too much time arguing over how important that it is that others change their behavior, usually in ways that those doing the advocating would want regardless of climate change. In this way climate change becomes not a problem to be solved but a political weapon in service of other goals. The alternative to the dominant approach to climate change would be to initiate those steps that will actually make a difference, thus enabling political compromise. As Dan Sarewitz and I have often argued it is often technological advances that enable compromise rather than vice versa. And in the case of climate change those steps that will actually make a difference begin with making the costs of producing alternative energy cheaper than fossil fuels (as Shellenberger and Nordhaus have argued, and now Google), and working to make people and ecosystems more resilient/less vulnerable to climate impacts. Of course many groups are doing exactly this, but they are certainly not those leading the charge on climate policy.

Posted on December 18, 2007 09:32 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Technology Policy

December 17, 2007

Shellenberger on Bali

Over at the Breakthrough blog, Michael Shellenberger offers some straight talk on the outcome of the Bali meeting.

Posted on December 17, 2007 03:00 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | International

December 16, 2007

China's Growing Emissions

According to this paper by two researchers at the University of California carbon dioxide emissions in China are projected to grow between 11.05% and 13.19% per year for the period 2000-2010. What does this mean? I hope you are sitting down because you won’t believe this.

In 2006 China’s carbon dioxide emissions contained about 1.70 gigatons of carbon (GtC) (source). By 2010, at the growth rates projected by these researchers the annual emissions from China will be between 2.6 and 2.8 GtC. The growth in China's emissions from 2006-2010 is equivalent to adding the 2004 emissions of Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia to China's 2006 total (source). The emissions growth in China at these rates is like adding another Germany every year, or a UK and Australia together, to global emissions. The graph below illustrates the point.

Think about that.

China Emissions.png

Posted on December 16, 2007 05:44 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

December 14, 2007

Chris Green on Emissions Target Setting

Chris Green, an economist from McGill University (Canada), has written an op-ed for the Global and Mail explaining why he thinks that the setting of long-term emissions targets just kicks the can down the road. This is sure to be an unpopular opinion among many in the climate debate, but ultimately I think he is right. Here is an excerpt:

It is not difficult to set forth the outlines of a potentially effective climate policy. Unfortunately, what may be effective is not necessarily politically acceptable. It now seems that the main barrier to an effective climate policy is the obsession with emission targets — a legacy of the Kyoto Protocol. Emission targets stand in the way of concentrating on actions whose payoff is mainly beyond the targeted time frame. Worse, because of an effective effort by climate-change "campaigners" to portray the Kyoto Protocol as humankind's last best hope on climate change, emission targets have now taken on a life of their own, particularly in political arenas susceptible to grandstanding behaviour. The evidence is all around us.
The fundamental problem with mandated emission reduction targets is that they focus on ends rather than on the technological means of achieving those ends. Because targets are assessed only rarely in terms of what is doable but usually in terms of what pressure groups think ought to be done, target-based policies lack credibility in virtually the same proportion in which they are politically popular. The Conference of the Parties session in Bali will indicate whether there is a sufficient number of countries prepared to say that the target-setting emperor has no clothes, and are ready to put a moratorium on this failed approach to climate policy.

The op-ed is distilled from a longer piece from the magazine Policy Options, and a PDF of that essay can be found here. It is well worth a read regardless of your views on the climate issue.

Posted on December 14, 2007 12:31 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

A Question for the Media

I've generally thought that the media has done a nice job on covering the climate issue over the past 20 years. There are of course leaders and laggards, but overall, I think that the community of journalists has done a nice job on a very tough issue. However, there are times when I am less impressed. Here is one example.

news.stories.png

Nature magazine, arguably the leading scientific journal in the world, published a paper this week by two widely-respected scholars -- Gabriel Vecchi and Brian Soden -- suggesting that global warming may have a minimal effect on hurricanes. Over two days the media -- as measured by Google News -- published a grand total of 3 news stories on this paper. Now contrast this with a paper published in July in a fairly obscure journal by two other respected scholars -- Peter Webster and Greg Holland -- suggesting that global warming has a huge effect on hurricanes. That paper resulted in 79 news stories stories over two days.

What accounts for the 26 to 1 ratio in news stories?

December 13, 2007

Reality Check

From Alan Zarembo writing in the LA Times today, this dose of reality:

Here's a recipe to head off the worst effects of global warming:
1. Start with 30 new nuclear power plants around the world.

2. Add 17,0000 wind turbines, 400 biomass power plants, two hydroelectric dams the size of China's Three Gorges Dam, and 42 coal or natural gas power plants equipped with still-experimental systems to sequester their carbon dioxide emissions underground.

3. Build everything in 2013. Repeat every year until 2030.

It's an intentionally implausible plan presented this week by the International Energy Agency to make a point: For all the talk about emissions reductions, the actual work is way beyond what the world can achieve.

As delegates from 190 countries gather here on the Indonesian island of Bali to negotiate a "road map" for the successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, some experts are wondering whether the meeting has lost touch with the reality of tackling climate change.

So far, the thousands of delegates have been consumed by a debate over caps on emissions of greenhouse gases that are the primary cause of global warming.

The United States and China -- the two biggest carbon polluters, each accounting for about 20% of worldwide emissions -- have opposed any hard caps.

But while the debate continues, the most fundamental question of what it will take to achieve meaningful reductions has gone largely forgotten.

Posted on December 13, 2007 09:08 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | International

December 12, 2007

Fun With Carbon Accounting

Dieter Helm of Oxford has a very interesting paper (PDF) on trends in carbon dioxide emissions in the UK (via Climate Feedback) when they are measured from a consumption basis versus the production basis used under the Kyoto Protocol. Here is an excerpt from the paper:

On the UNFCCC basis, UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 15% since 1990. In contrast, on a consumption basis, the illustrative outcome is a rise in emissions of 19% over the same period. This is a dramatic reversal of fortune. It merits an immediate, more detailed and more robust assessment. It suggests that the decline in greenhouse gas emissions from the UK economy may have been to a considerable degree an illusion. Trade may have displaced the UK’s greenhouse gas appetite elsewhere. . .
The UK’s record against the UNFCCC greenhouse gas indicator is impressive, achieving a fall in emissions between 1990 and 2005. It has already beaten its Kyoto target of 12.5% by 2008–12. Against its own domestic goal of a 20% CO2 reduction by 2010, progress has been
less impressive. The UK’s CO2 emissions have risen slightly recently, and last year lay only 5.3% below 1990 levels. This is despite the fact that the UK’s climate change policy programme focuses effort on tackling CO2.

All of the above figures were produced on a territorial accounting basis. When the account is extended to the Office for National Statistics’ residents’ basis, by including international transport and overseas activities, the picture looks worse. Emissions fell by only 11.9%, as shipping and international aviation boomed. Furthermore, airline passengers and firms from the UK consumed more greenhouse gases during their visits and activities abroad than overseas visitors and firms did in the UK, weakening the UK’s overall performance when these trade activities are included. The trend is an adverse one.

Yet, even this extended scope of measurement does not represent the true picture of the UK economy’s impact on the climate. To understand the UK’s true impact, the greenhouse gas accounts should be reported on a 'consumption basis'. On this basis, all greenhouse gases embodied in UK consumption are counted, and by adding greenhouse gases embedded in imports and subtracting greenhouse gases embedded in exports, the crude calculations presented here suggest that UK emissions have been rising steeply. Between 1990 and 2003 the crude calculation indicates a rise of 19%.

Posted on December 12, 2007 04:55 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

December 08, 2007

Prins and Rayner in the WSJ

In the weekend WSJ there is a thoughtful op-ed by Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner, presenting the argument that they discuss at length in their essay The Wrong Trousers (PDF). Here is how the WSJ op-ed begins:

This week in Bali, Indonesia, delegates are considering climate policy after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. We will witness a well-known human response to failure. Delegates will insist on doing more of what is not working: in this case more stringent emissions-reduction targets, and timetables involving more countries. A bigger and "better" Kyoto will be a bigger and worse failure.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was a symbolically important expression of concern about climate change. It sought to manipulate a basket of diverse greenhouse gases and all their sources. It required its signatories to show demonstrable progress toward a 5% emissions reduction over 1990 levels by 2005. It did so partly through an international cap-and-trade system, and also by establishing a Clean Development Mechanism that would enable big greenhouse-gas emitters to claim credit for reducing emissions which they secured by buying reductions elsewhere, in developing countries.

None of this has worked. Nevertheless, support for "Kyoto" has become the test by which individuals and nations demonstrate whether they are for or against the planet and its poor.

Kevin Rudd's Australian government just showed this. It will ratify the Protocol to show that it is serious about climate change. But Australia, like other countries already signed up to Kyoto, will produce no demonstrable reductions in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth as a result of doing so.

Where emissions reductions have happened, notably in eastern Europe, re-unified Germany and the United Kingdom, they were the result of unrelated policies -- such as the collapse of communism, and with it the shutdown of highly inefficient and polluting industries, or Margaret Thatcher's smashing of union power by destroying the British coal industry, which meant the substitution of coal by cleaner North Sea gas.

Strip out Germany and the U.K. from the EU-15, and European emissions actually increased 10% between 1990 and 2005. In five countries, emissions rates rose more than in the U.S. Without the collapse of Russia and Ukraine, the Kyoto Protocol's "all signatory total" registers rises since 1990. Even in Japan, emission levels are rising. Kyoto's supporters blame nonsignatory governments, especially the U.S. and, (until last week) Australia.

Read the whole thing.

Posted on December 8, 2007 03:27 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 06, 2007

Why Action on Energy Policy is Not Enough

When in the comments on Tom's post about the recent scientists petition for action on climate change I complained that 200 scientists calling for action on climate change had ignored adaptation, Todd Neff, a local reporter from here in Boulder, helpfully explained to me why climate change is only about energy policy and not human development, and how a focus on the latter implies "pooh-poohing" the former:

Lots of things kill human beings and make them miserable. Poverty and income inequality is real, and 50-1 ratios and 7.3s versus 0.15s should be addressed with real vigor. But that's not what's being talked about in Bali. Pooh-poohing efforts to transform the energy system because poverty remains a problem despite Lyndon Johnson's best efforts strikes me as diverting from the point. These climate scientists are completely ignoring Tay-Sachs disease, too, not to mention tooth decay and this nefarious hiphop prisoner jeans-at-the-knees look that clearly risks widespread tripping among America's male teens.

The view that adaptation is not a part of climate change does seem to be widely shared among environmentalists who would like the climate issue to be narrowly looked at as only an energy issue. Not everyone agrees, particularly folks who work in developing countries. OXFAM for example (PDF) has a different perspective, reflected in this call for action in Bali:

To enable poor countries to adapt successfully, change needs to occur at many levels. Communities must be at the heart of efforts to build resilience, whether through improving economic choices, diversifying livelihoods, protecting eco-systems, or strengthening food and water security. Ministries must be able to integrate climate risk management into their overall planning and budgeting, and must also integrate adaptation into development-planning processes, restructure and strengthen institutions, and provide early-warning systems. In addition, they must ensure that climate risks are integrated into national and local disaster-risk reduction plans, so that they can tackle the underlying vulnerabilities that put communities at risk in the face of the increasing number of climate-related disasters.
Given rich countries' historic role in causing climate change, they now have two clear obligations: to stop harming, by cutting their greenhouse gas emissions hardest and fastest; and to start helping, by providing compensatory finance so that poor countries can adapt before they suffer the full impacts of climate change. . .

In 2005, the G8 countries promised to increase annual aid levels by $50bn by the year 2010. This finance would be a crucial step towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets, which aim to halve poverty by 2015. But it is still only 0.36 per cent of rich countries’ incomes – just half of the 0.7 per cent target they signed up to in 1970. Importantly, it is also a target that does not account for the costs of climate change. Two years on, aid to poor countries is falling, not rising and, if current trends continue, Oxfam calculates that the G8 will miss their promised increase by a staggering $30bn. This funding deficit would be a major concern even without climate change.

On top of this deficit, climate change will make it harder to realise the MDGs because it threatens the prospects of reaching every one of them. As the Stern Review states, the scale of additional funding needed for adaptation 'makes it still more important for developed countries to honour both their existing commitments to increase aid sharply and help the world’s poorest countries adapt to climate change.'

Mitigation and adaptation as complements, what an idea! The continued opposition to adaptation among advocates for action on climate change -- whether scientists or members of the media -- remains as baffling as ever to me.

Posted on December 6, 2007 03:42 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | International

December 05, 2007

Lieberman-Warner

Not only was there an announcement from Bali, but S. 2191 went from the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to the full senate. That's a pretty big deal too. It's endorsed by a variety of environmental groups, including the Apollo Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense, League of Conservation Voters, National Environmental Trust, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and The Wilderness Society.

Who knows how it'll fare, but I thought it possibly worth commenting on this tired minority response from some guy in Oklahoma.

Yep. It'll cost money. Whether that'll deal a devastating blow to "American families, American jobs, and the American way of life" is harder to judge.

Say, just what is the "American way of life" anyway? For that matter, what are "American jobs"? I won't even ask about "American families." That one sure created a stir in the last election.

Anyone care to take a stab at a definition? Props if you can offer a coherent answer without begging the question.

Posted on December 5, 2007 11:32 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Hale, B. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Environment

Historic Declaration by Climate Scientists

Just minutes ago, more than 200 climate scientists released an historic declaration at the United Nations Climate Conference in Bali. (Find it here: http://www.climate.unsw.edu.au/bali/) They warn that unless steps are taken immediately to begin bringing greenhouse gas emissions under control, "many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction."

The signatories, who include many scientists we here in Boulder know well, including Caspar Ammann, Beth Holland, Kevin Trenberth, and James White, state that global warming must be kept below 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial temperature. "Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050," according to the statement. That means "there is no time to lose." Greenhouse gas emissions must actually peak and begin to drop within the breathtakingly short period of the next 10 to 15 years.

As challenging as these goals may seem, the signatories are urging the world to go even further. "As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement."

I will be curious to hear from Prometheus readers whether they can remember an equivalent statement by a large group of prominent scientists. It involves nothing less than the fate of billions of human beings. And although the signatories have couched their declaration in scientific facts and findings, they have waded far out into political waters.

Dan Glick, a well known environmental writer and friend once related an anecdote to me about an interview he did a number of years back with a prominent scientist about climate change. Dan asked the scientist, "Based on what you just told me, why aren't you shouting from the rooftops?"

"Why do you think I am talking to you?" he responded.

Now it looks like scientists are no longer asking journalists to shout from the rooftops for them. They're doing it themselves.

Posted on December 5, 2007 09:03 PM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Yulsman, T. | Climate Change

November 28, 2007

Carbon in North America

I didn't want the month to expire without mention of the release of "SAP 2.2", or The First State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR): The North American Carbon Budget and Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle, a report three years in the making issued by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. Disclaimer, I was co-lead for the report, which was authored by over 90 scientists from a wide variety of disciplines. The bottom-line punchline is that sources (such as emissions from energy) outweigh sinks (such as forest and soil uptake) in North America by approximately 3:1. This strongly suggests that sinks by themselves are not going to be sufficient to deal with removing emissions in the future. Sinks are also likely to decline and become more uncertain in the future-- consider the scientific reports just this month on the volatility of sinks (a few weeks ago, we heard about emissions from forest fires, this week, it is about the reduced carbon uptake during the drought of 2002).

Being a bit of an insider on this report, I wanted to share my own personal opinion on what was distinct and unique about this effort for carbon cycle science and for the CCSP reports issued thus far.

As far at the treatment of carbon cycle science, it was the first attempt that we were aware of that examined the balance of carbon at the continental scale in North America with a common data framework from the ground up, meaning not from atmospheric data. We of course built off of many previous efforts at a national or regional scale. The second notable approach was the decision to place equal emphasis on the human activity components of the carbon cycle in North America and the land (and coastal) components. Carbon cycle science is often presented as a budget with much detail on the land, ocean and atmosphere side, with not much detail for the "source" terms, the energy side of the question. The document includes chapters on energy extraction and conversion, transportation, buildings, industry and so on. Also, we included from the start economic and policy analyses to provide a decision-relevant context to our information. Finally, we tried our best to include stakeholders and potential users of the information from the start of the process, at the outline stage, all the way to the finished draft. We held three separate workshops, provided numerous opportunities for comment, and changed the structure and questions answered in response to our participants. The process took more time, resources and effort, but was essential in the team's mind to fulfilling our mandate to be policy-relevant. Only time will tell if we succeeded. Some of the news coverage can be found here:
usa today
AP
EENews
Rocky Mountain News
Science Daily
News.com

and blogged by Andy Revkin of the NY Times here:

Please check out the report, feedback welcome!

Posted on November 28, 2007 12:48 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Dilling, L. | Climate Change

November 26, 2007

It Will Take More than Holocaust Analogies

Andy Revkin reports on a spat between NASA's James Hansen and Kraig R. Naasz, the president of the National Mining Association. You can go read the details at Dot Earth. After you do that you might mull over the following factoids (emphasis added). . .

From the International Energy Association's 2007 World Energy Report (PDF):

In line with the spectacular growth of the past few years, coal sees the biggest increase in demand in absolute terms, jumping by 73% between 2005 and 2030 and pushing its share of total energy demand up from 25% to 28%. Most of the increase in coal use arises in China and India. . . Higher oil and gas prices are making coal more competitive as a fuel for baseload generation. China and India, which already account for 45% of world coal use, drive over four-fifths of the increase to 2030 in the Reference Scenario. In the OECD, coal use grows only very slowly, with most of the increase coming from the United States. In all regions, the outlook for coal use depends largely on relative fuel prices, government policies on fuel diversification, climate change and air pollution, and developments in clean coal technology in power generation. The widespread deployment of more efficient power-generation technology is expected to cut the amount of coal needed to generate a kWh of electricity, but boost the attraction of coal over other fuels, thereby leading to higher demand.

From some excellent reporting by the Christian Science Monitor:

In all, at least 37 nations [in Asia, Americas, EU, and elsewhere] plan to add coal-fired capacity in the next five years – up from the 26 nations that added capacity during the past five years. With Sri Lanka, Laos, and even oil-producing nations like Iran getting set to join the coal-power pack, the world faces the prospect five years from now of having 7,474 coal-fired power plants in 79 countries pumping out 9 billion tons of CO2 emissions annually – out of 31 billion tons from all sources in 2012.

One can understand why Stanford's David Victor offers a less-than-optimistic view of the issue, here is part of his comment posted at Dot Earth:

The reason coal matters so much is that it offers the best route for getting leverage on emissions–because coal is used mainly in large central generating stations that are managed by professionals and where economies of scale favor the installation of carbon storage, etc.
That means that simple-sounding solutions like shutting coal plants or passing moratoria are politically impractical and also probably will set back the cause. For example, some existing stations may offer cheaper routes for controlling emissions (such as through installation of post combustion capture) than building brand new units. We don’t know which routes will work, and until we know some more–which requires a much larger effort–it is hard to know what exactly to recommend.

Our group at Stanford has started tracking CCS projects, and what’s striking to us is that if you add up ALL the projects you get to an effort that is perhaps 1/100 of what is actually needed to halt emissions. The whole policy effort, so far, is Potemkin–it looks nice on the surface, but there’s little behind the facade. And to pin all that on coal isn’t right. The problem is us.

The reality is that energy from coal is here to stay. That David Victor sees coal plants as part of the solution to limiting greenhouse gas emissions and James Hansen does not illustrates how widely experts who agree on the need to limit emissions disagree on energy policy.

Posted on November 26, 2007 04:34 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

John Quiggin on Adaptation

Last week I took strong issue with a view of climate adaptation put forward by Australian economist John Quiggin. After some discussion, John has graciously provided an extended and considerably more nuanced view of his thoughts on adaptation, which we are happy to highlight here. (Thanks, John!):

There is no reason to expect too little adaptation in developed countries, assuming that individuals and firms act in their own interests, and that governments follow standard policy procedures aimed at selecting policies that promote the welfare of their constituents. To the extent that these things don’t happen, international negotiations won’t help.
There is a big reason to expect excessive emissions by all countries (and the excess is much greater for the rich countries) because of the externality problem. Those making the emissions don’t bear more than a tiny fraction of the costs.

Finally, poor countries won’t have enough adaptation because they don’t have enough of anything. The best solution to this is to increase aid (and access to trade) across the board. Given sufficient resources, poor countries can their own decisions on how to allocate them.

Climate change negotiations provide a chance to put pressure on rich countries to compensate poor countries for the damage caused by climate change, or to pay them to participate in mitigation. In the former context, it may be possible to get finance for adaptation projects as part of the global negotiation process and if so, I welcome it.

Taking all of that together, this means the primary focus of international negotiations should be on emissions reductions and mitigation. But if aid for adaptation can be included in the package, that would be a good thing.

While I disagree with John, I can appreciate that his view is identical to that espoused in the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and a logical consequence of its Article 2.

My own view is that Article 2 leads to a devaluing of sustainable development; specifically, it makes little sense in practice to try to separate "climate change adaptation" (where climate change is narrowly defined as those changes resulting from greenhouse gas emissions) from the more general challenge of sustainable development. I argue this point in the following paper:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2005. Misdefining "climate change": consequences for science and action, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 8, pp. 548-561. (PDF)

I suspect that the tensions between rich world countries wanting to focus on emissions and developing countries focusing on development will be a central feature of the upcoming FCCC Bali negotiations.

Posted on November 26, 2007 06:09 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

November 25, 2007

Promises, Promises

Three interesting news stories shared by Benny Peiser:

First on adaptation from The Guardian:

A group of rich countries including Britain has broken a promise to pay more than a billion dollars to help the developing world cope with the effects of climate change. The group agreed in 2001 to pay $1.2bn (£600m) to help poor and vulnerable countries predict and plan for the effects of global warming, as well as fund flood defences, conservation and thousands of other projects. But new figures show less than £90m of the promised money has been delivered. Britain has so far paid just £10m. . .
The vast majority of the promised money was expected to be channelled through funds run by an organisation called the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Washington DC, which was to distribute it through programmes run by the World Bank and United Nations. But accounts presented to a GEF council meeting last week show that only $177m (£86m) had been paid into the funds by September 30 this year, much less than the $1.2bn due by the end of 2007 under the Bonn agreement. Another $106m (£51m) has been pledged to the GEF by specific countries, but not yet paid. Britain has pledged to pay another £10m over the next three years, which makes it among the largest donors, but still below its promised level of commitment.

Saleem Huq, head of the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said Britain should have paid between a fifth and a quarter of the £600m promised to date, based on past contributions to international aid. He said: "Most people in the climate change debate focus on how to cut emissions and how to bring the US, China and India into an agreement. The impact of climate change on poor countries, and the responsibilities of rich countries to help them, gets much less attention." The Department for International Development insisted Britain's share was closer to £30m a year, and that it had "fully met its commitments". It said Britain had given an extra £100m since 2005 to climate change work in the developing world through routes outside the GEF, such as bilateral aid given directly to poor countries.

Huq said this money cannot be counted towards the Bonn agreement because it was part of general overseas aid. "The Bonn agreement is clear that the money paid to help developing countries cope with climate change must be additional. Just counting overseas development aid as money for climate change adaptation cuts no ice and is double counting."

Next on emissions from EU autos:

European Union governments look set to reject calls for taxing cars based on their contribution to climate change.
At a Dec. 4 meeting, finance ministers from the EU’s 27 member states are scheduled to discuss a proposal for reshaping taxes imposed on cars so that they take account of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main climate-changing gas, they emit.

But Portugal, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, has conceded that a breakthrough on this plan is unlikely. This is despite a pledge made by the EU governments earlier this year that they would lead international efforts to fight climate change.

In an internal paper, seen by IPS, the Lisbon government says there is "opposition from a considerable number" of EU countries to "an obligation to introduce a CO2 element into national car taxes."

. . . Angela Merkel, now Germany’s chancellor, advocated in 1994 that a maximum legal limit of 120 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per kilometre should be established for cars. Merkel was her country’s environment minister at the time.

Although EU policy-makers have discussed that target ever since then, the Commission suggested earlier this year that a less stringent goal of 130g/km should be set. Ironically, it agreed to that measure after Merkel and the German car industry lobbied the Commission not to opt for the 120g/km limit.

And on that third runway at Heathrow:

Isn't politics wonderful? Within days of Gordon Brown's address to the conservation group WWF, in which he pledged eye-wateringly tough reductions in British emissions of Co2, the Government has announced its support for the construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport. "This time he really gets it," Greenpeace's executive director had enthused after the Prime Minister's "Let's save the polar bear" speech. Yesterday, following the Transport Secretary's endorsement of BAA's expansion plans, Greenpeace was back to its default position, spitting ecological tacks.
You might think this is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing (or possibly the left hand not knowing what the left hand is doing) especially given the Government's growing reputation for administrative chaos. In fact it is entirely deliberate. The Government both wants to claim "leadership in the fight against climate change" while at the same time it – quite understandably– does not want to do anything which might reduce this country's international competitiveness. It knows that these two objectives are incompatible – very well, then: it will contradict itself. . .

It has been written often enough that any likely reduction in Co2 emissions from our own generation of electricity is not just sub-microscopic in terms of any measurable effect on the climate: the People's Republic of China is now opening two new coal-fired power stations every week. Real "climate change leadership" would be developing "clean coal" technology and selling it to the Chinese – but for some reason that does not fascinate politicians in the way that targets do. It is insufficiently heroic.

We can see the same national self-obsession in the debate over the environmental consequences of opening a third runway at Heathrow: last year China announced plans to expand 73 of its airports and build 42 new ones. Yes, the British government could demonstrate "increased climate change leadership" by blocking BAA's plans to build another runway at Heathrow. Does anyone seriously imagine that the consequence of further congestion and delays will be something other than a transfer of traffic from that airport to others in the immediate vicinity, such as Charles de Gaulle, which already has much more capacity?

Posted on November 25, 2007 08:43 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 20, 2007

Energy? Climate change? Linked? Huh?

How does a high-level federal policymaker go on and on about energy policy, energy "balance," energy technology, clean coal, etc. without the slightest nod to climate change? I'm not sure how it can be done with a straight face, but Texas Senator John Cornyn tried it here Monday in a Dallas Morning News op-ed, and it really is a work of art.

I won't reproduce the 700-word screed here, but it is captivating reading. The word "energy" appears 33 times. Climate? Warming? Not once.

It's not that the Senator ignores the climate change link. It's not even that I think a discussion of energy policy must in all cases discuss climate. No, what's fascinating is the pains it took to dance around the issue in the article without once mentioning it, as if trying to pretend the issue doesn't exist. You can't read the article without knowing that its entire existence owes itself not to the debate over energy security (as Cornyn pretends in the article) but to the debate over climate change responses running through the Senate and House. Senator Cornyn's article is really about the current field of play on climate change politics and how it does and will affect energy policy for Texas, yet he manages to rant on the subject without ever mentioning the climate context. The pointed stand I'm sure is lost on nobody. To his Texas constituents it says, No matter what we do on carbon, I'm fighting for unrestricted, even expanded fossil energy extraction.

At this point, with RGGI, then the WCI and now the MGA, almost the entire country except for the south/southeast is throwing down the gauntlet. Even Kansas is making bold moves in the energy/climate policy area. A look at Pew's map of regional climate initiatives is pretty telling. Hell, Senator, even OPEC is talking about climate change now.

Senator Cornyn's op-ed does one thing: it paints very clearly the climate policy battle lines, and provides a strong reality check for the attitudes that are and are not changing. If you can't get a U.S. Senator to deign to mention climate in a 700-word piece on energy balance, you can see dirt flying from the trenches as they get dug deeper. Of course, not everybody in Texas sees things the same way. When the private equity market speaks that loudly, it makes me wonder who the Senator is getting his advice from.

Posted on November 20, 2007 02:38 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

Optimal Adaptation?

Thomas Henry Huxley once described science as "organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact." The same can be said of economics.

In a unpublished letter to Nature posted as a comment on the Nature Climate Feedback blog Australian economist John Quiggin responds to the recent Prins/Rayner piece in Nature. He explains how economics theory indicates that we really have no reason to worry about adaptation to climate change, because economics theory says so:

Prins and Rayner also assume that because adaptation is as important as mitigation, it should receive equal attention as a focus of public policy. But emissions of greenhouse gases represent a market failure. No individual or nation has a strong incentive to reduce their own emissions. Hence, mitigation requires a global policy response so that this externality is taken into account. By contrast, private parties, in deciding how to adapt to climate change, will, in the absence of policy intervention, bear the costs and receive the benefits of their decisions in most cases. There is no reason to expect too little adaptation.

I suppose one could argue that this thesis is supported by the obvious fact that the world today does indeed have an optimal level of climate adaptation.

But then again, one might also take a look at Bangladesh and the effects of Cyclone Sidr over the past week to see that such an argument is not only wrong but wrongheaded, and perhaps even morally bereft. The two "private parties" in the photo to the left (courtesy of The Boston Herald) are obviously practicing "optimal adaptation" in the "absence of policy intervention."

Yeah, right.

Posted on November 20, 2007 10:32 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

November 19, 2007

IPCC and Policy Options: To Open Up or Close Down?

With the release of the IPCC AR4 Synthesis report last week, the IPCC made a dramatic statement that has thus far escaped notice. The IPCC has endorsed the Kyoto Protocol process, at once discarding its fig leaf of being "policy neutral" and putting its scientific authority on the line by supporting a policy approach that many people think simply cannot work.

The IPCC Synthesis Report states:

There is high agreement and much evidence that notable achievements of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol are the establishment of a global response to climate change, stimulation of an array of national policies, and the creation of an international carbon market and new institutional mechanisms that may provide the foundation for future mitigation efforts. Progress has also been made in addressing adaptation within the UNFCCC and additional international initiatives have been suggested.

The IPCC has never really been "policy neutral" despite its claims, so such openness in its political advocacy is a welcome change (an "emboldened" stance is also noted by the NYT's Elisabeth Rosenthal).

However, its claims that there is "high agreement" and "much evidence" of the success of the Kyoto Protocol approach are simply wrong, unless one restricts those claims to a fairly narrow group of experts. The ability of the Kyoto Protocol approach to effectively deal with the challenge of climate change is hotly debated (for instance, PDF). And there is considerable evidence that it has done little (or less) in practice. The claim by the IPCC that the UNFCCC has contributed to progress on adaptation is laughable (PDF).

In short, the IPCC appears to be using the language and concepts of a scientific consensus to suggest that there is also a consensus on the policy effectiveness and political worth of the Kyoto approach. This is a perfect example of how science becomes pathologically politicized. There are a wide range of approaches to climate change policy that are consistent with the work of the IPCC working groups. For an example of such an approach, see my congressional testimony from last May which synthesizes the 3 IPCC reports (here in PDF) in a way that suggests that it is future development paths that matter much more than Kyoto-like attempts to limit emissions.

Ultimately, it is fair to ask of the IPCC what its role in climate policy actually is -- is it to provide an assessment of the views of a wide range of experts on questions of relevance to decision makers? Or perhaps it is to survey a wide range of policy options to facilitate decision making by governments? Or is it to pick a "winner" in climate politics and advocate for its agenda above all others?

Is it to open up debate on climate policy or close it down? Judging by the AR4 Synthesis Report the IPCC has chosen the latter path.

The risk is that the IPCC has chosen a losing policy option to advocate for -- "the wrong trousers" to borrow a metaphor -- and thus is more likely to work against the adoption of effective climate policies than it would by presenting policy makers with a wide range of options to chose from, including but not limited to Kyoto. Climate policy debates will be ongoing for years and probably decades. We will need honest brokers if we are to made good decisions about climate policy.

The more that the IPCC resembles an advocacy group with a narrow political agenda tied to the Kyoto Protocol, the more it risks its credibility, legitimacy, and ultimately, its sustainability.

Posted on November 19, 2007 10:21 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Prins and Rayner - The Wrong Trousers

Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner have released the full version of their analysis of the failure of the Kyoto Protocol. It is available as a PDF here. They write:

The idea that the Kyoto Protocol approach to climate change mitigation is the only solution compounds the problem of finding viable responses for real problems. Another solution must be found—or rather other solutions.

It is a thoughtful, hard-hitting, and on target assessment of the current state of climate policy debate. It deserves to be read carefully and broadly discussed. Have a look.

Posted on November 19, 2007 10:15 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 15, 2007

The Technological Fix

On Monday we had Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus kindly give a lecture on their new book Break Through. It was great to have them stop by, and nice to have an opportunity to get answers to questions about their book. Turnout was in the 100 range, judging by the size of the room. If you haven't read the book yet, you can either buy it, camp out in Borders with a cup of joe, or check out a three minute overview given by Geoff McGhee and Andrew Revkin of the NY Times covering the "New Environmental Centrists."

I want to respond to at least one of their claims, as well as a claim that appears to be circulating in the blogo-ether as what Revkin is calling the "Centrist" position, regarding the thought that we should encourage technological fixes to our problems. The reason I want to respond to this claim is both because I think it's right; and because I think it's, well, not right.

So let's talk about technological fixes.

I'm something of a technology buff. I like gadgets. I like science. And I like what technology does for me and the world. I also like what came about as a result of the ramped up R&D funds during the nineties. Moreover, I've never been totally enthusiastic about some of the neo-luddite language that once passed as environmentalist, so I agree with Shellenberger and Nordhaus (S&N) that we should all be encouraging, funding, supporting, and promoting technologies that help our civilization and our country advance. In fact, I also agree that environmentalists should be considerably more aspirational than desperational.

S&N argue persuasively that the "politics of limits" -- which is, roughly, the idea that regulation can serve as a cure-all to the world's environmental problems -- ought to be replaced with a "politics of possibility" -- which is kind of hopeful thinking about new possible worlds. Their argument runs primarily along political strategy lines and is buttressed by many studies that show that Americans don't respond well to the pessimism and "scare tactics" of environmentalism. The book's central idea should be familiar to anyone who has read their earlier work, Death of Environmentalism. In the end, it hangs on this dichotomy of political orientations: limits versus possibility.

And in this dichotomy lies the problem. It's a false concretism, supported mainly by S&N's choices of what counts as an environmental issue. Much of their book is geared to address concerns that relate to climate change. That's fine and well, of course, because climate change is one of the major hurdles that has been motivating the environmental movement for the past ten years or so. But it is also true that environmentalists have been dealing with many more problems than climate change for quite some time now. To declare the death of environmentalism, or to suggest that the positive panacea to the chicken-little environmental frame of mind is through technological and economic fixes, and that these fixes run contrary to the politics of limits, is to undermine a critical ethical thread that runs through environmental thinking altogether.

The greatest real-world instance of this thread is the relatively wide range of environmental issues that don't fall under the category of climate change; that were, prior to Al Gore and the Prius, central environmental issues. Here I'm thinking of issues like deforestation, desertification, extinction, habitat encroachment, water depletion, and so on. Environmental issues span the gamut, and many of them deal with human activities in and around nature. These issues can never be handled by technological or economic fixes, precisely because they are not problems of technical or economic failure. Some issues, for instance, relate to the problem of urban sprawl or to overconsumption, which cannot possibly be solved by appeal to technological or economic fixes. The "over" in 'overconsumption' isn't determined by what other people don't have (though that, surely, is part of it); it's determined by how much a person is entitled to and how much a person can reasonably use. Even Locke recognizes prohibitions against spoilage. These are primarily ethical and philosophical notions.

A second problem is that many of the classic environmental issues, among which climate change is only one, are best characterized as conflicts of interest, not just between two actors, but also between one actor and the environment. I want a cherry dining set, you want a cherry dining set, and there ain't enough cherry growing fast enough to give us both what we want. Moreover, when I take that cherry for my cherry dining set, I deprive the world of that cherry tree. In this case, it's not just any cherry tree; it's that cherry tree; that cherry tree under which Harold kissed Maude, under which Abe told his truth, under which Erma held her bowl. So too for many environmental problems: I want a ski slope, so I take that mountain. I want a fountain, so I take that reservoir. I want a McMansion development, so I take that open space. Taking specific features of nature yields particularized conflicts of interest; but even more than this, particularized clashes over what is and what is not permissible. Again, permissibility is an ethical issue, only loosely and tangentially related to the so-called "politics of limits."

What I'm expressing here isn't at all pessimism about technology. Far from it. As I've said, I like and support technological innovation. I'd even root for a budget that included a lot of it. I'm hoping to point out that S&N's "politics of limits vs politics of possibility" dichotomy has many rough edges; inattention to which heralds a premature call for the death of environmentalism.

For more on this, my colleague Michael Zimmerman, Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Environmental Studies Program, as well as an outspoken advocate of an expansively multidisciplinary approach to environmental issues, Integral Ecology, has his own new blog and has further comments on S&N here: http://integralecology-michaelz.blogspot.com/

November 08, 2007

Waxman vs EPA; Hansen vs Carbon

Congressman Henry Waxman excoriated EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson yesterday for the agency's approval of a new coal-fired power plant in Utah, charging that the move "is the climate equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire."

In his opening statement at the beginning of a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Waxman said, "The approval of new power plants without carbon controls is irresponsible; it is indefensible; and it is illegal."

In charging illegal behavior by the EPA, Waxman must be referring to the Supreme Court Decision in April finding that the agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Never mind that the court did not exactly order the EPA to set mandatory limits. Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the petitioners ask EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles under §202 of the Clean Air Act? Last I looked, coal power plants were not mobile.

In any case, Waxman has been miffed since the EPA granted a permit in August for the new Deseret coal plant in Utah. "EPA didn't require any pollution controls for greenhouse gases," the California congressman said yesterday. "And it didn't consider other alternatives, such as renewable energy sources . . . It's as if the Supreme Court never ruled, and EPA never heard of global warming."

While Stephen Johnson was being flayed in Congress, a new paper was arguing that coal-fired power plants not equipped with carbon sequestration technology must be phased out before mid-century if CO2 is to be kept below the magic 450 ppm. The paper, by Pushker Khareecha and James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been submitted to Environmental Research Letters, and was posted as a pre-press article on the GISS Web site.

In their paper, "Implications of 'peak oil' for atmospheric CO2 and climate," Khareecha and Hansen state that if estimates of oil and gas reserves by the Energy Information Administration prove accurate, atmospheric CO2 can be kept below 450 ppm, "provided that carbon capture and sequestration is implemented for coal and unconventional fossil fuels." They argue that gains in efficiency are necessary to "stretch" conventional oil reserves, obviating the need to turn to liquid fuels from coal, tar sands, oil shale and other unconventional fossil fuels. And they suggest that "a rising price on carbon emissions is probably needed to keep CO2 beneath the 450 ppm ceiling."

Kharecha and Hansen point out that their estimates do not take into account a variety of factors that could lead to higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide than their peak oil scenarios suggest. For example, the ocean’s ability to take up CO2 decreases as the amount of dissolved carbon goes up. Forests dying, permafrost thawing, and seafloor methane hydrates melting could add yet more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And deforestation could exacerbate the situation still further.

The authors write:

"This suggests that society adopt a low limit on atmospheric CO2, which in turn implies that the putatively vast coal and unconventional fossil fuel reservoirs (figure 1) cannot be exploited unless the resulting CO2 is captured and sequestered. This conclusion does not depend upon details of the scenarios for fossil fuel use or upon the likely errors due to our approximation of the carbon cycle. Instead it depends largely on the fact that a substantial fraction—approximately one-quarter—of anthropogenic CO2 emissions will remain in the air more than 500 years (Archer 2005), which for practical purposes is an eternity."

If you need any further convincing that leaving tar sands in the ground is on balance a good idea, check out Elizabeth Kolbert's article in this week's New Yorker. (Read an abstract here.)

Lastly, Thursday ended on a more light-hearted note with an apparent but unconfirmed and possibly contested winner in the Best Science Blog contest of the 2007 Weblog Awards. Early in the afternoon, I received an email forward from Andy Revkin about a supposed rush by supporters and foes of Climate Audit to essentially stuff the ballot boxes. In this wacky election, you could actually vote once every 24 hours. (Mayor Daley, Sr., would have been proud.) And allegedly, climate skeptics were rushing in to try to push Climate Audit over the top. But a last minute blitz from the other side apparently gave another blog, Bad Astronomy, a razor thin edge of 45 votes out of more than 54,995 cast. (In his Climate Audit blog today, however, Steve McIntyre claimed victory — perhaps before the final numbers were tallied.)

A recount is apparently in progress…

Posted on November 8, 2007 08:09 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Yulsman, T. | Climate Change

November 07, 2007

Sokal Revisited - I Smell a Hoax

Benny Peiser sent around on his CCNet list a link to the following paper:

Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory? Journal of Geoclimatic Studies (2007) 13:3. 223-231.

It has the following statement within the text:

Moreover we note that there is no possible mechanism by which industrial emissions could have caused the recent temperature increase, as they are two orders of magnitude too small to have exerted an effect of this size. We have no choice but to conclude that the recent increase in global temperatures, which has caused so much disquiet among policy makers, bears no relation to industrial emissions, but is in fact a natural phenomenom.
These findings place us in a difficult position. We feel an obligation to publish, both in the cause of scientific objectivity and to prevent a terrible mistake - with extremely costly implications - from being made by the world's governments. But we recognise that in doing so, we lay our careers on the line. As we have found in seeking to broach this issue gently with colleagues, and in attempting to publish these findings in other peer-reviewed journals, the "consensus" on climate change is enforced not by fact but by fear. We have been warned, collectively and individually, that in bringing our findings to public attention we are not only likely to be deprived of all future sources of funding, but that we also jeopardise the funding of the departments for which we work.

We believe that academic intimidation of this kind contradicts the spirit of open enquiry in which scientific investigations should be conducted. We deplore the aggressive responses we encountered before our findings were published, and fear the reaction this paper might provoke. But dangerous as these findings are, we feel we have no choice but to publish.

Shocking, it seems. But call me a skeptic skeptic - I'm calling this a hoax.

Posted on November 7, 2007 12:32 PM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 05, 2007

An appreciation of Mr. Bloomberg

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now out in favor of a carbon tax (see also this post by Charlie Komanoff). This is significant because it makes him one of the very few nationally-prominent (or at least nationally-known) politicians to stake out for a C tax over cap-and-trade.

Bloomberg's support for a C tax is important both because he is seen as a technocrat's technocrat and because he presides over eight million carbon consumers. Unfortunately, as Redburn illustrates well in his article, carbon tax proponents have more than an uphill battle to get their way on climate mitigation legislation.

It's not that the carbon tax or cap-and-trade? debate is over already (which, really, would be before it even began), it's that there is a strong perception in the community that it is over. Wonky types (which in my usage are political realists, not optimists), especially those with some influence on the policy development process, have been telling me personally and conference crowds (like this one) that it's all over and cap-and-trade is a done deal. This perception might be more important than (the way I see) reality, which is that nobody wants to deal with this problem and because of this, all options are still on the table. It's not that I am full bore on the C-tax train either, but I would like to see an honest, complete national debate on the two approaches before the "elites" declare the policy problem solved. In particular, I would love to see this issue come out during primary debates for both parties, to at least introduce the average Joe to the issue. Of course, the vagaries of carbon economics will be viewed by party handlers as too nuanced and difficult to explain during debate, but I'll preemptively call bullshit on that line. Try us.

Speaking of Mr. Bloomberg, I was flying back from NYC on Halloween and, caught in the captive state of the miserable United economy passenger, had nothing better to do but read deep into the nether regions of the NY Times metro section. There I found this article about a public stumble between the mayyuh and a deceased NYPD officer, James Zadroga, who had worked long hours at the World Trade Center site. Zadroga passed away a few years later and his family wanted the cause of his death to be declared working at the WTC site.

Before going further, I should explain this: there is emotion involved in the environmental problem of the WTC site that goes beyond the attacks. I lived in NY during the WTC attacks and the smell of the burning pile was strong for at least two weeks and was noticeable even far uptown (north) when the prevailing winds are westerly. My recollection is that near the site the smell was strong even a month after the attacks. Everybody in that city knows the smell of the WTC site, and I think that experience triggers an immediate sympathy in citizens for the workers (many of whom stayed on the site for weeks without going home) and what they were exposed to. The EPA debacle with air quality testing and the public relations of it didn't help. So the fact that a family claims that one of their sons was killed by WTC air after working on the site is bound to garner immediate sympathy for the claim.

Bloomberg perhaps forgot this context when he addressed Zadroga's case. A pathologist had declared Zadroga's death a direct result of WTC air, but NYC's medical examiner recently rejected that finding. In a clear case of dueling experts, Bloomberg picked his. Despite this strong statement from the NYC employee:

"Our evaluation of your son’s lung abnormality is markedly different than that given you by others," Dr. Hirsch wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday and also signed by Dr. Michele S. Stone, another medical examiner. "It is our unequivocal opinion, with certainty beyond doubt, that the foreign material in your son’s lungs did not get there as the result of inhaling dust at the World Trade Center or elsewhere."

the excess of objectivity problem is clear. The family's response:

"We knew the city was going to say this," Mr. Zadroga said. "They’ve been lying since Jimmy got sick. They've been lying about all these W.T.C. people getting sick. They would never admit that Jimmy got sick. They treated him like a dog all those years."

Instead of recognizing the excess of objectivity problem, and forgetting all of the other political context to this case, Bloomberg simply said Zadroga was "not a hero." Oops.

All of this isn't really what caught my eye, though. It was the way Bloomberg handled the backlash:

The tone of Mr. Bloomberg's comments yesterday veered sharply from statements he made on Monday after receiving an award from the Harvard School of Public Health. Asked why science could be unpopular, he said that it sometimes provided answers that people did not want to hear, as in the case of Mr. Zadroga. Referring to Dr. Hirsch’s finding, he said, "Nobody wanted to hear that."
"We wanted to have a hero, and there are plenty of heroes," he said. "It's just in this case, science says this was not a hero."

Yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg described Detective Zadroga as "a dedicated police officer" with an impressive record who "volunteered to work downtown, and I think that the odds are that he clearly got sick because of breathing the air — but that's up to the doctors."

So he doesn't exactly grasp that the word "hero" is loaded and dripping with emotion, especially in this case, and especially in NY where the tabloids use the word as an interchangeable synonym for police officers and firefighters. But at least he gets why he's being attacked for his statements and what science and the popular perception and acceptance of science has to do with it.

Posted on November 5, 2007 01:53 PM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

November 02, 2007

Individual Behavior and Climate Policy

Michael Vandenbergh and Anne Steinemann have a paper forthcoming in the NYU Law Review called "The Carbon Neutral Individual." (a preprint is available on SSRN.)

In this paper, Vandenbergh and Steinemann assess the carbon dioxide output under the direct control of individuals and households, such as driving, space heating, household electricity use, and find that this accounts for 32% of US carbon dioxide emissions. The authors do not attempt a comprehensive footprint (something that would include indirect carbon emissions from manufacturing commodities, grow food, etc.) but focus on those things where the carbon dioxide emissions are most directly connected to the individual's action (getting in the car or adjusting the thermostat).

The paper notes that just the individual and household carbon emissions in the U.S. are greater than the total emissions of any other nation save China.

Vandenbergh and Steinemann conclude that any climate change mitigation policy must seriously consider measures to stimulate individual behavior change---perhaps by activating personal norms---in addition to more traditional regulatory actions that focus on large industrial actors.

On which topic, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the Precourt Institute, and the California Institute for Energy and Environment are holding a joint conference next week in Sacramento on Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change

Disclaimer: I work with Vandenbergh, so this is not an unbiased assessment.

Posted on November 2, 2007 08:35 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Gilligan, J. | Climate Change

November 01, 2007

The Young and the Mindless

As virtually anybody who has flipped on the news in the past ten days knows, residents of Southern California have experienced something not unlike Dante’s fiery sixth circle of hell. Short story: Big fire, at least fourteen dead, 138 injured, a million displaced, and billions of dollars in property damage. Shorter story: pretty awful. As usual, speculations about causal origin immediately spread (like wildfire) throughout the modern mess media. Fox news reported several times, presumably non-speculatively, that the fires might have been deliberately set by Al Qaeda. Scary stuff. On the other end of the spectrum, Matt Drudge slung the mud that some high-level producer at CNN had circulated a memo that commentators should use the fires to “push” the Planet in Peril series, but that they shouldn’t do so “irresponsibly.” Here’s an illuminating series of comments from the ever-entertaining Free Republic. Today, as a matter of fact, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is holding a hearing on the intensity and frequency of forest fires as tied to global warming. Coincidence? Probably not.

Sigh. It would appear from the shenanigans that nothing is immune from politics.

It came to light yesterday that a young boy, age uncertain, in what can only be described either as a child’s act of pyro-curiosity or as a defiant act against an overly paternalistic Smokey the Bear, has claimed responsibility for -- wait for it -- playing with matches. Denying Smokey’s sage advice, the boy was being a boy; and playing with matches. As most kids with scout badges know, playing with matches can cause forest fires. So here we have our cause of the fire. Or at least we have one cause of one of the fires.

Smokey the Bear Now that we know that a careless young boy was the cause of so much heartache, we are left with the undesirable question of how to make sense of this news. There are plenty of ways to think about kids who play with matches. Discussion in many circles (probably not far from the sixth circle) has already shifted to arguments about whether the boy should get the gallows or the guillotine. That’s a point for a different but not unrelated discussion. For some reason, however, it appears that many are inclined to view this revelation as one that confirms the absurdity of whatever offensive political view was brought to bear on explanatory accounts of the event. Progressives are calling foul on terror-mongers and reactionaries are calling foul on chicken-littles.

Let’s talk about causes below the fold.

Start with a bit of cocktail party name-dropping: our homeboy Aristotle. As his Physics is one of the mainstay texts in your library -- it is in your library, isn’t it? -- you’ll probably recall that Aristotle identifies four causes: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final cause. For those sad souls who’ve lost their copy of Aristotle in the fire, you can read philosopher Marc Cohen’s notes on the causes here. (They’re pretty good.) These causes are more or less each supposed to provide answers to the question: What causes X? You don’t really need to understand all four causes in order to get the point I’m going to make, just that they each provide plausible answers to the question “what causes X” and that they don’t necessarily run at odds with one another.

What caused the fire? Good question. Fire is kind of tricky, but let’s aim for a plausible answer. It has come to our attention that what caused the fire was a little boy who was playing with matches. That answers some questions, but it doesn’t answer all of our questions. For instance, we know that a boy caused the fire, so it appears that a human was behind the event. That’s our efficient cause. We also know that matches caused the fire, so somehow there was some material causal chain unrelated to humans. That’s our material cause. Along with this, we know that there was low-lying brush and some high branchy-trees, creating a nice little furnace for our fire. So there we have our formal cause as well. What we also know is that what caused the fire was a lot of dry branches and stuff, all of which ‘likes to burn’, which is a natural cycle of any forest. That sounds pretty reasonable too: our final cause. A quartet of causes leading to a cacophony of disaster.

If we stop at the beginning, with the efficient cause, we see that our questions quickly open up along the axis of responsibility. Was the boy really aware of what he was doing? Did he have intent? Could he have done otherwise? Was the boy trained by Al Qaeda? And so on, and so on. We could go on for quite a long time down this road. I say, spare him the gallows. It’s likely that he’s just a normal kid.

Those questions, I daresay, are a pretty divergent distraction from the much more central question that readers of this blog will likely seek an answer for. What readers here probably want to know is the underlying formal cause, the reason that Southern California went up like Bambi’s bedroom. Joseph Romm has a pretty informative essay suggesting that global warming may be partly responsible. I’m not qualified to judge Romm’s science, but I find his argument plausible. Just as with the axis of responsibility, we could go on for quite a long time down that road too. Formal causes are pretty hard to nail down.

What strikes me as important here is not which of the many different kinds of causes are responsible for the fire. We can come up with several explanations, none of which are contradictory. No, what’s important is that we recognize that we can’t just wipe other causal explanations off our list when we’ve identified a single causal explanation like, say, a child with a matchbook. Setting aside the thought that the fires could have been set by a single young boy or several young terrorists-in-training, there is the important question about what formal arrangement facilitated the event. These formal causal explanations run independently of efficient causal explanations (not to mention material causal explanations or, gads, final causal explanations). Formal causal explanations are what are at issue when people point the finger at climate change.

Though Aristotle’s taxonomy of causes is pretty outdated -- okay, very outdated -- what I like about it is that it clarifies the multidimensionality of causes, pulling us in a direction away from searching for the elusive “root cause.” All ye who embark on that search, as they say, might as well abandon hope.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program: http://www.smokeybear.com/

October 30, 2007

A Range of Views on Prins/Rayner

Here are a few reactions, and my comments in response, to the Prins/Rayner piece in Nature last week, which has generated a good deal of healthy discussion on climate policies.

At his new DotEarth blog Andy Revkin notes perceptively that debate over greenhouse gas reduction policies is emerging between those who think that setting a price for carbon is the most important action to be taken, versus others who think that setting a price for carbon can only have modest effects on efficiency, and by itself will not stimulate a transition to a post-fossil fuel world. Most everyone nowadays, including Prins/Rayner, would seem to agree that putting a price on carbon makes good sense. The debate is over the degree to which setting such a price will lead to a significant change in the trajectory of emissions paths. Prins/Rayner are not optimistic (and I agree), and others are more sanguine.

At Nature’s Climate Feedback, a number of informed commenters respond to Prins/Rayner by raising questions about the effectiveness of Kyoto mechanisms. Prins/Rayner emphasize the symbolic importance of Kyoto, but criticize its practical results. They suggest that more of the same – feel-good symbolism over actual, large emissions reductions – is not what the world needs at this point. On this point reasonable people will disagree, but ultimately atmospheric concentrations will arbitrate the debate.

The Wall Street Journal Energy Blog does a nice job identifying where Prins/Rayner agree with and disagree with the policies of the Bush Administration. Unfortunately, the role of technology in the climate debate has been caught up in partisan bickering. Some argue that all of the technologies that are needed to stabilize emissions (or at least make a big forward step in that direction) are already available. I find this argument unconvincing at best, and more likely just plain wrongheaded. Others, such as Nordhaus/Shellenberger suggest that a massive investment in new technologies are needed, a point on which I, and Prins/Rayner, agree. Many environmentalists do their arguments (and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) no favors by taking an anti-technological investment stance, which seems more like a reflexive reaction to be against anything that the Bush Administration might be for -- Note however that while the Bush Administration often uses the word "technology" in the context of climate change policy, they have never advocated the sort of investment advocated by Prins/Rayner/Nordhaus/Shellenberger.

There will be more to discuss when Prins/Rayner release the long version of their analysis, hopefully soon. We’ll link to it here when available.

Posted on October 30, 2007 07:05 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

October 24, 2007

Prins and Rayner in Nature

Gwyn Prins, of the London School of Economics, and Steve Rayner, of Oxford University have a brave and challenging piece in the current issue of Nature on why we need to rethink climate policy. Here is how it begins:

The Kyoto Protocol is a symbolically important expression of governments' concern about climate change. But as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, it has failed. It has produced no demonstrable reductions in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth. And it pays no more than token attention to the needs of societies to adapt to existing climate change. The impending United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Bali in December — to decide international policy after 2012 — needs to radically rethink climate policy.
Kyoto's supporters often blame non-signatory governments, especially the United States and Australia, for its woes. But the Kyoto Protocol was always the wrong tool for the nature of the job. Kyoto was constructed by quickly borrowing from past treaty regimes dealing with stratospheric ozone depletion, acid rain from sulphur emissions and nuclear weapons. Drawing on these plausible but partial analogies, Kyoto's architects assumed that climate change would be best attacked directly through global emissions controls, treating tonnes of carbon dioxide like stockpiles of nuclear weapons to be reduced via mutually verifiable targets and timetables. Unfortunately, this borrowing simply failed to accommodate the complexity of the climate-change issue.

Kyoto has failed in several ways, not just in its lack of success in slowing global warming, but also because it has stifled discussion of alternative policy approaches that could both combat climate change and adapt to its unavoidable consequences. As Kyoto became a litmus test of political correctness, those who were concerned about climate change, but sceptical of the top-down approach adopted by the protocol were sternly admonished that "Kyoto is the only game in town". We are anxious that the same mistake is not repeated in the current round of negotiations.

The Kyoto Protocol was always the wrong tool for the nature of the job.

Already, in the post-Kyoto discussions, we are witnessing that well-documented human response to failure, especially where political or emotional capital is involved, which is to insist on more of what is not working: in this case more stringent targets and timetables, involving more countries. The next round of negotiations needs to open up new approaches, not to close them down as Kyoto did.

Read the whole thing free on the Nature site.

Posted on October 24, 2007 02:13 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 19, 2007

Citing carbon emissions, Kansas rejects coal plants

Hard to say what John Marburger would say about this (more on him in a minute), but yesterday Kansas' Secretary of Health and Environment cited carbon emissions in rejecting the application to install two 700MW coal plants in western Kansas.

The move may be more about politics than about climate, but whatever the reasons, the decision was sold on climate and that's as important as it is surprising. It's also another loud declaration that the states aren't going to wait around for a national-level policy to move on climate mitigation. Here's hoping that the losers on this decision give more thought to developing a profitable wind project on the plains than to giving lawyers millions to argue the coal case. (The quote from the coal plant developer's spokesman, "We are extremely upset over this arbitrary and capricious decision" invokes the legal key phrase that spells l-a-w-s-u-i-t.)

News on the Kansas move comes on the heels of some bizarre statements on climate change from Mr. Marburger. I'm not sure what his agenda is, exactly, but the Washington Post today has him saying

...the target of preventing Earth from warming more than two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, "is going to be a very difficult one to achieve and is not actually linked to regional events that affect people's lives."

and

Marburger said that while there is general agreement that human activity is producing too much carbon dioxide and "you could have emerging disasters long before you get to two degrees. . . . There is no scientific criterion for establishing numbers like that."

I'm wondering what the point of saying this is. Is he trying to pave the way for the Bush White House to say, "We're not going to target 2 degrees, we're going to target 3."? Certainly his "not linked to regional events" statement is an absurd misdirection, completely ignoring risk while seeming to make a case for inaction due to incomplete information. His second statement essentially does the same, this time acknowledging risk but implying that it is not well-enough characterized to make policy choices. Are Mr. Marburger's statements part of a White House communication strategy or is this really how he is approaching and advising the problem?

Posted on October 19, 2007 03:07 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

October 17, 2007

The Misdirection of Gore

--> UPDATE: Team Gore responds to the allegations discussed below.<--

:::::::::::

Over the past few weeks, Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" has gotten attention not only because he has been awarded a Nobel, but also from the British judiciary. In response to a court case brought against the school system after it made the film available to its teachers, a judge in Britain found that the film is permitted to be shown in schools, but that it must also be accompanied by scientific guides that go into further depth on the claims in the film. Here's an article describing the case: BBC News.

What's interesting is the extent to which this response is being spun by many journalists as a blow against the scientific accuracy of Gore's film (and, consequently, a win for those who view global climate change as primarily a political issue). See here: The Times, ABC News, The Washington Post, The Telegraph, and many others, as well as the BBC article I cite above. For intelligent and must-read commentary on sloppy and irresponsible journalism, read this, from Deltoid.

But first, let's pick this lede apart.

According to reports, many of which have been trumpeted on the DrudgeReport, a lorry driver reportedly has won his case against Al Gore's film because a judge decided (determined, declared) that some of the statements in Al Gore's film are scientifically inaccurate. Not 'misleading', mind you, but scientifically inaccurate. The above commentary at Deltoid demonstrates this report about the judge's verdict to be patently false: the judge only cited the alleged nine errors as 'errors'. He did not rule on their content at all.

I think there are other worrisome outcomes of such reporting, and that's what I wanted to gripe about here. At worst, some, but not all, of Gore's comments are misleading. But if Gore's comments are only misleading, they just need clarification, which is presumably provided in the guide (link below). The nine claims of misleadingness (reported in some papers as scientific inaccuracies) are, as it turns out, largely related to implications resulting from images superimposed over dialogue, as when one uses the word 'like' to issue an example. For instance, there is a moment in the film where images of Katrina are shown over dialogue suggesting that hurricane intensity may increase due to warming. Such implications apparently aggravate people-who-play-meteorologists-on-TV, like CNN's Rob Marciano.

So let's ask these questions: was Katrina a hurricane? Was it intense? And did it have dire implications for human beings? I think the answer to all of those questions is 'yes', though some may beg to differ. Seems to me that the choice of Katrina images was clearly aimed to illustrate a point, not to fallaciously imply or declare causality. Would any other images serve to illustrate that point? Perhaps. Would a cartoon of a hurricane? Not likely. Or perhaps the word 'hurricane'? Unlikely as well. Or what about a different hurricane, like Dean or Humberto or Ingrid? Possibly, but probably not as poignantly. The depiction of images from Katrina seems like a pretty reasonable illustration to me, though it has been spun by many people into an implied causal relationship.

In a way, using Katrina to illustrate this point is like offering up the claim that cigarettes result in millions of lung cancer deaths while superimposing a picture of an expansive cemetery. It's preposterous for folks like Marciano to claim that somehow the speaker is misleading the audience into believing that all people buried in that cemetery had died of lung cancer. Just so, it's preposterous to claim that this moment in the film is somehow scientifically inaccurate. (Just so, it'd be preposterous of a reader to claim that I had accused Rob Marciano of saying something about smoking deaths.) A causal relationship was never implied in the first place (disregarding, for the time being, questions about causality and observation).

Further, if the charge is as reported -- that the claims are scientifically inaccurate -- then the charge is itself misleading. It suggests (or implies) either that the whole documentary is false (or scientifically inaccurate) or that some portions of the documentary are false (or scientifically inaccurate), just as when a finger is pointed at an accused and that accused is presumed guilty from the wag of the finger.

Finally, if the charge is only that Gore's comments are misleading, the charge stands as a charge of misleadingness, not a correction or clarification of what's misleading about the statements. This is an old trick of the sophists: to sully the speaker by indicting his expertise without actually working constructively or charitably to strengthen the argument. In short, it's a fallacy.

Luckily, the guide offered (and now mandated by a judge) to teachers in the UK school system spells this all out. Check it out here.

Personally, I think the guide, and even the court decision, is a victory. It clarifies important concerns that the film glosses over (presumably for editorial as well as illustrative purposes) and it certainly makes the film more engaging for students. It is, in this respect, a useful pedagogical aid. Far from being a corrective for inaccuracies and misleading claims, it's an attempt to help students think critically about their role in the climate. Just read it. I think it's pretty clear that students who engage in this discussion before, during, and after the film will come away with a richer sense of the climate concerns than before. Much thanks to Gore and the British Government for that.

Posted on October 17, 2007 11:37 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Hale, B. | Climate Change

October 12, 2007

Al Gore and the Nobel

Former Vice-President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) share this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. In doing so, they join the ranks of previous winners such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and many other internationally recognized figures working on human rights and global security issues.

I was personally surprised by this decision by the Nobel Committee on many levels.

In my recollection, the Nobel Peace Prize is traditionally awarded to individuals and organizations working to end human conflict or improve the lives and dignity of oppressed or poverty-stricken people. In awarding the prize to Gore and the IPCC for the climate change issue, the Nobel Committee are extending the boundaries of what we recognize as a human conflict issue to include the global environmental issue of climate change. Certainly climate change has the potential to inflame conflicts and initiate new ones, and many have pointed this out in their evaluation of the impacts of climate change on societies. But in my opinion the Nobel should be reserved for those on the front lines combating the human tragedies of our day such as the atrocities of Darfur, ongoing military occupation in Burma, and plunging life expectancy in many African nations. That the Nobel Committee has no environmental prize is a reflection on the inadequacy of the Nobel categories, and should not be an excuse to make the Peace prize into the political issue “catch-all” category of the day.

But I have a few specific beefs with the Nobel Committee’s selection of Mr. Gore. The citation reads: “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" and for Gore specifically, “He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.” Certainly the IPCC has done this in spades, for many years and involving many, many scientists. The IPCC and the thousands of individuals who generally volunteer their time deserve a great recognition. But Mr. Gore has had a mixed record in his efforts on climate change. Certainly, he recognized the importance of the issue early on, writing a book on the subject, “Earth in the Balance,” in 1992. But Gore has also had an opportunity to influence US policy from the second highest platform available—the Vice-Presidency. In his 8 year term as Vice-President, the US became a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol (largely attributed to Mr. Gore’s efforts) but never ratified it. The blame for this has been laid on President Bush, but Mr. Gore did not make this a platform of his Presidential campaign, nor did he attempt to spend political capital to get the Protocol ratified before he left office. In addition, no reputable scientist believes that the measures of the Kyoto Protocol, even if fully adopted by all signatories, would put much of a dent in the global warming problem. The Kyoto Protocol may be a “good start” as some have said, but it may just as easily be seen as a detrimental distraction to the reality of seriously solving the problem. We need reductions of 80-90% in the long term, some say in the next few decades. How are we going to get there?

As far as “measures needed to counteract such change,” Mr. Gore’s communication efforts thus far leave much to be desired. As his documentary illustrates well, he is a consummate scientific communicator, and he has done a great job of communicating the science of climate change to a wider audience. As far as promoting adequate solutions, however, Mr. Gore falls short. In his film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, he only begins to discuss solutions two thirds of the way into the movie, and then only in a cursory manner. Mr. Gore does not even mention the energy part of the climate change problem until more than half way through the movie. There is a reason he was unable to urge the Congress to ratify the Protocol. There was a reason he did not make climate change a central platform of his Presidential campaign. The fact is, the solutions that are needed to get to 80 or 90% reduction in CO2 emissions are politically and infrastructurally difficult. Mr. Gore cites that “political will is a renewable resource”, and certainly political will is a necessary feature. But even more necessary are real, committed strategies to begin to make stringent reductions in emissions. And in that department Mr. Gore is still where many advocates are on the climate issue. Raising awareness is a good thing, but what we really need is action.

Perhaps the Nobel Prize Committee shares this sense of urgency, and with their selection is intending to do their part to elevate the issue. Certainly others are interpreting their actions this way-- for example Rep. Al Markey (D-MA) on CBS-- “Now that Mr. Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, it is up to Congress to act.”

Hmm. An Oscar and a Peace Prize. Maybe now people will sit up and take notice. I just wonder what they will take notice of. Most of the press coverage of Mr. Gore’s selection has included speculation on whether or not he will run for president again . But the climate change issue is not about a single person or finding the magic button to get people’s attention. We need to get past symbolic gestures and dramatic theater. My hope is that someone will soon win a Nobel Prize for discovering a way for humans to live peaceably and in good health without exhausting our non-renewable resources or polluting the planet for future generations and the rest of the world’s species.

Posted on October 12, 2007 03:29 PM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Dilling, L. | Climate Change

September 29, 2007

Late Action by Lame Ducks

I have a new column out in Bridges on a scenario for the climate policy end game by the Bush Administration -- read it here.

Posted on September 29, 2007 07:23 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

September 07, 2007

Advise Requested for Survey Analysis

Guest Submission by Hans von Storch and Dennis Bray

In the following we outline a research strategy to characterize sub-groups of climate scientists; the idea is to first propose a short operational list of certain interesting, mostly exclusive but not complete subgroups; these are related to three general criteria.

At this time we ask for comments on both the list of the four categories and on the three general criteria. When we have come to a conclusion with regard to the list and to these criteria, we will try to map the responses collected in our surveys of climate scientists to these groups and criteria – with the idea that in this way we may describe the a host of views , conceptions and perceptions held by these different groups.

We begin with operational definitions of the categories. They are:

1. Advocate Pro.

Scientists in this category are those who are convinced of the reality on ongoing and future anthropogenic climate change. It is the contention of these scientists that climate change will have catastrophic impacts if left unmitigated. This category of scientists perceive it as a moral and professional obligation to alert the public to the impending dangers of climate change and to lobby for political resolve in terms of significant reductions of GHG emissions and the necessary changes in lifestyle and global economy.

2. Advocate Con

Scientists in this category consider the concept of anthropogenic climate change as either insignificant or outright false. They consider the drive towards climate change policy as ill conceived and, sometimes, as a tool to push for a broader environmentalist agenda. Similar to the “advocate pro”, this groups sees lobbying as a necessity, but it is lobbying for goals that stand in opposition to the “advocate pro”.

3. Concerned Pro

Scientists in this category, like those in the “advocate pro” category, are convinced of ongoing and future anthropogenic climate change. They also contend that climate change will have significant impacts. This category differs, however, from the “advocate pro” in as much as these scientists, while accepting as a professional responsibility the undertaking of informing the public to possible dangers, do so without pushing for specific policy choices. In other words, they are information, not solution brokers.

4. Doubters

This category of scientists holds no strong conviction concerning anthropogenic climate change or its potential impacts. In this category, climate change is perceived of as a relevant scientific issue but the challenge is to generate more knowledge. Until further knowledge is available they consider anthropogenic climate change to be a significant, but albeit not dominant, issue.

We want to characterize these four categories by employing three dimensions of scientific perceptions. These dimensions are interpretation, consequence and action. Before providing dimensions we again provide operational definitions of these terms. They are:

1. Interpretation. By interpretation we mean an individual representation of the explanation and signification of climate change. This can range from denial of anthropogenic climate change to being fully convinced of man-made climate change.

2. Consequence. Consequence refers to the perception of climate change impacts. In this dimension, response can range from no or marginal impact through to disaster.

3. Action. This dimension refers to the political including medial engagement deemed appropriate in light of anthropogenic climate change. The range of this dimension is from puzzle solver to activist, with the puzzle solver content to remain within the context of science without public communication.

We would appreciate to hear comments and receive advice on our concepts and definitions.

Posted on September 7, 2007 07:39 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

August 29, 2007

Twenty years of public opinion about global warming

Matt Nisbet has a good paper out now about polling results on global warming. The pdf is here and general paper link here.

The polling supports what we've been saying for a while: the public is there. They believe (even if they think the scientific consensus isn't as strong as it really is).

The science community has been freaking out for years about trying to answer the "we're screaming at them about this problem, why aren't they doing anything about it???" question. The stock answer from climate scientists is either about skeptics sowing doubt, or the problem is too complicated, or something like that, but it usually comes down to, "the public just isn't convinced that it's a problem." Matt's paper shows that clearly the public is aware of global warming and does think it is a problem.

So why are we (through our electeds) still not doing anything about it then? Because even the public realizes that the solutions are very, very difficult and will probably mean considerable pain. (And no politician wants to inflict pain on his/her constituents.) Perhaps the collective is making its own collective calculation: a world without potentially disruptive-to-catastrophic global warming or a world without coal-fired electricity and 20mpg family sedans?

This is really my insidious way of making a strong plea to the climate science policy (funding) community: stop spending money on GCMs. Start spending those billions we spend on basic climate research on climate solutions. We do not need 21 models feeding the IPCC process to see the risks. In a resource-limited science funding world, we know enough already about how climate works to see the risks.

What we don't see is how we're going to shovel ourselves out of this mess. We would do quite well to quit crying about science budgets, climate skeptics and inaccurate media representations and finally turn our energies to usable, useful science for a very uncertain future. Our politicians and policymakers will listen if we give them useful solutions, especially if we work with them to figure out what kind of information is useful to them. They will continue to NOT listen if we decide to pad our status quo by indefinitely giving them journals filled with GCM studies and 500-page IPCC reports that are all science and no ways out.

Posted on August 29, 2007 01:09 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

August 20, 2007

New Changnon paper on winter storm losses

Keeping in line with similar research being done here on hurricanes (Roger and colleagues) and earthquakes (me), Stanley Changnon has a new paper out on winter storm losses. The abstract:

Winter storms are a major weather problem in the USA and their losses have been rapidly increasing. A total of 202 catastrophic winter storms, each causing more than $1 million in damages, occurred during 1949–2003, and their losses totaled $35.2 billion (2003 dollars). Catastrophic winter storms occurred in most parts of the contiguous USA, but were concentrated in the eastern half of the nation where 88% of all storm losses occurred. ... The time distribution of the nation’s 202 storms during 1949–2003 had a sizable downward trend, whereas the nation’s storm losses had a major upward trend for the 55-year period. This increase over time in losses, given the decrease in storm incidences, was a result of significant temporal increases in storm sizes and storm intensities. Increases in storm intensities were small in the northern sections of the nation, but doubled across the southern two-thirds of the nation, reflecting a climatic shift in conditions producing intense winter storms.

The interesting zeroth- or first-order conclusion is that when using damage trends as a proxy for climatic trends, no climatic trends can be seen in hurricanes while a strong one can be seen in winter storms. From the latest Pielke et al. hurricane paper:

...it should be clear from the normalized estimates that while 2004 and 2005 were exceptional from the standpoint of the number of very damaging storms, there is no long-term trend of increasing damage over the time period covered by this analysis.

Whereas from the Changnon paper on winter storms:

Significant temporal increases in storm losses, storm sizes, and storm intensity have occurred in the United States. The national increase over time in losses, given the decrease in storm incidences, was a result of the increases over time in storm sizes and intensities. The marked temporal increases in storm sizes and storm intensities were greatest across the southern two-thirds of the nation.

Posted on August 20, 2007 02:38 PM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change | Disasters

August 17, 2007

New Publication

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2007. Mistreatment of the economic impacts of extreme events in the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change, in press, corrected proof.

Full text here in PDF.

Posted on August 17, 2007 12:55 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Scientific Assessments

May 30, 2007

Here comes the rain, kids. NASA administrator says global warming ain't no stinking problem.

Hat tip (and bow and all praise thee) to Mr. Fleck who passed it along. NPR just sent out a press release previewing a Steve Inskeep interview airing on tomorrow's Morning Edition with NASA Administration Michael Griffin. The title of the press release? How about

NASA ADMINISTRATOR MICHAEL GRIFFIN NOT SURE THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS A PROBLEM

Ok. The rest of the press release goes on to say [my bolds]

May 30, 2007; Washington, DC – NASA Administrator Michael Griffin tells NPR News that while he has no doubt “a trend of global warming exists, I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”
In an interview with Steve Inskeep airing tomorrow on NPR News’ Morning Edition, Administrator Griffin says “I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”

Oh my. Here is the transcript that NPR released:

STEVE INSKEEP: One thing that’s been mentioned that NASA is perhaps not spending as much money as it could on is studying climate change, global warming, from space. Are you concerned about global warming?
MICHAEL GRIFFIN: I am aware that global warming -- I’m aware that global warming exists. I understand that the bulk of scientific evidence accumulated supports the claim that we’ve had about a one degree centigrade rise in temperature over the last century to within an accuracy of 20 percent. I’m also aware of recent findings that appear to have nailed down -- pretty well nailed down the conclusion that much of that is manmade. Whether that is a long term concern or not, I can’t say.

MR. INSKEEP : And I just wanted to make sure that I’m clear. Do you have any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?

MR. GRIFFIN: I have no doubt that global -- that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

MR. INSKEEP : Is that thinking that informs you as you put together the budget? That something is happening, that it’s worth studying, but you’re not sure that you want to be battling it as an army might battle an enemy.

MR. GRIFFIN: Nowhere in NASA’s authorization, which of course governs what we do, is there anything at all telling us that we should take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another. We study global climate change, that is in our authorization, we think we do it rather well. I’m proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to quote “battle climate change.”

Ok, let's start with the last -- and least important -- point. Griffin is right: nobody is asking NASA to battle climate change, only study it. (Somebody should be asking the DoE to battle it and we shouldn't need the Supreme Court to direct that EPA try to address it, but that's another issue.) Inskeep lets the issue blend into NASA "battling it" as a funding issue when he should have kept up on the more salient point that Griffin led him directly to: does your personal opinion that global warming isn't a problem translate into deemphasizing the study of global warming and climate change across NASA's budget? Inskeep let Griffin get away without answering that question directly.

The next question could have been: 'were you picked for this job because of this opinion? Before offering you the post did Bush Administration officials give you a litmus test that included your views on climate change?'

The next question might be: 'On your statement, "I understand that the bulk of scientific evidence accumulated supports the claim that we’ve had about a one degree centigrade rise in temperature over the last century to within an accuracy of 20 percent." Are you trying to downplay scientific certainty by saying this (the "within an accuracy of 20 percent" part); or do you really not have a solid grasp of the science basics; or did you just slip up?'

There are a lot of avenues Griffin could have gone down in this interview, but the one he chose seems to me be only slightly better than the worst tack he could have taken (denying outright that there is a problem). Although I don't agree, even with this statement I don't have a huge problem: "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with." But what comes next,

To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

indicates to me that Griffin has absolutely no appreciation for the risk that anthropogenic climate change poses. Risk implies both knowledge and uncertainty and if Griffin simply wanted to make a point about uncertainty I'd concede it. But instead he seems to simply cast out the severe risks that do exist in favor of some sort of fig leaf that says "we may have altered the climate but we're too arrogant if we think we should stop altering it because our alterations might be good for other people." Unbelievable.

Posted on May 30, 2007 04:30 PM View this article | Comments (28)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

May 29, 2007

The messy and messier politics of AGW solutions

Back on May 2nd I wrote about the looming coal vs. global warming fight in Congress. Today the NY Times put the issue up as its lead article (at least in the national edition). Edmund Andrews covers the issue well, bringing out various issues of price, competing priorities and constituent politics. (To recap my post: despite Senate ENR staffers trying to paint a rosy picture about a four-bill markup of some easy and no-brainer energy packages, coal state Senators still made a big stink about mandating coal synfuels.)

This is an issue setting itself up well (and early) to be one of the major boondoggles in crafting policy that effectively brings down GHG emissions. It essentially pits energy independence goals against GHG reduction goals when they should be addressed simultaneously in the same direction. Smart policy will reduce exposure to global warming risk and energy provenance issues together; bad policy will allow the two issues to battle each other.

The elephant in this room, only hinted at in Andrews' article and only briefly mentioned in my post, is setting government targets for specific fuels. Coal state Members want to write into any energy/climate legislation either mandated volume purchase targets for liquefied coal fuels or heavy subsidies for the industry. But the coal-to-liquid conversion process releases a lot of carbon dioxide, and when confronted with this, coal supporters point out that carbon dioxide can be captured during the process and sequestered (known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS).

The key here is "can be" as in can be captured. It should be appended with "but won't" unless any legislation mandating or heavily subsidizing liquefied coal also provides a mandate that any fuel derived from coal captures CO2, and also provides the subsidies to make that CCS possible. Will legislators go that far? Listening to Congress, especially the language coming out of Jeff Bingaman's committee, I've heard a lot of discussion of subsidies to build synfuel plants and a lot of discussion about mandating fuel quotas or providing generous per-gallon tax credits, but nothing about also footing the bill for CCS. Keeping in mind that some lawmakers already want to give coal synfuels a $0.50/gal subsidy before even considering the carbon capture issues, requiring carbon CCS on the coal synfuel process means pricing coal synfuels well out of economic competitiveness.

The coal issue illustrates again the problems with government picking winners and losers instead of setting generalized targets to be met across a wide swath of economic players. Doing this with ethanol has already led to a international socioeconomic backlash, rightly or wrongly drawing in Mexican citizens decrying the rising price of the corn they depend upon for food. Anything close to a mandate for coal synfuels will mean a new avenue for climate change politicization. Have we learned yet from past lessons? Edmund Andrews hints that we probably haven't:

But some energy experts, as well as some lawmakers, worry that the scale of the coal-to-liquid incentives could lead to a repeat of a disastrous effort 30 years ago to underwrite a synthetic fuels industry from scratch.
When oil prices plunged in the 1980s, the government-owned Synthetic Fuels Corporation became a giant government albatross that lost billions and remains a symbol of misguided industrial policy more than 25 years later.

Posted on May 29, 2007 03:41 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

May 16, 2007

The Importance of the Development Pathway in the Climate Debate

Today I am testifying before the House Committee on Science and Technology of the U.S. Congress. In my testimony I argue that we should pay attention to development paths in addition to the mitigation of greenhouse gases. You can see my testimony in full here in PDF.

A full reference:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2007. Statement to the House Committee on Science and Technology of the United States House of Representatives, The State of Climate Change Science 2007: The Findings of the Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change, 16 May.

Posted on May 16, 2007 03:01 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Sustainability

May 15, 2007

Upcoming Congressional Testimony

I will be testifying before the House Committee on Science and Technology on Wednesday of this week. I'll post my written testimony here beforehand.

Posted on May 15, 2007 12:42 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 10, 2007

Reorienting U.S. Climate Science Policies

Last week the House Committee on Science and Technology held an important hearing on the future direction of climate research in he United States (PDF).

The major scientific debate is settled. Climate change is occurring. It is impacting our nation and the rest of the world and will continue to impact us into the future. The USGCRP should move beyond an emphasis on addressing uncertainties and refining climate science. In addition the Program needs to provide information that supports action to reduce vulnerability to climate and other global changes and facilitates the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies that can be applied here in the U.S. and in other vulnerable locations throughout the world.

This refocusing of climate research is timely and worthwhile. Kudos to the S&T Committee.

For a number of years, Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO) has led efforts to make the nation's climate research enterprise more responsive to the needs of decision makers (joined by Bob Inglis (R-SC)). Mr. Udall explained the reasons for rethinking climate science as follows:

The evolution of global science and the global change issue sparked the need to make changes to the 1978 National Climate Program Act, and gave us the Global Change Research Act of 1990. It is now time for another adjustment to alter the focus of the program governed by this law.
The debate, about whether climate change is occurring and about whether human activity has contributed to it, is over. As our population, economy, and infrastructure have grown, we have put more pressure on the natural resources we all depend upon. Each year, fires, droughts, hurricanes, and other natural events remind us of our vulnerability to extreme weather and climate changes. The human and economic cost of these events is very high. With better planning and implementation of adaptation strategies these costs can be reduced.

For all of these reasons, we need the USGCRP to produce more information that is readily useable by decision makers and resource managers in government and in the private sector. People throughout this country and in the rest of the world need information they can use to develop response, adaptation, and mitigation strategies to make our communities, our businesses, and our nation more resilient and less vulnerable to the changes that are inevitable.

We must also move aggressively to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid future increases in surface temperature that will trigger severe impacts that we cannot overcome with adaptation strategies. We need economic and technical information as well as information about system responses and climate responses to different concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The USGCRP should be the vehicle for providing this information.

The hearing charter (PDF) is worth reading in full.

Posted on May 10, 2007 03:50 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | R&D Funding | Scientific Assessments

May 03, 2007

New Landsea Paper in EOS

Chris Landsea has shared his just-out paper from EOS (PDF) and send the following capsule summary:

The link between the frequency of tropical cyclones [hurricanes and tropical storms] and anthropogenic global warming has become an emerging focus. However, an analysis of the data shows that improved monitoring in recent years is responsible for most, if not all, of the observed trend in increasing frequency of tropical cyclones.

Comments, criticisms, alternative perspectives welcomed!

Posted on May 3, 2007 08:58 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

May 02, 2007

A preview of things to come

In case you were one of those optimists thinking that the change in Congressional control meant a coming slew of passed legislation dealing with GHGs, or that January 2009 means welcome to the new era of GHG regulations or even clear sailing for logical no regrets policies that address oil dependence and carbon mitigation, you got a nice preview today of battles to come.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources, now chaired by Senator Bingaman of New Mexico, tried to hold an easy combined markup on four bills that deal with biofuels (S.987), energy efficiency (S.1115) and carbon CCS (S.962 and S.731). There was apparently a "divisive" roadblock in that the coal-state Senators wanted a new mandate on coal-derived transportation fuels (apparently they think we should be adding more CO2 to the atmosphere per VMT rather than less). There was a tentative deal to allay that issue until the bill package went to the floor, where it could be debated by the full Senate, but the deal broke down in a rather nasty way and forced a party-line vote, with some Dems voting against the coal fuels amendment that they otherwise supported. Ah, the era of bipartisan cooperation to solve our nation's most pressing problems.... (CQ story here) (And if you think the politicking on this was constrained to the ENR hearing room, see the players deployed to lobby in this story.)

That this package could not pass easily, with the contentious issues worked out before markup, is certainly a sign that meaningful climate mitigation legislation is going to be bloody and a long time in coming. It also illustrates some of the messy compromises that will come with climate legislation, some of which may actually increase carbon emissions. Sure, CO2 could be captured at the coal-to-synfuel plant, thus preventing the extra CO2 that coal synfuel production emits from hitting the atmosphere and leaving a zero-sum between burning synfuel or gasoline. But with a liquefied coal mandate sitting alongside a biofuels mandate who actually thinks that in the end a requirement for capturing CO2 at the coal synfuels production site is going to happen? With all the people who want to make it and want to use it (i.e. the military), the economic pressures on not driving up the price by requiring carbon CCS are already clear.

Posted on May 2, 2007 02:27 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

April 30, 2007

What's a poor science type to do?

I saw in Point Carbon's daily update today the following headline:

"ENVIRONMENTALISTS CALL FOR IPCC TO PROVIDE STRONG MESSAGE ON CLIMATE CHANGE"

So you already know what this is about. The subline on Point Carbon's article is

Environmental groups today called on the world’s scientists not to water down a long-awaited report on mitigating climate change when it is published this Friday

But I wonder if the advocacy groups pushing this kind of message have really thought through the consequences of such advocacy. The message is unequivocal: make the science report say what we want it to say. Oh, and do it by Friday. Thanks! But what if the IPCC WGIII authors were to respond to Greenpeace et al.'s pressure?

Changing the report at the last minute in either direction as a result of interest group pressure would mean an instant loss of credibility for what should be the single most credible document on climate change. Advocacy groups must realize that they rely on the IPCC's credibility when they talk about climate change. Without a credible third-party document to point to, advocacy groups are left to preach to the choir. With an international consensus document behind them they can stand on its results to push their message to a larger audience.

Although it doesn't exactly happen this way in practice, scientists have cachet because they have the reputation of responding to scientific results, not political pressure. Respond to Greenpeace et al.'s pressure now would mean tanking their credibility (the news would most definitely get out), taking Greenpeace's with it. So why are the let's do something about climate change now! advocates trying to undercut the credibility of their strongest pillar?

My guess is that advocacy groups know this already. They don't expect the IPCC to change anything based on their advocacy, but are simply looking for a quick route to broad media coverage (which hasn't happened yet ... Point Carbon is the only site I found the news on). But I suspect there are smarter ways to garner media attention than by publicly asking a group of ostensibly independent scientists to change a major report to their liking.

Posted on April 30, 2007 01:23 PM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

April 26, 2007

The Battle for U.S. Public Opinion on Climate Change is Over

We've argued here that it has been over for a while, but this survey from the New York Times should make it obvious:

Americans in large bipartisan numbers say the heating of the earth’s atmosphere is having serious effects on the environment now or will soon and think that it is necessary to take immediate steps to reduce its effects, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds.
Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed.

Recent international reports have said with near certainty that human activities are the main cause of global warming since 1950. The poll found that 84 percent of Americans see human activity as at least contributing to warming.

The poll also found that Americans want the United States to support conservation and to be a global leader in addressing environmental problems and developing alternative energy sources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels like oil and coal.

For those still looking to play the skeptic game there is also good news as there are still a few left: 4% said recent strange weather was caused by "God/end of world/bible" and 2% said "space junk." ;-) In all seriousness, I don't expect the skeptic game to end any time soon, despite the overwhelming consensus of public opinion.

Posted on April 26, 2007 08:47 PM View this article | Comments (25)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

The Politics of Air Capture

A while back we prepped our readers to get ready for air capture. This article from a New Jersey newspaper, the Star-Ledger, describes how one air capture technology is progressing and how different interests are already taking political positions on its merits:

Klaus Lackner's invention has been called many things -- a wind scrubber, a synthetic tree, a carbon vacuum, even a giant fly swatter.
The energy guru, inventor and professor at Columbia University prefers to call it an "air extractor." By any name, however, Lackner predicts that the giant machines he is building will one day stop global warming in its tracks.

After three years of intensive experiments, Lackner and scientists at Global Research Technologies LLC, in Arizona, have produced a working model of the device, which can sop up carbon dioxide, the dreaded greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

"Look, it's one arrow in the quiver," said Lackner, reached by telephone. "This begins to offer a solution to an overwhelming problem."

Others were more expansive.

"This significant achievement holds incredible promise in the fight against climate change," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia. "The world may, sooner rather than later, have an important tool in this fight."

Here is one reaction to the technology:

"There's no magic bullet to save us from the problem of global warming," said Kert Davies, an energy expert for Greenpeace USA in Washington, D.C. Removing greenhouse gases so readily will not encourage people to develop alternate, renewable technologies, he said, and strive for energy efficiency.
Such techno-fixes also miss the point of the environmental degradation brought on by the use of fossil fuels, he said.

Carbon scrubbers won't stop oil spills, habitat-destroying strip mining and ozone, he said. "It's like having cancer and putting a Band-Aid on it," he added.

Besides, Davies said, the devices, which will in principle be larger than the prototype, will be eyesores. "Can you imagine thousands of acres of giant fly swatters across the land?"

If reducing fossil fuels is not really about carbon dioxde, as the Greenpeace spokesman suggests but also about many other benefits, then why shouldn't these benefits play a more central role in energy policy debates? And being so quick to abandon the carbon dioxide argument is not an effective strategy for compelling action on carbon dioxide. Greenpeace has come out in favor of wind power and the required acres of windmills across the land. This is hard to square with CO2-removal technologies as eyesores, unless one recognizes that the aesthetics of a technology appear to be a function of its political role.

I have no idea if Professor Lackner's ideas will prove to have technical merit or not. However, I do believe that all options should be on the table, and we should resist efforts to limit choice prematurely.

April 23, 2007

What does Consensus Mean for IPCC WGIII?

The IPCC assessment process is widely referred to as reflecting a consensus of the scientific community. An AP news story reports on a leaked copy of the forthcoming Working Group III report on mitigation.

"Governments, businesses and individuals all need to be pulling in the same direction," said British researcher Rachel Warren, one of the report's authors.
For one thing, the governments of such major emitters as the United States, China and India will have to join the Kyoto Protocol countries of Europe and Japan in imposing cutbacks in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases emitted by industry, power plants and other sources.

The Bush administration rejected the protocol's mandatory cuts, contending they would slow U.S. economic growth too much. China and other poorer developing countries were exempted from the 1997 pact, but most expected growth in greenhouse emissions will come from the developing world.

The draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose final version is to be issued in Bangkok on May 4, says emissions can be cut below current levels if the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, embraces energy efficiency and significantly reduces deforestation.

"The opportunities, the technology are there and now it's a case of encouraging the increased use of these technologies," said International Energy Agency analyst Ralph Sims, another of the 33 scientists who drafted the report.

As we've often discussed here, human-caused climate change is a serious problem requiring attention to both mitigation and adaptation. While I can make sense of a consensus among Working Group I scientists on causes and consequences of climate change, and even a consensus among Working Group II on impacts, how should we interpret a "consensus" among 33 authors recommending specific political actions? All of the movement toward the "democratization of science" and "stakeholder involvement" and "public participation" that characterizes science and technology issues ranging from GMOs to nanotechnology to nuclear waste disposal seems oddly absent in the climate issue in favor of a far more technocratic model of decision making. Is climate change somehow different?

Posted on April 23, 2007 07:01 PM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics | Scientific Assessments

April 20, 2007

New GAO Report on Climate Change and Insurance

At the request of Congressman Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a research arm of Congress, has just released a report on climate change and insurance (PDF). The report is excellent and well worth reading for anyone with interest in the subject. Now whether or not an excellent report makes a positive difference in policy making is another matter . . . Here are a few excerpts and my commentary:

On trends in losses:

Taken together, private and federal insurers paid more than $320 billion in claims on weather-related losses from 1980 through 2005. In constant dollars, private insurers paid the largest part of the claims during this period, $243.5 billion (about 76 percent); followed by federal crop insurance, $43.6 billion (about 14 percent); and federal flood insurance, $34.1 billion (about 11 percent). Claims varied significantly from year to year—largely due to the incidence and effects of catastrophic weather events such as hurricanes and droughts—but generally increased during this period. In particular, the years with the largest insured losses were generally associated with major hurricanes, which comprised well over one-third of all weather-related losses since 1980. The growth in population in hazard-prone areas, and resulting real estate development and increasing real estate values, have increased federal and private insurers’ exposure, and have helped to explain the increase in losses. In particular, heavily-populated areas along the Northeast, Southeast, and Texas coasts have among the highest value of insured properties in the United States and face the highest likelihood of major hurricanes. Due to these and other factors, federal insurers’ exposures have grown substantially. Since 1980, NFIP’s exposure has quadrupled, nearing $1 trillion, and program expansion has increased FCIC’s exposure nearly 26-fold to $44 billion. These escalating exposures to catastrophic weather events are leaving the federal government at increased financial risk. FCIC officials told us, for example, that if the widespread Midwest floods of 1993 were to occur today, losses would be five times greater. [p. 4]

How much would that be? The 1993 Midwest floods resulted in $1.3 billion in federal flood insurance costs (Source: PDF). Five times this amount is $6.5 billion, in 1993 dollars. Adjusting for inflation to 2005 dollars gives a total of $8.5 billion, which is about half the costs of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and more than four times the premiums taken in by the program annually (Source: PDF).

The conclusion? Regardless of climate change federal flood insurance is of questionable financial sustainability without an expectation of major and frequent subsidies. So perhaps greater attention to adaptation might be needed:

Federal insurance programs, on the other hand, have done little to develop the kind of information needed to understand the programs’ long-term exposure to climate change for a variety of reasons. The federal insurance programs are not oriented toward earning profits like private insurers but rather toward increasing participation among eligible parties. Consequently, neither program has had reason to develop information on their long-term exposure to the fiscal risks associated with climate change.
We acknowledge the different mandate and operating environment in which the major federal insurance programs operate, but we believe that better information about the federal government’s exposure to potential changes in weather-related risk would help the Congress identify and manage this emerging high-risk area—one which may not constitute an immediate crisis, but which does have significant implications for the nation’s growing fiscal imbalance. Accordingly, GAO is recommending that the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services and the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness to analyze the potential long-term fiscal implications of climate change for the FCIC and the NFIP, respectively, and report their findings to the Congress.

Another factor not mentioned here is the bias against adaptation in climate policy. For example, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (by subscription), Senator Lieberman (mis)used the report to justify changes in energy policies, saying that it:

presents another strong argument -- this one fiscal -- for adopting an economywide, cap and trade, anti-global-warming law.

But the report offers absolutely no information on how changes in energy policies will affect disaster losses. The report certainly offers no recommendations on energy policies. In fact, to the contrary, it cites our Hohenkammer workshop which clearly explained that the most effective responses over coming decades will be adaptive in nature. And as we've discussed on occasion here, there is good reason for concern not just in the public sector about adaptive capacity -- the so-called "catastrophe models" used by private insurers may not leave them as prepared to manage risk as they might think.

Finally, there is this very interesting nugget found in the response by the USDA (Appendix 5, p. 59), which runs the federal crop insurance progam:

The increase in crop insurance indemnities over time reflects the rapid growth of the crop insurance program, not an increase in either the frequency and/or severity of catastrophic weather events. In fact, the severity of loss for the crop insurance program, as measured by the loss ratio, has been generally lower in the 1990's and 2000's than in the 1980's. Thus, if anything, the frequency and severity of catastrophic loss events for the crop insurance program appears to be decreasing.

Interesting, huh?

Posted on April 20, 2007 07:42 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

April 19, 2007

Media Reporting of Climate Change: Too Balanced or Biased?

Cherries ripe for the picking:

Too balanced

Biased

Put me in neither camp. I actually think that the media -- in toto -- has done a good job of covering a challenging and protean issue.

Posted on April 19, 2007 08:59 PM View this article | Comments (19)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

A Little Testy at RealClimate

Based on my most recent interaction, the folks at RealClimate seem less interested than ever on an open exchange of views on scientific topics. But I guess that is what might be expected when one points out that the they are spreading misinformation.

A commenter on a thread on ocean temperatures asked an innocuous question about the new paper by Vecchi and Soden which was discussed here by Chris Landsea . The always cordial Michael Mann replied:

I have no knowledge of (or frankly, interest in) what Chris Landsea may be saying about the paper . . . In short, the Emanuel (2005) study continues to stand on its merit, and I don't see where this paper puts even a dent in it.

I don't much read RealClimate anymore, but when a commenter on the Landsea thread pointed to this exchange in the comments here, I surfed over to find this blatantly false assertion by Michael Mann in response to a follow up comment:

Emanuel (2005) shows that the warming SSTs are behind the increased TC intensity in the Atlantic. No impartial reading of that paper could come to any other conclusion.

Being a science site and all, I assumed that the RealClimate folks would be happy to engage in a discussion of, you know, science. Boy was I was mistaken. Here is my submitted response:

Mike-
You are simply incorrect when you assert: "Emanuel (2005) shows that the warming SSTs are behind the increased TC intensity in the Atlantic. No impartial reading of that paper could come to any other conclusion."

Here is what Emanuel actually says:

"Tropical cyclones do not respond directly to SST, however, and the appropriate measure of their thermodynamic environment is the potential intensity, which depends not only on surface temperature but on the whole temperature profile of the troposphere. . . The above discussion suggests that only part of the observed increase in tropical cyclone power dissipation is directly due to increased SSTs; the rest can only be explained by changes in other factors known to influence hurricane intensity, such as vertical wind shear."

Misrepresenting Emanuel is bad enough, but for a site that often underscores the importance of consensus, your favoring of one single study (on a thread about not favoring one single study) when consensus perspectives exist (WMO, IPCC) does a disservice to your readers.

Here is what RealClimate allowed:

Mike-
You are simply incorrect when you assert: "Emanuel (2005) shows that the warming SSTs are behind the increased TC intensity in the Atlantic. No impartial reading of that paper could come to any other conclusion."

What are they so worried about that they have to protect their audience from the comments of a political scientist?

Here is Michael Mann's (always cordial) response:

Response: Roger, we're not about cherry-picking sentences and out of context quotations here at RC, so you should take that somewhere else. Anybody who has studied the scientific issues involved well knows that SSTs in this context are a proxy for a more complex set of interconnected atmospheric environmental variables which tend to covary with it. We hardly need you to quote Emanuel for us. Figure 1 in Emanuel (2005) comparing SST and TC Power Dissipation in the tropical Atlantic speaks for itself, you might want to take another look. If we do an article on Hurricanes in the near future, you're free to engage in the discussion. But that's not the topic of this post, so we're going to close it out with this. -mike

Heaven forbid a discussion of actual substance over there. If we did we might have to discuss Kossin et al. and how SSTs don't covary with intensity in all basins, and the fact that Emanuel signed on to the WMO consensus, and well, a whole bunch of stuff that is fair game to discuss in scientific circles, but not apparently at RealClimate. In my view the issue of hurricanes and climate remains uncertain and contested and is well worth discussing.

Posted on April 19, 2007 07:48 PM View this article | Comments (34)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 18, 2007

Some Views of IPCC WGII Contributors That You Won't Read About in the News

I was surprised to read in E&E News today a news story on yesterday's hearing held by the House Science Committee suggesting that the take-home message was that adaptation would be difficult, hence mitigation should be preferred (for subscribers here is the full story). My reading of the written testimony suggested a very different message, and not one I've seen in the media. Below are some relevant excerpts from IPCC WG II authors who testified yesterday (emphasis added). I know both and respect their views.

Roger Pulwarty (PDF)

Climate is one factor among many that produce changes in our environment. Demographic, socio-economic and technological changes may play a more important role in most time horizons and regions. In the 2050s, differences in the population projections of the four scenarios contained in the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios show that population size could have a greater impact on people living in water-stressed river basins (defined as basins with per-capita water resources of less than 1000 m3/year) than differences in emissions scenarios. As the number of people and attendant demands in already stressed river basins increase, even small changes in natural or anthropogenic climate can trigger large impacts on water resources.
Adaptation is unavoidable because climate is always varying even if changes in variability are amplified or dampened by anthropogenic warming. In the near term, adaptation will be necessary to meet the challenge of impacts to which we are already committed. There are significant barriers to implementing adaptation in complex settings. These barriers include both the inability of natural systems to adapt at the rate and magnitude of climate change, as well as technological, financial, cognitive and behavioral, social and cultural constraints. There are also significant knowledge gaps for adaptation, as well as impediments to flows of knowledge and information relevant for decision makers. In addition, the scale at which reliable information is produced (i.e. global) does not always match with what is needed for adaptation decisions (i.e. watershed and local). New planning processes are attempting to overcome these barriers at local, regional and national levels in both developing and developed countries.

Shardul Agrawala (PDF)

The costs of both mitigation and adaptation are predominantly local and near term. Meanwhile, the climate related benefits of mitigation are predominantly global and long-term, but not immediate. Owing to lag times in the climate system, the benefits of current mitigation efforts will hardly be noticeable for several decades. The benefits of adaptation are more immediate, but primarily local, and over the short to medium term.
Given these differences between mitigation and adaptation, climate policy is not about making a choice between adapting to and mitigating climate change. Even the most stringent mitigation efforts cannot avoid further impacts of climate change in the next few decades, which makes adaptation essential, particularly in addressing near term impacts. On the other hand, unmitigated climate change would, in the long term exceed the capacity of natural, managed, and human systems to adapt.

Posted on April 18, 2007 01:57 PM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Scientific Assessments

Chris Landsea on New Hurricane Science

Chris Landsea has submitted a guest post today on a recent paper on hurricanes and global warming. We share Chris' comments below, and welcome reactions and alternative perspectives.

Guest post by Chris Landsea, NOAA

Today a new paper by Gabe Vecchi and Brian Soden has been published:

Vecchi G. A., B. J. Soden (2007), Increased tropical Atlantic wind shear in model projections of global warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L08702, doi:10.1029/2006GL028905. (PDF)

My reading of the paper by Vecchi and Soden is that this is a very important contribution to the understanding of how global warming is affecting hurricane activity. The study thoroughly examines how the wind shear and other parameters that can alter the number and intensity of hurricanes because of manmade global warming. What they found - surprisingly - is that in the Atlantic that the wind shear should increase significantly over a large portion of where hurricanes occur - making it more difficult for hurricanes to form and grow. This was identified in all of the 18 global climate models they examined. (Perhaps it's not that surprising given that Knutson/Tuleya 2004 showed some of the same signal for the more reliable models back then. Now the signal is in ALL of the CGCMs.) Even the MPI changes in the Atlantic appear mixed, due to the smaller SST increases there (with more uniform upper trop temp changes) compared with the rest of the global tropics/subtropics.

One implication to me is that this further provides evidence that the busy period we've seen in the Atlantic hurricanes since 1995 is due to natural cycles, rather than manmade causes. We've seen a big reduction in wind shear in the last thirteen hurricane seasons, which is OPPOSITE to the signal that Vecchi and Soden have linked to manmade global warming changes. Another implication is that this paper reconfirms earlier work that suggests that global warming will cause very small changes to Atlantic hurricanes, even several decades from now.

Posted on April 18, 2007 08:16 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Disasters

April 17, 2007

Laurens Bouwer on IPCC WG II on Disasters

In the comments, Laurens Bouwer, of the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, who served as an expert reviewer for the IPCC WGII report, provides the following perspective (Thanks Laurens!):

Thanks Roger, for this discussion. It clearly points the fact that IPCC has not done enough to make an unambiguous statement on the attribution of disaster losses in their Working Group 2 Summary for Policymakers (SPM). This now leaves room for speculation based on the individual statements and graphs from underlying chapters in the report, in particular Figure TS-15, Chapters 1, 3 and 7, that all have substantial paragraphs on the topic.
As reviewer for WG2 I have repeatedly (3 times) asked to put a clear statement in the SPM that is in line with the general literature, and underlying WG2 chapters. In my view, WG2 has not succeeded in adequately quoting and discussing all relevant recent papers that have come out on this topic -- see above-mentioned chapters.

Initial drafts of the SPM had relatively nuanced statements such as:

Global economic losses from weather-related disasters have risen substantially since the 1970s. During the same period, global temperatures have risen and the magnitude of some extremes, such as the intensity of tropical cyclones, has increased. However, because of increases in exposed values ..., the contribution of these weather-related trends to increased losses is at present not known.

For unknown reasons, this statement (which seems to implicitly acknowledge Roger's and the May 2006 workshop conclusion that societal factors dominate) was dropped from the final SPM. Now the SPM has no statement on the attribution of disaster losses, and we do not know what is the 'consensus' here.

Posted on April 17, 2007 07:51 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Scientific Assessments

April 16, 2007

Frank Laird on Peak Oil, Global Warming, and Policy Choice

Frank Laird, from the University of Denver and also a Center affiliate, has the lead article in our latest newsletter. His topic is peak oil, climate change, and policy choice. Here is an excerpt:

A recent spate of books and articles proclaim the end of oil and an imminent crisis for the world. Likewise, global warming alarms sound from almost every corner of the press. What are policy makers to do? How should policy analysts help decision makers frame the debate and assess the alternatives? Many advocates are trying to do exactly the wrong thing: narrow policy makers’ options through a rhetoric proclaiming that policy makers will have no choice but to adopt their favored technology, so the sooner they get to it, the better. This approach both misunderstands how policy making works and does a disservice to policy makers. . .
Ironically, both renewable and nuclear energy advocates see themselves as possessing the key to an energy-abundant and climate-safe future. Both advocacy communities have been around for decades, have a history of mutual hostility, and think their time is nigh. Yet both groups are using a language of inevitability that suggests a naïveté about public policy, short-changes the policy process, and makes it all the harder to have intelligent, nuanced discussions of the difficult policy choices that lie ahead.

Their central point is that society or governments will have “no choice” but to adopt their preferred solution. They believe that the problems of peak oil and climate change present such severe problems to our society that policy makers will realize that they must adopt nuclear or renewable energy, that the lack of choice will be plain.

This language distorts the reality of policy making and short-changes society by trying to close off debate over the many and possibly creative solutions that policy could bring to bear on these problems. The central fact of policy making is that governments always have a choice. No circumstance, no matter how dire, leaves them with only one choice. To be sure, not all choices are equally good, and anyone familiar with history will know that sometimes governments make bad, even disastrous, choices. But they always have choices to make. Pretending otherwise just misunderstands all we know about public policy.

Read the whole thing.

Posted on April 16, 2007 07:15 AM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

April 12, 2007

New Peer-Reviewed Publication on the Benefits of Emissions Reductions for Future Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane) Losses Around the World

I have a paper accepted for publication that projects into the future a range of possible scenarios for increasing losses related to tropical cyclones around the world.

Pielke, Jr., R. A. (accepted, 2007). Future Economic Damage from Tropical Cyclones: Sensitivities to Societal and Climate Changes, Proceedings of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. (PDF)

The factors that comprise the different scenarios include changes in population, per capita wealth, tropical cyclone intensity, and also damage functions as a function of intensity. [Note: Tropical cyclone frequency is not included as scientists presently do not expect frequencies to increase. However, even if frequencies do increase it is possible in the scenarios to equate the effects of frequency in terms of intensity, as discussed in the paper.] The goal of the paper is to delineate a scenarios space as a function of permutations in these variables in order to assess the robustness of mitigation and adaptation responses to future losses. Here is the abstract:

This paper examines future economic damages from tropical cyclones under a range of assumptions about societal change, climate change, and the relationship of climate change to damage in 2050. It finds in all cases that efforts to reduce vulnerability to losses, often called climate adaptation, have far greater potential effectiveness to reduce damage related to tropical cyclones than efforts to modulate the behavior of storms through greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies, typically called climate mitigation and achieved through energy policies. The paper urges caution in using economic losses of tropical cyclones as justification for action on energy policies when far more potentially effective options are available.

Nothing new here for regular Prometheus readers, but now this analysis has been formalized and has gone through peer review. Here are the paper’s conclusions:

This paper finds that under a wide range of assumptions about future growth in wealth and population, and about the effects of human-caused climate change, in every case there is far greater potential to affect future losses by focusing attention on the societal conditions that generate vulnerability to losses. Efforts to modulate tropical cyclone intensities through climate stabilization policies have extremely limited potential to reduce future losses. This conclusion is robust across assumptions, even unrealistic assumptions about the timing and magnitude of emissions reductions policies on tropical cyclone behavior. The importance of the societal factors increases with the time horizon.
This does not mean that climate stabilization policies do not make sense or that policy makers should ignore influences of human-caused climate change on tropical cyclone behavior. It does mean that efforts to justify emissions reductions based on future tropical cyclone damages are misleading at best, given that available alternatives have far greater potential to achieve reductions in damage. The most effective policies in the face of tropical cyclones have been and will continue to be adaptive in nature, and thus should play a prominent role in any comprehensive approach to climate policy.

Posted on April 12, 2007 01:24 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Energy Policy

April 11, 2007

This is Just Embarassing

The Figure below is found in the IPCC WG II report, Chapter 7, supplementary material (p. 3 here in PDF). I am shocked to see such a figure in the IPCC of all places, purporting to show something meaningful and scientifically vetted. Sorry to be harsh, but this figure is neither. [Note: The reference (Miller et al. 2006) is not listed in the report (pointers from readers would be welcomed).]

I am amazed that this figure made it past review of any sort, but especially given what the broader literature on this subject actually says. I have generally been a supporter of the IPCC, but I do have to admit that if it is this sloppy and irresponsible in an area of climate change where I have expertise, why should I have confidence in the areas where I am not an expert?

Addendum, a few of the many problems with this figure:

1. Global average temperatures do not cause disaster losses, extreme events cause disasters, mostly floods and tropical cyclones.

2. if you can't attribute disaster losses regionally to changes in extremes, then you can't do it globally with a metric only loosely (at best) related to extremes.

2. A 9-year smoothing in a 35 year record?

3. The IPCC has said that 30 years is not sufficient for such an attribution analysis, a 35 year record with 4 degrees of freedom probably isn't either.

4. The Muir-Wood global dataset (if that is what is used) has huge error bars not noted here. Any global analysis should be matched with a regional summation.

5. The Muir-Wood dataset, without error bars, leads to opposite conclusions using a longer record to 1950. Why didn't they show that? I wonder . . .

6. Studies of floods and hurricanes at the regional level, around the world, do not support a relationship of average global atmospheric temperature and disaster losses.

7. A consensus conference with experts around the world came to very different conclusions. What happened to the importance of consensus?

A more comprehensive synthesis can be found here:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2006. Seventh Annual Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture: Disasters, Death, and Destruction: Making Sense of Recent Calamities, Oceanography, Special Issue: The Oceans and Human Health, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 138-147. (PDF)

Posted on April 11, 2007 11:48 AM View this article | Comments (17)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Here We Go Again: Cherry Picking in the IPCC WGII Full Report on Disaster Losses

The IPCC WGII full report is available (hat tip: ClimateScienceWatch). I have had a look at what they say about disaster losses, and unfortunately, the IPCC WG II commits the exact same cherry picking error as did the Stern report.

Here is what IPCC says about catastrophe losses (Chapter 1, pp. 50-51):

Global losses reveal rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s. One study has found that while the dominant signal remains that of the significant increases in the values of exposure at risk, once losses are normalised for exposure, there still remains an underlying rising trend.

The one study? Muir-Wood et al. 2006 that was prepared as the basis for our workshop last year with Munich re on Disaster Losses and Climate Change. Here is what we said when the Stern Report cherry picked this same information:

The source is a paper prepared by Robert Muir-Wood and colleagues as input to our workshop last May on disasters and climate change. Muir-Wood et al. do report the 2% trend since 1970. What Stern Report does not say is that Muir-Wood et al. find no trend 1950-2005 and Muir-Wood et al. acknowledge that their work shows a very strong influence of 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in the United States. Muir-Wood et al. are therefore very cautious and responsible about their analysis. Presumably this is one reason why at the workshop Robert Muir-Wood signed on to our consensus statements, which said the following:
Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions . . . In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.

The Stern Report’s selective fishing out of a convenient statement from one of the background papers prepared for our workshop is a classic example of cherry picking a result from a diversity of perspectives, rather than focusing on the consensus of the entire spectrum of experts that participated in our meeting. The Stern Report even cherry picks from within the Muir-Wood et al. paper.

The full discussion by the IPCC WG II has a bit more nuance, but it is clear that they are reaching for whatever they can to support a conclusion that simply is not backed up in the broader literature. Can anyone point to any other area in the IPCC where one non-peer-reviewed study is used to overturn the robust conclusions of an entire literature? Here is the full discussion:

Economic losses attributed to natural disasters have increased from US$75.5 billion in the 1960s to US$659.9 billion in the 1990s (a compound annual growth rate of 8%) (United Nations Development Programme 2004). Private sector data on insurance costs also shows rising insured losses over a similar period (Munich Re Group 2005; Swiss Reinsurance Company 2005). The dominant signal is of significant increase in the values of exposure (Pielke and Hoppe 2006).
However, as has been widely acknowledged, failing to adjust for time-variant economic factors yields loss amounts that are not directly comparable and a pronounced upward trend through time for purely economic reasons. A previous normalization of losses, undertaken for United States hurricanes by Pielke and Landsea (1998) and US floods (Pielke et al., 2002) included normalizing the economic losses for changes in wealth and population to express losses in constant dollars. These previous national US assessments, as well as those for normalized Cuban hurricane losses (Pielke et al., 2003), did not show any significant upward trend in losses over time, but this was before the remarkable hurricane losses of 2004 and 2005.

A ‘global’ catalogue of catastrophe losses was constructed (Muir Wood et al., 2006) normalized to account for changes that have resulted from variations in wealth and the numbers and values of properties located in the path of the catastrophes, using the method of Pielke and Landsea (1999). The global survey was considered largely comprehensive from 1970–2005 for countries and regions (Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, US, Caribbean, Central America, China, India and the Philippines) that had centralized catastrophe loss information and included a broad range of peril types: tropical cyclone, extratropical cyclone, thunderstorm, hailstorm, wildfire and flood, and that spanned high and low latitude areas.

Once the data were normalized a small statistically significant trend was found for an increase in annual catastrophe loss since 1970 of 2% per year (see Fig. SM1.1). However, for a number of regions, such as Australia and India, normalized losses show a statistically significant reduction since 1970. The significance of the upward trend is influenced by the losses in the US and Caribbean in 2004 and 2005 and arguably biased by the relative wealth of the US, in particular relative to India.

More on the figure that they reference in the next post . . .

Posted on April 11, 2007 10:51 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

April 07, 2007

A Comment on IPCC Working Group II on the Importance of Development

Implicit in the work of the IPCC, and almost explicit in the report released yesterday, is the overriding importance of how the world choses to develop in the future. In the analysis in the IPCC lies the inescapable fact that how the world chooses to develop, independent of how the world responds to climate change, will modulate future global per capita GDP by a factor of up to 4.7 (the differences between the lowest and highest in the IPCC storylines for the future). By contrast, how the world chooses to respond to climate change, independent of how the world develops, will modulate future global per capita GDP by a factor of 1.05 to 1.20 (i.e., the conclusions presented in the IPCC WG II and the Stern Report).

To put this another way, from the standpoint of global GDP decisions that the world makes that make one storyline more likely to occur than another are between 19 and 74 times more important than decisions that are made about greenhouse gas emissions, under the assumptions provided by the IPCC!

So long as the IPCC, the Stern report, and others use GDP as a metric to advocate action on climate change, then this result is unavoidable. This is the main reason why some people have concluded that decisions about development, otherwise known as adaptation, must be front and center in any discussion of climate change. Yet the IPCC continuously tries to deemphasize the importance of adaptation as development, for instance writing that,

there are formidable environmental, economic, informational, social, attitudinal and behavioural barriers to implementation of adaptation.

Of course the exact same thing could be said about mitigation (but is not said), and by contrast the IPCC always frames mitigation in a positive light:

Many impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed by mitigation.

It is well past time that the community openly and forthrightly discusses the importance of development pathways as the primary determinant of the future welfare of people and the environment. Carbon dioxide should be a part of that discussion, but not a substitute for it. The IPCC WG II is a small step in the right direction, but there remains a long way to go.

The background and calculations which provide the startling numbers above can be found below.

The IPCC effort is based on a range of plausible scenarios of the future:

Scenarios are images of the future, or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts. Rather, each scenario is one alternative image of how the future might unfold. . . . They represent pertinent, plausible, alternative futures.

The IPCC uses four families of scenarios comprised of 40 different scenarios:

*The A1 storyline and scenario family describes a future world of very rapid economic growth, low population growth, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies. Major underlying themes are convergence among regions, capacity building and increased cultural and social interactions, with a substantial reduction in regional differences in per capita income. The A1 scenario family develops into four groups that describe alternative directions of technological change in the energy system.
* The A2 storyline and scenario family describes a very heterogeneous world. The underlying theme is self-reliance and preservation of local identities. Fertility patterns across regions converge very slowly, which results in high population growth. Economic development is primarily regionally oriented and per capita economic growth and technological change are more fragmented and slower than in other storylines.

* The B1 storyline and scenario family describes a convergent world with the same low population growth as in the A1 storyline, but with rapid changes in economic structures toward a service and information economy, with reductions in material intensity, and the introduction of clean and resource-efficient technologies. The emphasis is on global solutions to economic, social, and environmental sustainability, including improved equity, but without additional climate initiatives.

*The B2 storyline and scenario family describes a world in which the emphasis is on local solutions to economic, social, and environmental sustainability. It is a world with moderate population growth, intermediate levels of economic development, and less rapid and more diverse technological change than in the B1 and A1 storylines. While the scenario is also oriented toward environmental protection and social equity, it focuses on local and regional levels. (link)

The IPCC went to great efforts to suggest that any of the scenarios are possible future outcomes:

The broad consensus among the SRES writing team is that the current literature analysis suggests the future is inherently unpredictable and so views will differ as to which of the storylines and representative scenarios could be more or less likely.

And importantly, the scenarios do not consider any policies specific to human caused climate change:

The SRES storylines do not include explicit policies to limit GHG emissions or to adapt to the expected global climate change.

The IPCC concludes that:

All four SRES "futures" represented by the distinct storylines are treated as equally possible.

The role of policy making is to shape the future in preferred ways. The IPCC scenarios suggest different global outcomes based on decisions that societies around the world make, independently and jointly, starting today. Let’s consider such decisions with respect to one metric used by The Stern Report and the IPCC: wealth as measured by global per capita GDP. Let me acknowledge up front that GDP is not the only metric that matters, but it is one proposed by both Stern and IPCC, so I use it here.

The IPCC Working Group II report released yesterday (PDF) concluded that "global mean losses could be 1-5% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 4 degrees C of warming." This conclusion is consistent with the conclusion of the Stern Report which concluded that business as usual could lead to economic losses of 5% to 20% of per capita GDP. In the analysis below we will therefore use both 5% and 20% as the possible impacts of climate change.

The IPCC finds global per capita GDP to be $4,000 in 1990. Under each of its four storylines it describes global per capita GDP for 2100 as follows (in constant 1990 dollars):

A1: $74,900
A2: $16,100
B1: $46,600
B2: $22,600

Under each storyline people around the world are significantly wealthier than they are today. The IPCC SRES report is careful to avoid a judgment of whether or not this is desirable. But because both Stern and IPCC WGII identify losses in GDP as being problematic, and a cause for action, we can safely conclude that both reports identify a higher GDP as being a better societal outcome than a lower GDP.

Now what happen when we factor in the effects climate change? For a 4 degree increase according to IPCC WGII these values would decrease by 5%:

A1: $71,200
A2: $15,300
B1: $44,300
B2: $21,500

And unmitigated BAU, according to Stern could reduce these values by as much as 20%:

A1: $59,900
A2: $12,900
B1: $37,300
B2: $18,100

So how the world chooses to respond to climate change, independent of how the world develops, will modulate future GDP by a factor of 1.05 to 1.20 (i.e., 5% to 20% found in IPCC WG II and Stern).

But implicit in the IPCC storylines, is how the world chooses to develop, independent of how the world responds to climate change, will modulate future GDP by a factor of up to 4.7 (i.e., the GDP in A1 divided by the GDP in A2). To put this another way, from the standpoint of global GDP decisions that the world makes that make one storyline more likely to occur than another are between 19 and 74 times more important than decisions that are made about greenhouse gas emissions, under the assumptions provided by the IPCC! [19 ~= 3.7/0.2 and 74 = 3.7/0.05]

This is the main reason why some people have concluded that decisions about development, otherwise known as adaptation, must be front and center in any discussion of climate change.

The IPCC WG II report acknowledges this point when it writes:

An important advance since the IPCC Third Assessment has been the completion of impacts studies for a range of different development pathways taking into account not only projected climate change but also projected social and economic changes. Most have been based on characterisations of population and income level drawn from the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). [2.4]
These studies show that the projected impacts of climate change can vary greatly due to the development pathway assumed. For example, there may be large differences in regional population, income and technological development under alternative scenarios, which are often a strong determinant of the level of vulnerability to climate change. [2.4]

To illustrate, in a number of recent studies of global impacts of climate change on food supply, risk of coastal flooding and water scarcity, the projected number of people affected is considerably greater under the A2-type scenario of development (characterised by relatively low per capita income and large population growth) than under other SRES futures. [T20.6] This difference is largely explained, not by differences in changes of climate, but by differences in vulnerability.

The unavoidable conclusion: we should be discussing development pathways, and not simply carbon dioxide.

Posted on April 7, 2007 09:24 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 02, 2007

A Few Comments on Massachusetts vs. EPA

We discussed the lawsuit in depth here at Prometheus not long ago (here and here). Now the Supreme Court has rendered a judgment. The outcome is along the lines that we anticipated (see Office Pool 2007), with the Supreme Court deciding 5-4 that EPA has authority to regulate carbon dioxide, but seemingly withholding judgment on whether EPA must regulate CO2. But a close reading of the majority opinion (warning: by this non-expert) suggests that the ruling in fact leaves EPA little alternative other than to promulgate regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

First there is a science error in the majority opinion, though it seems clear that it would not change their judgment of injury. It states:

. . . global sea levels rose somewhere between 10 and 20 centimeters over the 20th century as a result of global warming.

According to the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report this value is more like 3 to 5.5 centimeters (from figure 11.10b here) with the rest of the 10 to 20 centimeters total due to natural causes. The Supreme Court has attributed all sea level rise to global warming which is incorrect. I had argued in earlier discussions that missing from this case, in arguments by both sides, was some evidence that the 3 to 5.5 centimeters of increase over the 20th century due to human-caused climate change can be related to some injury. However, given the line of argument taken by the majority opinion it appears that what would matter is that this number is quantifiable at all, not its relative magnitude, hence my opinion that an accurate reporting of actual 20th century sea level rise due to global warming would not have affected the reasoning. In footnote 21 the majority opinion explains this point as follows:

Yet the likelihood that Massachusetts’ coastline will recede has nothing to do with whether petitioners have determined the precise metes and bounds of their soon-to-be-flooded land. Petitioners maintain that the seas are rising and will continue to rise, and have alleged that such a rise will lead to the loss of Massachusetts’ sovereign territory. No one, save perhaps the dissenters, disputes those allegations. Our cases require nothing more.

The majority opinion also notes that redressability of harms also does not need to be precisely quantified or large:

That a first step might be tentative does not by itself support the notion that federal courts lack jurisdiction to determine whether that step conforms to law.

The bottom line?

Here is the SC take home message:

We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding, or whether policy concerns can inform EPA’s actions in the event that it makes such a finding. . . We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.

In other words, if EPA wants to continue to avoid promulgating regulations on greenhouse gases, then it needs to come up with a better excuse than than those used so far under the Bush Administration. However, it seems clear from the text of the opinion that the majority does in fact render an opinion on whether EPA must make an endangerment finding. I am not an expert on Supreme Court rulings, but the following passage goes pretty far down the path of prescribing exactly what regulatory action EPA should take:

The alternative basis for EPA’s decision—that even if it does have statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gases, it would be unwise to do so at this time—rests on reasoning divorced from the statutory text. While the statute does condition the exercise of EPA’s authority on its formation of a “judgment,” 42 U. S. C. §7521(a)(1), that judgment must relate to whether an air pollutant “cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” ibid. Put another way, the use of the word “judgment” is not a roving license to ignore the statutory text. It is but a direction to exercise discretion within defined statutory limits. If EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles. Ibid. (statingthat “[EPA] shall by regulation prescribe . . . standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class of new motor vehicles”). EPA no doubt has significant latitude as to the manner, timing, content, and coordination of its regulations with those of other agencies. But once EPA has responded to a petition for rulemaking, its reasons for action or inaction must conform to the authorizing statute. Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do.
EPA has refused to comply with this clear statutory command. Instead, it has offered a laundry list of reasons not to regulate. For example, EPA said that a number of voluntary executive branch programs already provide an effective response to the threat of global warming, 68 Fed. Reg. 52932, that regulating greenhouse gases might impair the President’s ability to negotiate with “key developing nations” to reduce emissions, id., at 52931, and that curtailing motor-vehicle emissions would reflect "an inefficient, piecemeal approach to address the climate change issue," ibid.

Although we have neither the expertise nor the authority to evaluate these policy judgments, it is evident they have nothing to do with whether greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change. [emphasis added]

The language here suggests that if greenhouse gases contribute to climate change, then EPA has no other choice other than to regulate. The majority opinion states that they have neither expertise not authority to make policy judgments, but do so anyway. I’d welcome Supreme Court experts weighing in on this. Is this sort of prescriptive language common? Is it actionable in future lawsuits?

If my interpretation is correct (big if) then regardless of what excuse for inaction that EPA under President Bush comes up with, the language of this opinion gives considerable latitude for a subsequent lawsuit suing EPA for its failure to regulate. I doubt that there is enough time left in the Bush Administration for this to occur. Nonetheless it will be a trump card to hold over the next president, Democrat or Republican. A similar lawsuit helped break the gridlock over ozone depletion leading to a negotiated settlement resulting is U.S. participation in the Vienna Convention (details here in PDF). Would there be a similar agreement possible on climate change? If so, what would petitioners ask for and what would a president agree to? Could all of this be trumped by Congress?

Posted on April 2, 2007 04:22 PM View this article | Comments (20)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

April 01, 2007

Sea Level Rise Consensus Statement and Next Steps

In a paper by Jim Hansen that we discussed last week, he called for a consensus statement to be issued on global warming, West Antarctica and sea level rise, from relevant scientific experts. A group of scientists have beat him to the punch issuing a consensus statement last week:

Polar ice experts from Europe and the United States, meeting to pursue greater scientific consensus over the fate of the world’s largest fresh water reservoir, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, conclude their three-day meeting at The University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences with the following statement:

Read the whole thing, but the take home point is that there remain substantial uncertainties, as indicated in the following parts of the consensus statement:

*Satellite observations show that both the grounded ice sheet and the floating ice shelves of the Amundsen Sea Embayment have thinned over the last decades.
*Ongoing thinning in the grounded ice sheet is already contributing to sea-level rise.

*The thinning of the ice has occurred because melting beneath the ice shelves has increased, reducing the friction holding back the grounded ice sheet and causing faster flow.

*Oceanic changes have caused the increased ice-shelf melting. The observed average warming of the global ocean has not yet notably affected the waters reaching the base of the ice shelves. However, recent changes in winds around Antarctica caused by human influence and/or natural variability may be changing ocean currents, moving warmer waters under the ice shelves.

*Our understanding of ice-sheet flow suggests the possibility that too much melting beneath ice shelves will lead to "runaway" thinning of the grounded ice sheet. Current understanding is too limited to know whether, when, or how rapidly this might happen, but discussions at the meeting included the possibility of several feet of sea-level rise over a few centuries from changes in this region.

What is the policy significance of this statement?

1. Decisions about climate change will have to be made is the face of considerable uncertainties as those related to sea level rise will not be reduced anytime soon.

2. There is the "possibility of several feet of sea-level rise over a few centuries from changes in this region." This contrasts strongly with Jim Hansen's assertion that

"Spatial and temporal fluctuations are normal, short-term expectations for Greenland glaciers are different from long-term expectations for West Antarctica. Integration via the gravity satellite measurements puts individual glacier fluctuations in proper perspective. The broader picture gives strong indication that ice sheets will, and are already beginning to, respond in a nonlinear fashion to global warming.There is enough information now, in my opinion, to make it a near certainty that IPCC BAU climate forcing scenarios would lead to disastrous multi-meter sea level rise on the century time scale" (PDF).

Who will eventually be proven correct? I have no idea. Nor do I think that it matters at all from the perspective of policy (compare Naomi Oreskes' views on this subject here) . The significance of this difference in views has more to do with issue of scientific advice than sea level rise itself -- if scientists create an expectation that our decision making should be guided by consensus views of relevant experts, then they should take care when abandoning that approach to scientific advice when less politically convenient.

3. Bottom line: Sea level rose about 20 cm over the past century. The IPCC expects that it may rise from less than that amount to about 60 cm over the next century. RealClimate says they see another 40 cm possible in the IPCC report. And there is a long thin probability tail of higher amounts with low probability and high consequences.

So, What are the Next Steps?

**Mitigation actions can have only a small effect on sea level rise in the short term (e.g., from no impact decades hences to small impacts a century out) and thus respond primarily to the longer term threats of sea level rise more than a century in the future.

**The most (and only) effective responses to sea level rise over the century timescale will be adaptive. So once again we see that mitigation and adaptation respond to fundamentally different aspects of the climate issue. Mitigation and adaptation should occur in parallel.

**Mitigation and adaptation policies to in response to sea level rise have been looked at (notably in the work of Richard Tol, e.g., here), but far more needs to be done (e.g., as argued here in PDF and here in PDF). Sea level rise has, like so many aspects of the climate issue, fallen into the trap of the "prediction game" at the expense of research on the possible consequences of alternative policies in response to that which we already know. The sea level rise issue risks becoming simply a "poster child" for mitigation rather than an issue deserving more attention itself.

So my recommendation is: Rather than arguing over which predictions of the climate future (or which scientists) are correct, we know enough about the general trend in sea level rise and the possibility of a large increase to begin thinking and talking in far more depth about a wide range of possible policy responses, especially adaptation. Such discussions have to go beyond the simplistic use of future sea level rise as a argument to mitigate. Under any scenario of mitigation the adaptation challenge remains essentially the same, and similarly under any adaptation efforts the mitigation challenge does not change. Absolutely no science on the prediction of future sea level rise will alter this basic reality.

Posted on April 1, 2007 04:58 PM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

No Joke: 25 to 1

Andy Revkin has a piece in today's New York Times on the challenges facing climate adaptation. He reports that money being spent on human-caused climate change in developing countries under the Framework Convention on Climate Change is biased in favor of mitigation over adaptation by a factor of 25 to 1:

But for now, the actual spending in adaptation projects in the world’s most vulnerable spots, totaling around $40 million a year, “borders on the derisory,” said Kevin Watkins, the director of the United Nations Human Development Report Office, which tracks factors affecting the quality of life around the world.
The lack of climate aid persists even though nearly all the world’s industrialized nations, including the United States under the first President Bush, pledged to help when they signed the first global warming treaty, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, in 1992. Under that treaty, industrialized countries promised to assist others “that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation.” It did not specify how much they would pay.

A $3 billion Global Environmental Facility fund maintained by contributions from developed countries has nearly $1 billion set aside for projects in poorer countries that limit emissions of greenhouse gases. But critics say those projects often do not have direct local benefits, and many are happening in the large fast-industrializing developing countries — not the poorest ones.

This situation exists despite the following consensus view from the IPCC:

In its most recent report, in February, the [IPCC] panel said that decades of warming and rising seas were inevitable with the existing greenhouse-gas buildup, no matter what was done about cutting future greenhouse gas emissions.

My former colleague (and boss) at NCAR, Mickey Glantz aptly sums up where this leaves climate policy:

Michael H. Glantz, an expert on climate hazards at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who has spent two decades pressing for more work on adaptation to warming, has called for wealthy countries to help establish a center for climate and water monitoring in Africa, run by Africans. But for now, he says he is doubtful that much will be done.
"The third world has been on its own," he said, "and I think it pretty much will remain on its own."

Posted on April 1, 2007 04:31 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 30, 2007

Response to Nature Commentary: Insiders and Outsiders

Three leaders in the adaptation community submitted a letter to Nature responding to our commentary published last month (here in PDF). Nature won't be publishing their letter, but we are happy to reproduce it here. Below is the letter and our response to it, followed by a bit more commentary from me.

We take issue with the commentary by Pielke et al. (Nature 445: 597). The authors accuse mitigation advocates of incorrectly arguing that efforts on adaptation detract from mitigation. We agree that the argument is spurious. Yet, the authors make the opposite argument which we also take issue with: that mitigation detracts from adaptation. The notion that the UNFCCC allows investments in adaptation to be reduced by investments in mitigation is unfounded.
Both mitigation and adaptation are needed. Global warming threatens to destabilize ice sheets, causing sea level rise to rise for centuries. It also threatens to cause widespread disruption of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity. It is not clear how adaptation will offset these impacts. Thus, mitigation is needed to slow down global warming and avoid its worst effects.

As the authors note, adaptation is also needed because climate change is underway and further warming is inevitable. The climate change adaptation community has long recognized that effective adaptation has to address shortcomings in natural resource management as well as addressing the added risks introduced by climate change. This is not a diversion, but a necessary response to an unprecedented threat facing humanity.

Joel B. Smith
Stratus Consulting Inc.
Boulder, CO USA

Ian Burton
University of Toronto
Toronto

Saleemul Huq
International Institute for Environment and Development
London

And here is our response, which we shared with the authors by email:

A criticism from arguably the three leading voices on adaptation for our not paying sufficient attention to mitigation underscores our point. You letter fails to acknowledge our main point -- that two views of adaptation are present in the current discourse. Of course, you are all well aware of this because it is you who has done the most to introduce the broader definition!
The narrow view of adaptation that we describe is indeed linked tightly to mitigation (as for instance reflected in the Stern Report) and does indeed compete with the broader view of adaptation as sustainable development (this tension is reflected in the IPCC reports which use both definitions inconsistently). Some of your own work arguing for the broader definition makes this absolutely clear. Our article was about how these two framings of adaptation compete with one another.

To fail to recognize this distinction is I think to mischaracterize our piece. If every response to advocacy for a greater emphasis on adaptation as sustainable development is countered by a criticism that describes the importance of mitigation, it is fair to ask who is creating the perception of a trade-off.

In response to climate change, we can (and must) do more than one thing at once. But to do so requires that we stop defending mitigation reflexively every time someone makes a strong argument for adaptation. Our piece argued that these agendas should be decoupled which is what the broad definition of adaptation helps to achieve. By not acknowledging this distinction, your letter in response brings them together again and creates ambiguity.

We do appreciate the feedback and it is indeed a sign of progress on this issue if we can begin debating the dimensions of adaptation, rather than if we should be adapting at all.

And I would further point to a recent Pew Center report co-authored by Joel Smith and Ian Burton (PDF) which included the following argument indicating that adaptation is indeed tightly tied to mitigation under the FCCC:

. . . .the adaptation effort has suffered from ambiguities in the [FCCC] regime. One concerns the very definition of adaptation, which is nowhere explicit in the Convention. In that adaptation is referenced only in the context of climate change, the implication is that support under the Convention must be directed to activities addressing primarily if not exclusively human-induced impacts. Yet, as noted earlier, and in expert meetings convened under the Convention, adaptation strategies often are most effective when addressing the full continuum of climate risk. In addition, there appears significant confusion over the terms for adaptation funding through the GEF. As the GEF was established to address global environmental issues, projects supported through its principal trust fund must deliver a "global environmental benefit." In the area of adaptation, most funding flows through the separate dedicated funds established under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Although guidance from the parties is not explicit on the point, the GEF’s position is that the "global environmental benefits" test does not apply to these funds. Yet there remains a widespread perception among potential recipients that it does.

This is identical to the argument that we made in the Nature commentary and that I analyze in depth in this paper (in PDF)!

And Saleemul Huq (with Hannah Reid) write:

For example, the six case studies on adaptation to climate change undertaken under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (see Agrawala, this Bulletin) define adaptation to climate change narrowly so that it refers to only those climate change impacts that are deemed to be directly attributable to human-induced climate change, rather than to adaptation to the broader range of impacts associated with "climate variability". A narrow definition of climate impacts would tend to then only produce a small range of adaptation responses as being necessary and hence requiring funding – in essence addressing only a very narrow set of examples of adaptation development linkages (i.e. the "tip of the iceberg" in Figure 2) and hence missing the much larger set of relevant adaptation-development linkages where there are additional co-benefits.

It is difficult for me to see how these perspectives differ at all from our own expressed in Nature as follows:

The focus on mitigation has created policy instruments that are biased against adaptation. Under the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, rich countries pay costs that poor countries incur by adapting to the marginal impacts of climate change — but they can in principle avoid these costs through enhanced mitigation efforts. This provision of the Protocol exemplifies the failure to take adaptation seriously: not only are the funds involved provided on a voluntary basis by rich countries but they are held hostage to mitigation. The logic is that greenhouse-gas reductions will, in turn, reduce marginal adaptation costs. In practice, this means that the UNFCCC will pay "costs that lead to global environmental benefits, but not those that result in local benefits". To those experiencing devastating losses from climate impacts in developing countries, such logic must sound surreal: policy 'success' means not investing in adaptation even as climate impacts, driven mainly by non-climate factors, continue to mount.

The only difference that I can see between Smith, Burton, and Huq and Pielke, Prins, Rayner, and Sarewitz is that we are a bit less polite about discussing the big fat elephant in the room. And that just might be attributed to a difference between insiders and outsiders in the FCCC community.

Posted on March 30, 2007 11:16 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 29, 2007

Now I've Seen Everything

NASA's Jim Hansen has discovered STS (science and technology studies, i.e., social scientists who study science), and he is using it to justify why the IPCC is wrong and he, and he alone, is correct on predictions of future sea level rise and as well on calls for certain political actions, like campaign finance reform.

In a new paper posted online (here in PDF) Dr. Hansen conveniently selects a notable 1961 paper on the sociology of scientific discovery from Science to suggest that scientific reticence can be used to predict where future research results will lead. And he finds, interestingly enough, that they lead exactly to where his views are today.

What evidence does Dr. Hansen provide to indicate that his views on sea level rise are correct and those presented by the IPCC, which he openly disagrees with, are wrong? Well, for one he explains that no glaciologist agrees with his views (as they are apparently reticent), suggesting that in fact his views must be correct (a creative use of STS if I've ever seen one;-). If holding a minority view is a standard for predicting future scientific understandings then we should therefore apparently pay more attention to all those lonely skeptics crying out in the wilderness, no?

I find it simply amazing that Dr. Hansen has the moxie to invoke the STS literature to support his scientific arguments when that literature, had he looked at maybe one more paper, indicates that Bernard Barber's 1961 essay, while provocative is not widely accepted (see, e.g., this book or this paper). And even if one accepts Barber's article at face value which argues that scientists resist new discoveries (Thomas Kuhn, hello?), what Dr. Hansen doesn't explain (as he is throwing out the IPCC model of scientific consensus) is why his views are those that will prove to be proven correct in the future rather than those other scientific perspectives that are not endorsed by the IPCC. (Dr. Hansen appears to ignore Barber's argument in the same paper suggesting that older scientists are more likely to be captured by political or other interests when presenting their science.)

If we can use the sociology of science to foretell where science is headed, we could save a lot of money not having to in fact do the research. The climate issue is full of surprises and this one just about takes the cake for me. Now I've seen everything!

Posted on March 29, 2007 03:12 AM View this article | Comments (30)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

Cashing In

At least one IPCC lead author appears to be trying to cash in on concern over climate change. With the help of several University of Arizona faculty members, including one prominent IPCC contributor, a company called Climate Appraisal, LLC is selling address specific climate predictions looking out as far as the next 100 years. Call me a skeptic or a cynic but I'm pretty sure that the science of climate change hasn't advanced to the point of providing such place-specific information. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that if such information were credible and available, it'd already be in the IPCC. The path from global consensus to snake oil seems pretty short. I wouldn't deny anyone the chance to make a buck, but can this be good for the credibility of the IPCC?

Posted on March 29, 2007 02:57 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

March 28, 2007

Why is Climate Change a Partisan Issue in the United States?

Several people asked me to comment on this Jonathan Chait essay from the L.A. Times last week in which he sought to explain the partisan nature of the climate issue. While I think there are some elements of truth in Chait's perspective, I think that he misses the elephant in the room.

Climate change is indeed a partisan issue. This is confirmed time and again by opinion polls, most recently this poll released last week.

Chait seeks to explain this partisanship as follows:

How did it get this way? The easy answer is that Republicans are just tools of the energy industry. It's certainly true that many of them are. Leading global warming skeptic Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas), for instance, was the subject of a fascinating story in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. The bottom line is that his relationship to the energy industry is as puppet relates to hand.
But the financial relationship doesn't quite explain the entirety of GOP skepticism on global warming. For one thing, the energy industry has dramatically softened its opposition to global warming over the last year, even as Republicans have stiffened theirs.

The truth is more complicated — and more depressing: A small number of hard-core ideologues (some, but not all, industry shills) have led the thinking for the whole conservative movement.

Your typical conservative has little interest in the issue. Of course, neither does the average nonconservative. But we nonconservatives tend to defer to mainstream scientific wisdom. Conservatives defer to a tiny handful of renegade scientists who reject the overwhelming professional consensus.

National Review magazine, with its popular website, is a perfect example. It has a blog dedicated to casting doubt on global warming, or solutions to global warming, or anybody who advocates a solution. Its title is "Planet Gore." The psychology at work here is pretty clear: Your average conservative may not know anything about climate science, but conservatives do know they hate Al Gore. So, hold up Gore as a hate figure and conservatives will let that dictate their thinking on the issue.

Chait's suggestion that non-conservatives defer to the scientific mainstream while conservatives do not gets the cart and horse mixed up. Chait falls victim to the idea that for some people -- those rational beings in the reality-based community -- political perspectives flow from a fountain of facts. And if one's entire view of the relationship of science and politics is grounded in very recent Republican-Democrat conflict it is easy to see how this perspective might be reinforced. On the very hot-button issues of climate change and the teaching of evolution, Republican political agendas require confronting current scientific consensus.

But a broader look at science and politics shows that challenges to a current scientific consensus occurs across the ideological spectrum. Consider genetically modified agricultural products and the European Union. The EU has strongly opposed these products for political and cultural reasons (sound familiar?) in the face of a scientific consensus that indicates little risks. Consider also smoking, where a robust scientific consensus exists, yet far more people smoke in left-leaning Europe than in the United States. When I testified before Congress last February I pointed out that the Democrats organizing the hearing had decided not to invoke a recent consensus statement on hurricanes and global warming in favor of relying on a few selected studies most convenient to their political agenda. The reality is that we all filter facts through our pre-existing values and biases, and each of use is perfectly capable of ignoring or selectively interpreting facts as is convenient. Those who stubbornly refuse to accept the previous sentence would be a good example of these dynamics.

The blindingly obvious and somewhat banal answer to the question why climate change is a partisan issue is that climate change is a partisan issue because it has evolved as a partisan issue. The fact that at some point the issue took on partisan characteristics has led to a reinforcement of the partisanship. The important question to ask is how it is that climate change became a partisan issue. There are several answers to this question.

1. George W. Bush. Everything George Bush touches becomes a partisan issue (and seems to break). George Bush squandered an opportunity to become a great president in the aftermath of 9/11 and instead will be remembered as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. In this context, his early-2001 decision to unceremoniously abandon the Kyoto process and flip the bird at Europe more than anything fed the partisan nature of the climate debate. In the 1992 presidential election climate change first became a high-level partisan issue as Al Gore and George H. W. Bush used the issue to score political points, with GHWB calling Gore "ozone man" and promising to counter the greenhouse effect with the "White House effect." Of course the deeper history, back to the 1970s, involves the Republicans as the party of the extractive resources industries and the Democrats as the party of alternative energy. These debates conveniently mapped right onto the 1980s emergence of climate change as Dan Sarewitz and I documented in 2000 in the Atlantic Monthly. Of course, if one were to go back to the 1950s and 1960s these partisan roles were somewhat reversed, as Frank Laird documents in his excellent book on the history of solar energy.

2. Al Gore. Long before George W. Bush was in politics Al Gore was in the business of politicizing the climate issue. I have no doubt that he feels strongly about climate change, but his actions for several decades bely his oft-stated claim that climate change is not a partisan issue. Today Al Gore's leadership on this issue is by its very nature a partisan issue:

Appearing before a Congressional Committee, Gore said that Global Warming is "not a partisan issue; it’s a moral issue." However, polling data suggests that among the general public it’s a very partisan issue. By a 65% to 9% margin, Democrats say that Gore knows what he’s talking about. By a 57% to 11%, Republicans say he does not. Those not affiliated with either party are evenly divided.

So long as the main protagonists in the U.S. climate issue are the opponents from the overwhelmingly partisan 2000 presidential election, how in the world can the climate issue be anything other than partisan?

3. The Chorus. Given the dynamics described above, it is entirely natural that the climate debate attracts participants ranging from experts to the lay public, who together I call the chorus. And people are attracted to the issue because of its partisan nature, and the nature of blogs and media coverage amplify the voice of the chorus. And in turn the chorus reinforces the partisan nature of the debate through several forms of dynamics.

First, climate change is a perfect issue for the scientization of politics. This refers to the tendency to characterize political debates in terms of technical disputes -- remember the Hockey Stick? There is an endless supply of climate science to debate and discuss and always the presence of irritating skeptics who challenge the current consensus (see discussion at RealClimate). This situation elevates the authority of subject matter experts in political debates, which makes it appealing for some experts, but also inevitably politicizes the expert community as they self-segregate according to political perspectives.

Second, self-segregation is not unique to experts. A short tour around the web reveals the truth of Cass Sunstein's notion of internet-based "echo chambers" in which people talk only with those who share their views and lambaste as evil subhumans those who they disagree with. It is a rare discussion on climate change that involves a thoughtful exchange of ideas from people who hold fundamentally different political views. The self-segregation has the effect of increasing the partisan nature of the debate as people come to believe more strongly of the absolute truth in their views and the absolute lack of morals in their opponents.

Third, forced segregation. For those who do not fit easily into the partisan nature of the climate debate, partisans go to great effort to force these perspectives into a partisan framework. For instance, here at Prometheus we've consistently advanced views on climate policy (held long before George Bush came around) that emphasize the importance of adaptation and immediate, no-regrets mitigation to occur in parallel (see my 2006 Congressional testimony for the full spiel), and we've experienced a steady effort by some to frame our views as "right-leaning" simply because they are not "left-leaning." The repeated attacks on us from the environmental Gristmill blog are a case in point, despite the fact that there appears to be an enormous substantive agreement in our views. Of course, if the political right actually accepted the views on policy that we have been advocating then those on the political left would probably be rejoicing! On the climate issue, because the chorus has little stomach for perspectives that deviate in any sense from the partisan framing, it is any surprise that the partisan framing dominates?

The bottom line is that climate change is a partisan issue. It will likely remain so in the United States for a long time. Political action will happen nonetheless simply because the Democrats have succeeded in making it a political issue during a time of their ascendancy. If Al Gore runs for president, as I suspect he will, it will further increase the partisan nature of the debate. To the extent that Democrats continue to raise expectations that climate change is central to their agenda, action will inevitably occur. Republicans will eventually accept that action will occur and will do the best to use it as a vehicle to advance their own interests, as typically occurs in all political situations. For those interested in effective policy action, as opposed to scoring political points real or symbolic, there will be a continuing need to keep a focus on policy options and their likely consequences. Die hard partisans will do there best to make that task difficult as discussion of options requires the sort of nuance not present in political horse races.

Soon climate politics in the United States will come to resemble the current dynamics in the EU, in which the issues will be messier and more complicated. When that occurs, like old Cold Warriors the climate partisans will long for the days of good guys and bad guys, and will likely hang on too long to the past.

Posted on March 28, 2007 08:30 AM View this article | Comments (25)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

So Long as We Are Discussing Congressional Myopia . . .

I had a chance to meet Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) last year at an informal dinner at the home of Thomas Lovejoy, head of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. In my conversations with Mr. Gilchrest I found him to be extremely thoughtful and exactly the sort of person that anyone would welcome representing them in Congress, Republican or Democrat. My views were reinforced when I saw Mr. Gilchrest sitting with Congressional committees looking into global warming even though he wasn’t on those committees but was attending simply to educate himself, one time when I was testifying.

So it was with some surprise that I read the following about Mr. Gilchrest in a news story last week:

House Republican Leader John Boehner would have appointed Rep. Wayne Gilchrest to the bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming — but only if the Maryland Republican would say humans are not causing climate change, Gilchrest said.
"I said, 'John, I can't do that,'" Gilchrest said in an interview.

Gilchrest didn't make the committee. Neither did other Republican moderates or science-minded members, whose guidance centrist GOP members usually seek on the issue. Republican moderates, called the Tuesday Group, invited Boehner to this week's meeting to push for different representation.
. . .
Gilchrest expressed his interest in the committee several times to Boehner and Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, telling them the best thing they could do for Republican credibility was to appoint members familiar with the scientific data.

"Roy Blunt said he didn't think there was enough evidence to suggest that humans are causing global warming," Gilchrest said. "Right there, holy cow, there's like 9,000 scientists to three on that one."

The fact that the Republican leadership seeks to ensure political unanimity via a litmus test on the science of climate change should be a surprise to no one. More troubling is the fact that the participation of one of our most thoughtful public servants on an important select committee is a casualty of such political myopia. Not only will policy discussions be impoverished by such actions, but it is also hard to see how it works in the favor of the Republican political agenda.

Posted on March 28, 2007 01:29 AM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

March 27, 2007

Unpublished Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle

A few weeks ago Henry Miller had an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle that discussed our recent commentary in Nature on adaptation (PDF). We sent in a letter in response that for whatever reason the Chronicle decided not to publish. So we have reproduced it here:

Dear Editor-
We appreciate that Henry Miller (Sunday, March 11, 2007) highlighted our recent commentary in Nature magazine which called for greater attention to adaptation in climate policy. In that article we argue that advocates of mitigation (i.e., reducing greenhouse gas emissions) frequently go too far when they present energy policies as an alternative to societal adaptation to the impacts of a changing climate. Unfortunately, Dr. Miller commits an equally grave mistake by suggesting that adaptation can take the place of mitigation. Any effective approach to climate policy will require that we both mitigate and adapt. The urge to present adaptation and mitigation as somehow in opposition is a reflex shared by those on opposing sides of the debate over greenhouse gas emissions. On climate policy we must walk and chew gum at the same time.

Roger Pielke, Jr., University of Colorado
Gwyn Prins, London School of Economics and Columbia University
Steve Rayner, Oxford University's James Martin Institute
Daniel Sarewitz, Arizona State University

Posted on March 27, 2007 12:44 AM View this article | Comments (14)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 26, 2007

Whose political agenda is reflected in the IPCC Working Group 1, Scientists or Politicians?

Recent discussion here on Prometheus and elsewhere has indicated two very different perspectives on who controls the IPCC’s Working Group I on the science of climate change. The different views reflect various efforts to legitimize and delegitimize the IPCC. However, the different perspectives cannot be reconciled for reasons I describe below, placing scientists in an interesting double bind.

The first view is that the IPCC is subject to governmental control at the start and at the finish, and thus is an overtly political document. It is after all the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. From this perspective the IPCC is very much a political document with political officials setting its agenda in the form of of the questions that it is to address and political officials also acting as gatekeepers on the resulting scientific report.

This view on the back end was expressed by Michael Mann, of Penn State University and RealClimate, who commented in New Scientist earlier this month:

Allowing governmental delegations to ride into town at the last minute and water down conclusions after they were painstakingly arrived at in an objective scientific assessment does not serve society well.

On the front end of the report, Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M, suggested that this too was controlled by politicians and not scientists, writing in the comments on another Prometheus post:

. . . you have to conclude that the [IPCC chapter] outline represents the questions member gov'ts want to know in order to respond to climate change.

The second view is that the IPCC is squarely in the control of the scientific community with governmental officials having a right to approve the IPCC report on the front and back ends but with no authority to alter it’s substance in any way for political purposes. Twenty distinguished climate scientists who participated in drafting of the recent IPCC Summary for Policymakers wrote a letter objecting vehemently to an article in the New Scientist suggesting that political officials had any influence whatsoever on the report.

At all stages, including at the final plenary in Paris, the authors had control over the text . . In particular, our co-chair Susan Solomon is robustly independent and has been determined to maintain the credibility of the science throughout the four-year process. . . The wide participation of the scientific community, the scientific accuracy and the absence of any policy prescription in this report are the characteristics that render this report so powerful. . . Another related misconception, promulgated by [New Scientist], is that the Summary for Policymakers was written by and for the government delegations, and changes were made to the scientific conclusions before and during the Paris plenary for political purposes. In fact, the Summary for Policymakers was written by the scientists who also wrote the underlying chapters. The purpose of the Paris plenary was to make clarifications in order to more succinctly and accessibly communicate the science to the policy-makers. The scientists were present in Paris to ensure scientific accuracy and consistency with the underlying report. Those of us also involved in previous assessments were pleasantly surprised that there were far fewer alterations made to the text at this final meeting, and that there were very few attempts at political interference.

So here is the double bind that scientists find themselves in: Some scientists, like Andrew Dessler (cited above), wish to assert that the IPCC is essentially value-free reflecting the revealed truths of the climate system as discerned by objective climate scientists with no political agenda. From this perspective, the only political agenda that the IPCC reflects is that imposed upon it by governments on the front end in the form of questions that they would like to see answered. It is otherwise scientifically pure. Other scientists, like Michael Mann (cited above), hold a very different view seeing the IPCC as reflecting a political agenda of member governments who have in fact corrupted the objective views of the climate scientists. From this perspective, the IPCC does in fact reflect a political agenda that shaped it on the back end.

If governmental representatives in fact have no influence on content of the IPCC only an ability to approve, as suggested by the twenty authors of the letter to the New Scientist, then all decisions made by the IPCC about what information to present in the report reflect the values and judgments of the scientists participating. Many scientists do not like this assertion because it suggests that the IPCC is not accountable to anyone, and stands as a technocratic exercise far from any sort of democratic governance of science. If instead governmental officials do in fact have influence, then the IPCC has some greater accountability and perhaps meets some criteria of democratic governance, but at the same time many scientists do not like this assertion because then the IPCC risks losing its legitimacy as its conclusions would then reflect the political agendas of its overseers. So does the IPCC Working Group I reflect a political agenda or not?

The only way that this double bind could be broken would be for the IPCC to do two things. First, on its front end it would need to have a formal, transparent, and systematic process for eliciting the demands for information from policy makers in the forms of questions asked and information sought. (Dan Sarewitz and I describe such a process in this paper: PDF.) There was in fact no such process on the front end.

Second, on the back end the IPCC would need an accepted process that allowed member governments to ask questions seeking to clarify and focus the report, opposed to changing its content. The IPCC authors suggest that this is in fact what happened, but its critics assert the opposite. So whatever the reality, it seems clear that the following statement from the twenty IPCC letter-writers holds up: "A legitimate criticism perhaps is the poor communication to the general public of IPCC procedures."

Everyone seems to agree that the IPCC reflects a political agenda, the question is who’s political agenda? Is it that of the participating scientists? Do participating scientists in fact have a "political agenda" or instead do they have many competing political agendas? Or is the political agenda of the IPCC that of the participating governments? But do participating governments in fact have a "political agenda" or many competing political agendas?

The answers to the questions are all unclear. The IPCC tries to have things both ways by asserting governmental participation without governmental influence. This makes no sense, and participation is meaningless absent influence. As a result, how people view the legitimacy of the IPCC will therefore most likely be an inkblot test on their views of governance by experts versus the democratization of knowledge. One thing seems clear, global governance of the IPCC would be much more straightforward, and its role far easier to understand, with some explicit answers to who controls the IPCC, scientists or governments?

Posted on March 26, 2007 07:45 AM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Democratization of Knowledge | The Honest Broker

March 21, 2007

Al Gore's appearance before Senate EPW

Today's climate change hearing at Senate EPW with Al Gore as sole witness just finished. A few thoughts.

The hearing had a format slightly altered from the usual, with Chair Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe giving opening statements, Mr. Gore getting 30 minutes to talk, Inhofe getting 15 minutes to question him, then the rest of the Senators getting their chances.

Sen. Inhofe tried hard to clown the hearing into irrelevance but Boxer struggled successfully to keep him in line and Gore did a good job of battling back. By the end of the hearing it was pretty clear that Inhofe has been pushed out to the fringes. He already was, of course, but previously he has had caucus members either behind him or willing to read directly from his sheaf of talking points. This time when the dust settled he looked startlingly alone.

During his talk Mr. Gore pushed a bunch of ideas, some of which were new and worth highlighting.

• The biggest bombshell was his second proposal: eliminate employment/payroll taxes and replace the revenue with a new carbon/pollution tax. This is the first time I've heard Mr. Gore specifically endorse a carbon tax, which automatically gives it new life in the policy debate. But more startling is the proposed revenue offset by eliminating payroll taxes.

• Mr. Gore's fourth proposal was to place an immediate moratorium on any new coal plant that is not outfitted with carbon capture and storage (sequestration) technology (CCS). This point was refreshed again and again throughout the hearing, especially as coal-state Senators asked their questions. This proposal is perhaps most interesting because it is not currently feasible and doesn't look like it'll be able to be implemented any time soon, so essentially Mr. Gore is saying, "stop building coal plants right now."

• The sixth proposal was to create an "electronet," meaning a distributed power system where small scale (to the level of individual homes) generators could put their power on the grid. This is an idea that has been around for a while and is the current buzz in clean energy policy, pushed pretty strongly by Amory Lovins and RMI. The thought is that centralized power in the form of massive coal and nuke plants is less efficient than distributed energy that can be used directly by the producer with excess sold back to the grid.

• The eighth proposal was to create a new federal mortgage lender that specifically deals in carbon neutral energy upgrades to homes (and call it "Connie Mae" following Fannie Mae). It was hard for me to grasp where he was going with this, but as far as I could tell it would be a lending instrument to borrow money for efficiency upgrades against the saving in energy costs produced by the upgrades. The loan would become a market-tradable financial instrument like home loans.

• Finally, Mr. Gore pressed for corporations to be required to disclose their carbon emissions to shareholders. He didn't say it, but I assume he meant that it would go on corporate SEC filings. This is something that has already been going around in the business world a bit, with companies starting to wonder if they need to disclose.

On the science: I was disappointed to see Mr. Gore stretching the science to his audience of Senators, but I'm willing to concede to Tom Yulsman (made in the 3rd comment to this post) that: "Should Gore be faulted for being an advocate? By definition, that's what politicians do. He is making a strong case for action, so of course he is going to emphasize some of the worst-case scenarios while downplaying less dire possibilities." Still, in his hearing testimony Mr. Gore highlighted recent sightings of manatees in unusual places, fires in Oklahoma and fires "raging out of control" all over the west as prime examples of global warming. I'm sticking to my point: Mr. Gore is representing the science now in a far more prominent way than any scientist, his words and presentations are based on many, many meetings with top climate scientists, and thus in a very real way, Mr. Gore is representing scientists. This time it wasn't even future projections but current events. No scientist would call the sighting of one manatee far up the Atlantic coast a clear indication of global warming. (These things happen –my graduate school advisor wrote a note in Nature describing why it wasn't strange to find coelacanths in the Sulawesi Sea.) The use of those examples to say "this is global warming, right here, right now!!" is perhaps not representing the science well.

Finally, some quick thoughts on Mr. Gore's interactions with the individual Senators on the panel. As the hearing went on I started to focus more on the R's than the D's and I finally realized why: the D's have been on board for a while, but up to this point the R's have been stalling. They aren't any longer, and almost to a person the R's made loud and positive noises about accepting the science and wanting to do something about it. So I started wanting to hear the next R, to hear how he (no female R's on EPW right now) was positioning himself on climate change, knowing that the R's are playing catch up.

Inhofe vs. Gore: Mr. Inhofe tried to trap Mr. Gore into a pledge to not use more energy than the average American household and to not use offsets/credits to buy off his increased energy use. This was a direct hit on the either well- or under-publicized (depending on your politics) blog post from the TN Center for Policy Research that Mr. Gore's house in TN uses more than twice the energy in one month than the average American family uses in one year. It seemed tough to wiggle out of but Mr. Gore responded by saying he buys wind power. Should have ended the conversation right there, but Inhofe had to keep clowning about it, of course. Still, I think Gore made his point.

Sen. Isakson (R-GA) was the first of many to push nuclear. Roger discussed Gore and nuclear previously here and Gore hasn't shifted much. He held throughout the hearing that nuclear would be part of the energy solution but only a small part. When pushed by the many pro-nuclear Senators he said the biggest reason for his bearish attitude was the cost. But I have to say: the cost-per-BTU of nuclear vs. the cost-per-BTU of coal with full CCS installed? I'm not sure CCS-coal is going to win that one.

Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) made a point I've been pushing for a while: that we are already passed the political tipping point for movement on climate change. I think if you consider the rhetoric and tone of the debate both among the elected and in the press, we are passed a tipping point on moving on climate change. Lieberman made the point that we better get past that political tipping point before we hit the climatological tipping point, which I suppose is a reference to a sudden Atlantic meridional overturning shutdown (few believe this is an immediate threat). Gore, however, disagreed that we've reached a political tipping point. But if we are not yet passed a tipping point, that implies that we could still slide back down, forget about all this and do nothing on climate change. I don't think that's going to happen; I think action is inevitable.

Sen. Craig (R-ID) pushed nuclear again (Idaho has a big national nuke lab) and accused the Clinton/Gore administration of killing some important nuclear funding. I find that pretty comical considering that Congress appropriates and Senator Craig has a very plush position on the approps committee. Craig also mentioned a new Dorgan/Craig bill on CAFE standards, but when I looked on Thomas I didn't see anything yet.

Sen. Baucus (D-MT) is an important voice in this debate because he is Chair of the Finance Committee. Remember Gore's proposal to kill payroll taxes and replace them with pollution (carbon) taxes? Anything like that would start and end with Baucus. And I have to say, Gore reiterated instituting a carbon tax and Baucus actually looked interested and engaged in thinking about it. Baucus also proclaimed his support for a cap-and-trade system and was adamant that it be economy-wide (i.e. not sector-based) without exemptions. Gore ended the interaction by saying, "put a price on carbon – tax is the best way, cap-and-trade will also do it."

Sen. Clinton (D-NY) is clearly engaged in the meat of these issues, regardless of her D'08 status. She asked pointed questions about whether we would need both a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade and when Gore said we should have both, she wanted to know how and why it would work to have both. (Kudos to her, I was wondering the same thing.) She also wanted more detail on the Connie Mae mortgage scheme and got into a quick back-and-forth with Gore on the details. Clinton's questions on the detail reminded me of her portrait in Joshua Green's Atlantic Monthly article.

Sen. Thomas (R-WY) – Here's where I saw the best bit of psychology of the afternoon. You could just tell from his first question/comment and demeanor that Thomas, like almost everybody else, was on board with trying to do something about climate. That he's from a coal state is only part of the equation; every time coal came up Gore went straight to the CCS card. But then Thomas, suddenly reading from his crib sheet, had to go to the standard dumb question about if weather prediction is bad so why can we rely on climate models? followed on by another ill-prepared skeptic standard. His staff should be fired.

Sen. Carper (D-DE) (one of my favorite policy wonk Senators) got into an exchange with Gore about the allocation of carbon pollution permits and input vs. output based caps. Gore had a chance to reiterate that if a cap-trade scheme comes along the permits should be auctioned, not distributed. Fine bit of inside policy there.

I've skipped a few of the more mundane exchanges. The hearing ended back with Sen. Boxer remarking that, "Senator Inhofe was waiting for this chance to have this conversation." And I'm sure he was. And he got rooked.

Posted on March 21, 2007 05:02 PM View this article | Comments (29) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

The state push to the federal push

It seems pretty likely that we won't see anything signed on carbon emission restrictions (tax or cap-and-trade) at the federal level before January 2009, so once again we have the somewhat familiar situation of states leading the federal government on sticky issues.

You probably know about RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative formed by the New England and upper Mid-Atlantic states that sets a cap-and-trade system to reduce CO2 from power plants. You might have heard that the Guvernator recently corralled four other western state governors (OR, WA, AZ and NM) to join in to form their own cap-and-trade program, this one targeting not just electricity generators, but economy-wide emissions. And as the dominoes keep falling so come the other high population states like Illinois (thanks Jim A), who wants to join the CCX.

The environmental policy buzz is how this regionalism will, as usual, force federal action as businesses put hard pressure down on their duly electeds to create one system that they have to comply with instead of a patchwork of systems. The pressure seems to be coming hard already. In January, Alcoa and nine other companies formed the US Climate Action Partnership and yesterday

A dozen U.S. companies and dozens of institutional investors managing $4 trillion in assets have called on Washington to enact strong federal legislation to curb the pollution causing global climate change. The group outlined the business and economic rationale for climate action as they called for a national policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions consistent with targets scientists say are needed to avoid the impacts of global warming.

Despite the pressure I'll reiterate the first sentence of this post: having anything signed on carbon emissions before January 2009 is unlikely at best, a pipedream at worst. But I think this delay creates an interesting scenario: what if a federal cap-and-trade scheme becomes irrelevant by the time it can pass?

With the announcement of the western five-state partnership, Gov. Schwarzenegger all but dared the RGGI states to expand their program and join with the western states. The western five plus the RGGI states represents 39% of the U.S. population and the addition of Illinois brings it to 43%. It's not hard to see other states falling in turn as the utilities and businesses in their states see the benefits to being part of the game and the drawbacks to being left out of it. Here we run into a couple of snags, though. First, the western and RGGI states, for the most part, represent a Democrat-heavy mix and today we saw fresh evidence of an unfortunate and widening D-R split within the voting public on attitudes about considering climate change a threat. Second, the southeastern (R-dominated) and Ohio Valley states (D-R mixed) that would be the next logical joinees in a regional-become-de facto national cap-and-trade system are coal-dominated, thus CO2-to-BTUs heavy.

Most curious to me is to track not only where the western state and RGGI partnerships take us on climate regulation, but what this regionalism does to the power structure in the U.S. as a whole. Robert Salladay on an LA Times blog covers the thoughts of Gar Alperovitz:

"The bold proposals that Mr. Schwarzenegger is now making for everything from universal health care to global warming point to the kind of decentralization of power which, once started, could easily shake up America’s fundamental political structure."
The United States, he says, is simply too big for meaningful democracy. Now, Alperovitz says, a new wave of regional devolution could also build on the more than 200 compacts that now allow groups of states to cooperate on environmental, economic, transportation and other problems. He adds:

"Governor Schwarzenegger may not have thought through the implications of continuing to assert forcefully his 'nation-state' ambitions. But he appears to have an expansive sense of the possibilities: this is the governor, after all, who brought Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain to the Port of Long Beach last year to sign an accord between California and Britain on global warming."

I'm not one for bold proclamations of radical changes or conspiracy theories or doomsday scenarios, but this is the kind of change that can happen subtly and slowly. And it would be fascinating to watch what should be a federal, nationwide system on carbon emissions instead be emplaced through decentralized but cooperative regional partnerships that work just as well or better than a federally-run system. If the feds wait too long on passing a nationwide system and the states have their own mechanisms in place covering more than 50% of the U.S. population by the time the feds get around to it, is that what will happen?

[UPDATE: as if on cue, I just got this news from Point Carbon: "The Climate Registry, an effort by members of existing US greenhouse gas registries in various regions, sent a letter to the governors of all 50 US states Friday requesting participation in the initiative to build a unified national registry for the entire US."]

Posted on March 21, 2007 10:17 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

March 13, 2007

Point made: it's the icon not the issue

William Broad has an article out today in the NYT on Al Gore as climate change icon that quotes Roger and myself. I think Roger's quote basically sums up the problem:

Very quickly, these discussions turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Mr. Gore.

I am quoted thusly:

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

The backlash thing, a.k.a. the ominous tension, comes from this post. The rest is a better way to sum up what I was trying to get across in that AGU post. In talking about overselling the science I was talking about overselling the future, not the past or present. I have no problem with the state of consensus on past and present climate and our imprint on it. I do have a problem with giving the non-technician public the impression that climate models give us some crystal ball into the future that warns with some degree of certainty about coming catastrophes. Risk, yes. Certainty, no. My message remains the same as it has been since my days in DC: deal with the risk but realize that it means acting on incomplete and imperfect information.

For the rest of the article Mr. Broad bounces back and forth between the avowed skeptic crowd and what I'd call the headlights of the climsci field, finding either praise for Gore or disdain based on how the questioned views the science.

Tits for tats and tête-à-têtes aside, my biggest problem lies here:

Mr. Gore depicted a future in which temperatures soar, ice sheets melt, seas rise, hurricanes batter the coasts and people die en masse. “Unless we act boldly,” he wrote, “our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.”

Clearly this is not science, this is agenda. But it is agenda sold on science, and if/when it doesn't come true, you have diminished the credibility of those producing the science. It's a big gamble to take. I think perhaps what is neatly illustrated by Mr. Broad in this article is that many big-name climate scientists are willing to take this risk by hitching their wagons to a non-scientist who is doing the selling for them.

It's a choice for individual scientists to make and I'm not faulting them or Al Gore for running down this path. In fact, I'd bolster my quote in the article praising Gore for getting the message out. I think Gore plays a very important and valuable role in public knowledge on climate change risk. (And FWIW, I'm betting with Roger that Gore will jump into the race, very late, will get all the money that the Clintons and Obama are raising now without having to stress himself to burn-out stage too early, and will stomp Rudy to get the WH. And yea Steve B, by saying this I'm angling for a position in the Gore White House.) But for the scientists they need to realize that Mr. Gore has a great cover if/when the dire predictions don't materialize: "Hey, I'm not a scientist, I'm just a concerned citizen politician." The scientists hitching their wagons to the dire messages have no such cover (except for tenure?).

[UPDATE: Read Matt Nisbet's very good analysis of the most important lessons of Broad's article. Matt's analysis is an interesting contrast to the other -- let's say more predictable -- reactions on Grist and RC.]

Posted on March 13, 2007 12:18 AM View this article | Comments (22)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

March 12, 2007

We Interrupt this Spring Break . . .

. . . to bring you a link to an article titled "The Convenient Truth" by Jonathan Rauch in the National Journal on climate policy. Now back to the blogging break . . .

Posted on March 12, 2007 03:43 PM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 06, 2007

The assessors assessing the assessments

Fresh out of the National Academies, commissioned by the CCSP, is a fabulous new climate-related assessment: Analysis of Global Change Assessments: Lessons Learned. The report

identifies for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program the essential elements of effective global change assessments, including strategic framing, engagement of stakeholders, credible treatment of uncertainties, and a transparent interface between policymakers and scientists. The report reviews lessons learned from past assessments, which are intended to inform policymakers about the scientific underpinnings of critical environmental issues such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, and ozone depletion.

Which would be great, but. But for two things we can identify right off the bat:

1- The most identifiable end user of a climate change assessment is the federal-level (and perhaps state-level) policy maker. You'd think that if you want to assess assessments and make sweeping recommendations on how in the future they can best be presented and utilized, you'd involve the very end users that the assessments target. But the participant list is a roster dominated by the very people who produce the information, not the people who consume it. The report did hear from a few end users in a couple of sessions, but the list (pg. ix-x of the full report) is very thin. So how are the producers to know what the consumers really need if the consumers were not intimately involved in the project? Which leads us to ...

2- Many of the people assessing the assessments are themselves involved in the original assessments. Further, the reviewers of the report (pg, ix) are all themselves information producers (save one). This is fine, but it leads me to wonder about the ultimate usefulness of the report. The point of this exercise should be to ensure that the information produced in assessments is useful to the end users. (That is mentioned as a goal, but as one goal in a list.) I'm not sure that scientists, essentially auditing themselves, are the best judge of whether their information is maximally useful to non-technical decision makers.

Nevertheless, it is important that we assess how we are giving technical information to decision makers. My argument is that we need to very closely involve decision makers themselves in that process. From what I can tell in the report's preface and other front matter, this was mostly a scientist-driven process.

Posted on March 6, 2007 12:43 PM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

March 01, 2007

Finally something for us to really fight about!

Or just virtually arm wrestle over? Anyway, the American Meteorological Society has just created a new climate policy blog. Judging from the witness list (Oppenheimer, MacCracken, Kammen, and others), it shouldn't be too long of a rise into the Technorati charts. It will be fun to see what this excellent list of cats, herded together by Paul Higgins, has to say over the next few months and years. (Good work, Paul.)

Of course, y'all can already see some places where we're going to differ. From climatepolicy's about page:

Policy choices will likely serve the interests of society most effectively if they are grounded in the best available knowledge and understanding. Therefore, we will promote objective understanding of climate change related issues rather than specific policy options.

For us around here, that statement is particularly timely. Lisa Dilling was talking about that very issue this past week. Lisa, is this what you meant by the "loading dock" approach?

Posted on March 1, 2007 07:18 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

February 28, 2007

Spinning Science

We have had a lot of discussion here about the process of producing press releases. Last month, I participated in a congressional hearing in which several scientists argued strongly that official press releases should be faithful to the science being reported. A press release put out by the University of Wisconsin today is a case of a press release completely misrepresenting the science in the paper that it is presenting. I am going to speculate that because the press release errs on the side of emphasizing a global warming connection where there is in fact none indicated in the paper that there will be little concern expressed by the scientific community about its inaccuracies.

UPDATE: NSF issues its own release "New Information Links Atlantic Ocean Warming to Stronger Hurricanes" compounding the misrepresentation. The NSF release (like the UW version) contradicts its own headline:

The Atlantic is also unique in that the physical variables that converge to form hurricanes--including wind speeds, wind directions and temperatures--mysteriously feed off each other to make conditions ripe for a storm. But scientists don't understand why, Kossin adds.

The press release is titled: "New evidence that global warming fuels stronger Atlantic hurricanes." The first paragraph of the release says:

Atmospheric scientists have uncovered fresh evidence to support the hotly debated theory that global warming has contributed to the emergence of stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.

The paper, by Jim Kossin and colleagues appears in today's Geophysical Research Letters and actually says nothing like this (paper here in PDF). It does say the following:

**Over the past 23 years there are no global trends in tropical cyclone activity in any basin except the Atlantic. This is an important finding because it contradicts the findings presented in 2005 by Webster et al. that there have been global trends. Kossin et al. call into question a straightforward relationship of SST and tropical cyclone activity. This is news.

**The paper does find the Atlantic to be more active over the past 23 years. No one in the world has ever questioned whether or not the Atlantic has been more active over the past 3 decades. Any assertion that the Atlantic has become more active is hardly "fresh evidence." This is not news.

*The paper does not engage in attribution, and openly admits that a 23-year record is too short for attribution studies (i.e., that indicate causes of trends).

Here is what Kossin et al. say in their conclusion:

Efforts are presently underway to maximize the length of our new homogeneous data record but at most we can add another 6–7 years, and whether meaningful trends can be measured or inferred in a 30-year data record remains very much an open question. Given these limitations of the data, the question of whether hurricane intensity is globally trending upwards in a warming climate will likely remain a point of debate in the foreseeable future. Still, the very real and dangerous increases in recent Atlantic hurricane activity will no doubt continue to provide a heightened sense of purpose to research addressing how hurricane behavior might change in our changing climate, and further efforts toward improvement of archival data quality are expected to continue in parallel with efforts to better reconcile the physical processes involved. If our 23-year record is in fact representative of the longer record, then we need to better understand why hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin is varying in a fundamentally different way than the rest of the world despite similar upward trends of SST in each basin.

The University of Wisconsin press release is either a cheap publicity grab or a deliberate attempt to spin the paper's results 180 degrees from what it actually says.

Posted on February 28, 2007 10:19 AM View this article | Comments (24)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

February 23, 2007

IPCCfacts.org Responds

Here is the prompt and satisfactory response I received late today:

We regret that your views were misrepresented on IPCCfacts.org, and have removed the post.
The intent of the site is to follow the conversation around the IPCC
report and, where mischaracterizations about the report are made,
clearly and directly present the IPCC findings. We stand behind our
presentation of the IPCC report findings.

We regret the error.

Sincerely,

Joel Finkelstein

Posted on February 23, 2007 08:15 PM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

ASLA wrap-up on House IPCC hearings

Kate Von Holle in AGU's Public Policy shop provides a wrap-up of the Feb 8th IPCC hearings before House Science, starring Susan Solomon, Kevin Trenberth, Richard Alley, and Gerald Meehl. Some interesting tidbits in there.... (Bolds are mine.)

**************************************************** ASLA 07-03: House Committee Considers IPCC Climate Change Report ****************************************************
On 8 February, co-Chair Susan Solomon and three of the authors of the Working Group 1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report testified before the House Science and Technology Committee. The hearing followed the release on 2 February of the Summary for Policy Makers of the first volume of the report, titled "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis" (http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf).

Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was the first to testify. She summarized the major findings, namely that atmospheric CO2 levels are currently at unprecedented levels, and there is a 90% chance global warming is caused by human activity. In addition, the rate of increase in CO2 levels in the last 10 years has been the greatest ever seen. When questioned after her testimony Rep. Rohrabacher (R-CA) accused Solomon of not providing an "honest" response when he asked "What percentage of the CO2 in the atmosphere is generated by human activity?" Solomon did not provide a percentage but answered the question by stating that the 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels in post industrial times is predominantly caused by human activity.

We already knew how politicized climate change has become, but now not giving specific [is:is not] ratios is "dishonest" in the political sphere? You can read this more generously or less generously to Rep. Rohrabacher: either he just doesn't understand that science can't always give clear-cut, black-and-white answers, or he doesn't care.

Kevin Trenberth, Richard Alley, and Gerald Meehl also testified. Their testimony included information about how the increase in CO2 levels will affect the planet in the future through an increase in heavy rain events, droughts, heat waves, floods, and a rise in sea levels. All witnesses stressed that the severity of these events will depend greatly on how aggressively policymakers begin to address mitigation of CO2 emissions. When asked their opinions regarding policy, economics or CO2 mitigation issues, they repeatedly stated that they were physical scientists, not policymakers, and referred to the reports of IPCC Working Groups II (Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) and III (Mitigation), due for release later this year.

Ok, I'll bite. Was this good politics? Not straying into what will become a very political fight? (How to deal with climate change will become far more political than the science itself; good for them if they understand this and want to stay clear.) Or IPCC politics? Not wanting to step on the toes of the other WG conveners?

The Republican and Democratic reaction varied dramatically. Many Republicans questioned the findings. Rep. Rohrabacher raised several objections including the idea that humans have not been the biggest contributors to CO2 in the atmosphere. He maintained that this warming trend was a part of a natural cycle that included a mini ice-age' back in the 1700's. He also stated that he knew hundreds' of scientists that reject the idea of global warming being caused by humans. [see comment #32 on this post] The Democrats responded by supporting the findings of the Report, and their inquiries were directed towards increasing their understanding of the implications of the Report, as well as possible effects on their constituents. Several representatives, both Republican and Democrat, participated in a trip to Antarctica, and many of them mentioned the experience as being quite enlightening on the subject of global warming and climate change.

Trust me, as soon as Congress gets something passed on carbon, this left science/right science on climate change science will subside in favor of fighting over the regulations.

The beginning of the hearing was marked by the unusual appearance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Pelosi read a statement strongly in favor of the IPCC report and its findings. She also stated that it was her intention to form a separate committee which would focus on climate change and how to relay information about it to the public. Before Pelosi addressed the committee, Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-CA) objected to allowing the Speaker be dismissed after giving her testimony. He demanded that Pelosi submit to the Committee's mandatory 5-minute-questioning rule. Due to the objection by Sensenbrenner, the Committee required Pelosi to stay to answer questions after her testimony rather than allowing her to be dismissed as originally planned.

To read more about the release, see the news article in 13 February Eos: http://www.agu.org/journals/eo/eo0707/2007EO070003.pdf#anchor.

This last passage may not seem like much. What it tells me is that the carbon regulation fight is going to be as politically nasty as you can imagine, down to pulling petty parliamentary tricks like Sensenbrenner's. Not surprising, but a preview of fights to come.

Posted on February 23, 2007 09:54 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

IPCCfacts.org has its Facts Wrong

There is a webpage called IPCCfacts.org that is grossly misrepresenting my views on hurricanes and climate change, which is bizarre given my strong endorsement of the recent IPCC report. Anyone wanting to get "facts" on the IPCC should look elsewhere than IPCCfacts.org, like to the actual IPCC. Here I set the record straight and request that IPCCfacts.org correct their mistakes.

It is always nice to know who is misrepresenting one’s views and it this case the group’s origins are a bit hard to discern, but it is connected to Fenton Communications, which coincidentally is also associated with RealClimate. IPCCfacts.org receives funding from the United Nations Foundation.

Anyway, IPCCfacts.org misrepresents my views on the recent IPCC report on the subject of hurricanes and climate change. As anyone who reads Prometheus knows, I was quite complementary of the IPCC’s judgment on this issue. Nonetheless, IPCCfacts.org sees fit to cite my views as representing a "myth":

Myth: The report shows that the overall number of hurricanes is expected to decline, undercutting the argument that global warming produces extreme weather events.
"So there might be a human contribution [to increased hurricanes] ... but the human contribution itself has not been quantitatively assessed, yet the experts, using their judgment, expect it to be there. In plain English this is what is called a ‘hypothesis’ and not a ‘conclusion.’ And it is a fair representation of the issue." –Roger Pielke Jr. climate scientist, University of Colorado, Blog post, February 2, 2007.

First, the report indicates that there is little confidence in estimates of how the number of hurricanes will change—up or down.

Second, the really important issue is not frequency, but intensity and damage potential. Hurricanes and other tropical cyclones draw their energy from warm ocean waters, which typically, under the right conditions, lead to increases in the size and intensity of hurricanes. The warmer ocean waters that result from global warming thus provide an environment suitable to the generation of larger hurricanes.

And larger hurricanes are characterized by all the elements that increase potential destructiveness: higher wind speed, greater intensity of rainfall and higher storm surges in advance of landfall.

In response, first a minor point -- they call me a "climate scientist" which is only accurate if one includes climate impacts under that designation, which is typically not done. I don’t characterize myself as such. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) certainly does not.

Second, the quote from me that they suggest represents a "myth" comes from this blog post. The part that they ellipsis out is the following parenthetical:

(and presumably this is just to the observed upwards trends observed in some basins, and not to downward trends observed in others, but this is unclear)

At no point (in the post that they reference or anywhere else) do I suggest that there will be less hurricanes, nor do I suggest that such a decline undercuts the argument for an increase in extreme events in the future. Where they get this impression I have no idea. This is simply a gross misrepresentation. In fact, my writings say much the opposite, such as the following (PDF):

For future decades the IPCC (2001) expects increases in the occurrence and/or intensity of some extreme events as a result of anthropogenic climate change.

Peer-reviewed papers I have co-authored (here in PDF and here in PDF) that survey the literature on tropical cyclone science, impacts, and policy are actually 100% consistent with the IPCC SPM.

And of the blog post of mine that they cite summarizing the IPCC SPM, here is what one of the scientists on the U.S. delegation had to say:

Thank you for your thoughtful and balanced assessment of what the IPCC SPM says. You have got it right. Your careful analysis on what the report says and how it compares to the WMO consensus statement is most appreciated.

Then IPCCfacts.org start talking about the size of hurricanes, a discussion which is nowhere to be found in the IPCC SPM. In short, IPCCfacts.org have got their facts wrong and are spinning some "myths" of their own.

Posted on February 23, 2007 09:00 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Al Gore on Adaptation

From the International Herald Tribune,, Al Gore reiterates that despite many efforts to characterize adaptation and mitigation as complementary, he prefers to persist in viewing them as competing:

Trying to prevent global warming is certainly worthwhile, said Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado.
But he said capable people are not adequately putting their minds to the challenge of adapting to climate change, which is inevitable in coming decades because of continuing emissions and because of the damage done already.

"If all we do is try to mitigate we're going to miss a big part of the challenge," Pielke said.

The world's leaders also need to address other problems that are likely to be aggravated by global warming, such as tropical diseases, drinking water supply and increasing storm vulnerability, Pielke and several colleagues argued in the scientific journal Nature.

Many global warming activists are suspicious of such recommendations. They feel that too much reliance on adaptation will lull the world into a false sense of security, decreasing the motivation to reduce greenhouse gases.

"We really have to focus on prevention," Al Gore said on Tuesday during a question-and-answer session at Columbia University in New York City.

He warned that if we fail to avert the worst of global warming, the dire environmental consequences will overwhelm any adaptive measures.

We've had a number of prominent people react in private to our recent article on adaptation in Nature (PDF) by suggesting that we really should have emphasized mitigation instead.

I wonder how many criticisms of Mr. Gore's exclusive focus on "prevention" (sorry, prevention is not in the cards, ask the IPCC) we will hear about. My guess is not more than one -- and you're looking at it. Lots of inconvenient truths to go around, it seems.

Posted on February 23, 2007 01:56 AM View this article | Comments (39)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 22, 2007

Where Stern is Right and Wrong

The Christian Science Monitor adds a few interesting details to Nicolas Stern's recent U.S. visit. On mitigation Stern explains why the debate over the science of climate change is in fact irrelevant:

Even if climate change turned out to be the biggest hoax in history, Stern argues, the world will still be better off with all the new technologies it will develop to combat it.

If mitigation can indeed be justified on factors other than climate change, which I think it can, then why not bring these factors more centrally into the debate?

Stern also dismissed two other arguments for inaction: that humans will easily adapt to climate change and that its effects are too far in the future to address now. Putting the burden of dealing with climate change on future generations is "unethical," Stern said.

Once again adaptation is being downplayed as somehow being in opposition to mitigation. Stern may in fact believe that we need to both adapt and mitigate, but that is certainly not what is conveyed here. The Stern Review itself adopted a very narrow view of adaptation as reflecting the costs of failed mitigation. When framed in this narrow way there is no alternative than to characterize adaptation and mitigation as trade-offs, and in today's political climate guess which one loses out?

Posted on February 22, 2007 07:19 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty | Technology Policy

A Defense of Alarmism

[The thoughtful comment below is from David Adam, Environment correspondent for The Guardian was made in response to Mike Hulme's letter to Nature on press coverage of the IPCC report in the UK media. -RP]

Alarmist and proud of it
(Alarm: to fill with apprehension; to warn about danger, alert)

David Adam
Environment correspondent
The Guardian

Some definitions from the Collins English dictionary

Catastrophic: a sudden, extensive disaster or misfortune

Shocking: Causing shock

Terrifying: extremely frightening

Devastating: to confound or overwhelm

Can anyone explain to me why any of those are inappropriate for a report than said human society will 'most likely' raise temperatures by 4C by 2100 unless it takes drastic action (my words, but how else would you desribe a complete overhaul of the lifestyles of millions, if not billions of people) to cut emissions?

here's another:

news: interesting or important information not previously known.

attacking newspapers for picking out the bits of the report that appear to take the debate forwards (the effects of carbon cycle feedbacks for example, which only seem to be shifting the estimates in one direction) is as pointless and idiotic as complaining that a library won't sell you fish.

does the 2006 report not paint a picture that is "worse" than the 2001 report?

again, to the dictionary:

worse: the comparative of bad

Mike accuses us of "appealling to fear to generate a sense of urgency"

Guilty as charged. Is it not frightening? Is it not urgent?

Alarmist and proud of it
(Alarm: to fill with apprehension; to warn about danger, alert)

Posted on February 22, 2007 07:03 AM View this article | Comments (28)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Science + Politics

February 21, 2007

Mike Hulme in Nature on UK Media Coverage of the IPCC

Nature published a letter in its current issue on media coverage of the recent IPCC report. The book he refers to is co-edited by our own Lisa Dilling. Here is an excerpt from the letter:

Nature 445, 818 (22 February 2007) | doi:10.1038/445818b; Published online 21 February 2007
Newspaper scare headlines can be counter-productive

Mike Hulme
Tyndall Centre, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

. . . Communicating science to wider, public audiences, however — in this case on matters of important public policy — is an art that requires careful message management and tone setting. It seems that confident and salient science, as presented by the IPCC, may be received by the public in non-productive ways, depending on the intervening media.

With this in mind, I examined the coverage of the IPCC report in the ten main national UK newspapers for Saturday 3 February, the day after the report was released. Only one newspaper failed to run at least one story on the report (one newspaper ran seven stories), but what was most striking was the tone.

The four UK 'quality' newspapers all ran front-page headlines conveying a message of rising anxiety: "Final warning", "Worse than we thought", "New fears on climate raise heat on leaders" and "Only man can stop climate disaster". And all nine newspapers introduced one or more of the adjectives "catastrophic", "shocking", "terrifying" or "devastating" in their various qualifications of climate change. Yet none of these words exist in the report, nor were they used in the scientists' presentations in Paris. Added to the front-page vocabulary of "final", "fears", "worse" and "disaster", they offer an insight into the likely response of the 20 million Britons who read these newspapers.

In contrast, an online search of some leading newspapers in the United States suggests a different media discourse. Thus, on the same day, one finds these headlines: "UN climate panel says warming is man-made", "New tack on global warming", "Warming report builds support for action" and "The basics: ever firmer statements on global warming". This suggests a more neutral representation in the United States of the IPCC's key message, and a tone that facilitates a less loaded or frenzied debate about options for action.

Campaigners, media and some scientists seem to be appealing to fear in order to generate a sense of urgency. If they want to engage the public in responding to climate change, this is unreliable at best and counter-productive at worst. As Susanne Moser and Lisa Dilling point out in Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007), such appeals often lead to denial, paralysis, apathy or even perverse reactive behaviour.

The journey from producing confident assessments of scientific knowledge to a destination of induced social change is a tortuous one, fraught with dangers and many blind alleys. The challenging policy choices that lie ahead will not be well served by the type of loaded reporting of science seen in the UK media described above.

Posted on February 21, 2007 03:02 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

Have We Entered a Post-Analysis Phase of the Climate Debate?

The New York Times today has an interesting summary of a debate between Sir Nicolas Stern and Professor William Nordhaus of Yale University on the economics of climate change. The article raises the question, for me at least, at what point do policy analyses cease to matter? In the language of my forthcoming book -- The Honest Broker -- has climate politics become "abortion politics"? The answer to my own question is that, yes, we may indeed be in a situation where analysis is viewed as being more useful as a tool of persuasion than clarifying the consequences of a wide range of alternative courses of action. In such a situation policy analyses will be far less important than the political dynamics.

A recent example of such a situation that will be familiar to most readers is when the Bush Administration decided to invade Iraq and then fixed the intelligence to meet the policy. Any analysis that supported invasion, regardless of its intellectual merits, then became "right" even if for the "wrong reasons." Sure, some policy analyses were still needed after that decision, for instance, to determine whether 110,000 versus 130,000 troops would be needed. But I view this as a far different sort of analysis than focusing analytical attention on the broad question of what might have been done about Saddam Hussein. In that situation, once the politics were settled, then such wide-ranging analyses became completely irrelevant. But arguably that is exactly the sort of analysis that mattered most of all and for the lack of which were are suffering today Climate change, of course some will say, is different.

Here is an excerpt from the Times article, which describes these dynamics:

Technically, then, Sir Nicholas’s opponents win the debate. But in practical terms, their argument has a weak link. They are assuming that the economic gains from, say, education will make future generations rich enough to make up for any damage caused by climate change. Sea walls will be able to protect cities; technology can allow crops to grow in new ways; better medicines can stop the spread of disease.
No one knows whether this is true, let alone desirable, because no one knows what life will be like on a planet that is five degrees hotter. "If ever there was an example where there was uncertainty, this is it," said Martin L. Weitzman, a Harvard economist who attended the debate.

While sitting there, I was reminded of the speeches that Alan Greenspan gave a few years ago about the risks of deflation. It wasn’t the most likely outcome, he said, but the consequences of it could be so bad that policy makers had to take steps to prevent it. Focusing attention on this point — the catastrophic risks of climate change — is Sir Nicholas’s biggest accomplishment, whatever you think of his math.

As Mr. Weitzman puts it, the Stern Review is "right for the wrong reasons."

Even its critics seem open to this idea. When Mr. Nordhaus and Sir Nicholas were exchanging e-mail messages before the debate — to their credit, some academics keep their arguments from becoming personal — Mr. Nordhaus sent a note that summed up his view. “I think it’s a great study, but it’s 50 years ahead of its time,” he recalled writing. "Since everybody else is 50 years behind the times, if you average the two, you might come out just right."

In other words, it’s time for a tax on carbon emissions.

Once your have the political answer in hand, analysis then ceases to be a tool that provides insight on alternatives and then becomes a tool of marketing, and sometimes a way to limit debate. Harvard's Martin Weitzman acknowledges this explicitly in the review paper (here in PDF) on Stern cited in the Times article:

The Stern Review is a political document –in Keynes’s phrase an essay in persuasion –as much as it is an economic analysis, and in fairness it needs ultimately to be judged by both standards. To its great credit the Review supports very strongly the politically- unpalatable idea, which no politician planning to remain in office anywhere wants to hear, that the world needs desperately to start confronting the reality that burning carbon has a significant externality cost that should be taken into account by being charged full-freight for doing it. (This should have been, but of course was not, the most central “inconvenient truth”of all in Al Gore'’s tale about inconvenient climate-change truths.) As the Review puts it, “establishing a carbon price, through tax, trading, or regulation, is an essential foundation for climate-change policy.” One can only wish that U.S. political leaders might have the wisdom to understand and the courage to act upon the breathtakingly-simple relatively-market-friendly idea that the right carbon tax could do much more to unleash the decentralized power of greedy, self seeking, capitalistic American inventive genius on the problem of developing commercially-feasible carbon-avoiding alternative technologies than all of the command-and-control schemes and patchwork subsidies making the rounds in Washington these days. As I have made clear here, a generous interpretation might also credit the Stern Review with intuiting the greater significance of insuring against catastrophic uncertainty than of consumption smoothing for the climate problem, even if this intuition remains subliminal and does not formally enter the analysis through the front door.
To be honest about the economic-analysis side, the Stern Review predetermines the outcome in favor of strong immediate action to curtail greenhouse gas emissions by creating a very low value of r ~1.4% via the indirect route of picking parameter values p ~ 0 and n~ 1 1that are more like theoretically-reasoned extreme lower bounds than empirically-plausible estimates of representative tastes. In this sense, it must be said staightforwardly that the subconsiously-reverse-engineered output of PAGE and the goal-oriented formal economic analysis of the Review are not worth a great deal. But we have also seen that a fair recognition of the truth that we are genuinely uncertain about what interest rate should be used to discount costs and benefits of climate changes a century from now brings discounting rates down from conventional values r 6% to much lower values of perhaps r ~ 2-3%, which would create a more intermediate sense of urgency somewhere between what the Stern
Review is advocating and the more modest measures to slow global warming advocated by its mainstream critics. The important remaining caveat is that such an intermediate position is still grounded in a conventional deterministic consumption-smoothing approach to the
economic analysis of climate change that, at least formally, ignores the issue of what to do about catastrophe insurance against the possibility of rare disasters.

On the political side of the Stern Review, my most charitable interpretation of its urgent tone is that the report is an essay in persuasion that is more about gut instincts regarding the horrors of uncertain rare disasters whose probabilities we do not know than it is about economic analysis as that term is conventionally understood. Although it is difficult enough to analyze people’s motives, much less the motives of a 600-page document, I can’'t help but think after reading it that the strong tone of morality and alarm is mostly reflecting a fear of what is potentially out there with greenhouse warming in (using ponderous terminology here to make sure the thought is exact) “the inherently-thick left tail of the reduced-form posterior-predictive probability distribution of the growth rate of a comprehensive measure of consumption that includes the natural environment.” I have argued that this inherently- thick left tail of g is an important aspect of the economics of climate change that every analyst –Stern and the critics of Stern –might do well to try to address more directly. History will judge whether the economic analysis of the Stern Review was more wrong or more right, and, if it was more right, whether as pure economic analysis it was right for the right reasons or it was right for the wrong reasons.

Posted on February 21, 2007 06:47 AM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

February 16, 2007

Why Al Gore Will be the Next President of the United States

Al Gore will be the next president of the United States. He will win with at least 293 electoral votes, and perhaps in a landslide. This post explains why.

Last week I posted up a graph from The Economist that I found intriguing. The graph showed how California’s electricity usage was about half the national average and even less than the average in the "Red States" (i.e., those that voted Republican in the 2004 Presidential election). In the comments astute Prometheus readers pointed out some important issues, and this motivated me to look at some data a bit more closely and here is what I found and why I think it is important. This post is intended to motivate discussion and comment. My students can tell you how well I predicted the last presidential election;-)

The difference in per capita carbon dioxide emissions between Red and Blue states (from the 2004 elections) is startling (data on CO2 emissions expressed in million metric tons available here in xls. and state population data available here in .xls, and in this analysis I use 2003 values. Election data is from CNN.com).

Red State

Mean (state): 31.7
Median (state): 24.4

Blue State

Mean (state): 15.2
Median (state): 14.4

This means that in 2004 the per-state carbon dioxide emissions in states that voted for George Bush were about twice as large on a per capita basis than those in states that voted for John Kerry. The figure below shows a scatter plot of where each of the 50 states ranks (from 1 to 50) on per capita carbon dioxide emissions and the share of the popular vote won by George W. Bush in 2004. The correlation is a stunning 0.67.

Global climate change was a non-issue in the 2004 elections, so this relationship was a correlate of other factors that determined the election and therefore not a direct factor in the election outcome. It does however provide a baseline for understanding the role of carbon dioxide emissions in the politics of the 2008 election.

2008 will be different than 2004. Elites have decided that global climate change is an issue worth politicizing, that is to say, worth making an issue in politics. Therefore, carbon dioxide emissions will be an issue in the 2008 election.

Obvious point #1: Policy proposals focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions all involve placing a cost on carbon. Proposals that have been advanced include a cap (on total emissions) and trade (of permits to emit under the cap), a carbon tax, incentives to adopt renewables (e.g., RPS), and others. The specifics matter less than the fact that all involve adding costs to emissions that today are not present (other than as externalities).

Obvious point #2: Additional costs on carbon dioxide emissions will disproportionately hit those voters (and businesses that employ voters) in states with high carbon emissions per capita. Now individual voters may not be so sensitized to this issue. But industry, professional associations, state elected officials and agency officials, national politicians, and others whose careers are based on the provision and use of energy will surely be aware of this issue and its consequences. It is true that some in industry, even in the energy industry, have joined the calls for action on carbon dioxide. But it seems reasonable to think that the smaller the cost (or perceived cost) of policies on carbon dioxide, the more likely that such policies will be accepted. Similarly, the higher the costs, the greater the likelihood of opposition.

Consider the following table which shows the 50 states listed with highest per capita carbon dioxide emissions at the top to the lowest at the bottom, shaded to indicate how they voted in the 2004 presidential election. With few exceptions the higher per capita emitting states voted Republican and vice versa.

It is likely that no matter what happens, in 2008 the reddest red states will likely stay red and the bluest blue states will stay blue. This leaves two categories of states to consider, outliers and swing states.

The outliers include Idaho (50th in per capita CO2 emissions, 2nd highest in 2004 vote share to George Bush), Pennsylvania (19 and 33), Florida (40 and 15), Arizona (37 and 25), Delaware (22 and 39), and Virginia (35 and 23). I am going to assume that ID, DE, and PA are unlikely to change in 2008, and while FL, AZ, and VA may be in play, they don’t have to be in the scenario I am here developing.

This leaves the swing states, defined as the states in which the difference between Republican and Democrat in 2004 was less than 5%. These states and their per capita CO2 emissions are (bold indicates a 2004 Red State):

Oregon 11.3
New Hamp. 15.8
Michigan 18.1
Wisconsin 18.9
Nevada 19.1
Colorado 19.5
Minnesota 19.7
Pennsylvania 21.6
Ohio 22.8
Iowa 26.3
New Mexico 30.3

If climate change is a major issue in 2008 then there is a decided advantage in these states to the Democrats, both for holding on to the 2004 state victories and for changing the others from Red to Blue. Colorado and Nevada are below the national average for carbon dioxide emissions and Ohio and Iowa stand to benefit immensely from an ethanol bidding war (already underway). New Mexico has less to gain but also less to offer in terms of electoral votes.

If it seems a stretch to use per capita carbon dioxide emissions as a factor in thinking about electoral politics, consider the following in the aftermath of the 2006 mid-term congressional election:

States with 2 Republican Senators

Average CO2 emissions 36.3 (median = 28.4)

States with 2 Democratic Senators

Average CO2 emissions 14.7 (median = 14.4)

States with 1 Democratic and 1 Republican Senator

Average CO2 emissions 23.1 (median = 22.2)

How will Al Gore win the presidency?

He will continue to take actions that will keep climate change an important issue that cannot be neglected in political discourse. This will involve congressional testimony, a book release, a global set of coordinated concerts, and other actions. He has been nominated for an Oscar and a Nobel Prize. He'll get some help, whether intended or not as the international community is focused on climate change and even the Bush Administration is now helping to keep the topic in play. These factors together will ensure that the issue remains salient and Mr. Gore remains at the fore. He will enter the race late and dramatically. The "will he or won't he" story will overshadow his competition. And on the major campaign issue of the Iraq War he is exceedingly well positioned.

Hillary Clinton cannot compete with Mr. Gore on climate change (and she has an Iraq vote to explain, plus other issues), and is probably weaker on this issue than John McCain, and not much different than other Republicans who might gain the nomination, especially those who still have time to articulate an aggressive position of climate change. By comparison, consider how the three parties in the U.K. are falling over each other to be viewed among voters as the more aggressive on climate change. For John Edwards and Barak Obama, climate change is just not their gig. If Al Gore can win his party’s nomination, which is certainly not guaranteed, the general election would be his to lose.

If he does run, and he does win his party’s nomination, then as of right now I predict that he will get at least 293 electoral votes, comprised of the 2004 blue states plus NV, CO, OH, and IA. Add in a surprise or two (e.g., FL – two hurricane seasons between now and the 2008 election, AZ, VA) and it is then a landslide.

2008 will be the climate change election and Al Gore will be the next president of the United States.

Posted on February 16, 2007 02:36 AM View this article | Comments (35)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 15, 2007

Benny Peiser Handicaps Climate Politics

Benny Peiser kindly offered a number of comments on a recent thread in which we were less-than approving of the Bush Administration's trans-Atlantic diplomacy on climate change. In order to provide a range of perspectives on the current state of climate politics, which is very much in flux, we have asked Benny Peiser to expand on these comments and offer a perspective on climate politics, particularly U.S.-Europe relations. We welcome posting a range of other perspectives here as well, simply send them to me by email and we'll post them up. Here are Benny's comments:

Post-Kyoto: A whole new ballgame

By Benny Peiser, Liverpool John Moores University (UK)

It is hard these days to keep up with the accelerating reworking of national and international climate policies. On Monday, the US Administration pre-empted a preparatory G8/climate meeting between Angela Merkel and Tony Blair by announcing, in Berlin no less, an energetic, new approach to international climate policy: 'We're doing better in recent years on reducing greenhouse gas emissions than you folks - so why don't you join our technology-driven path to success instead of sending Chinese communists billions of Euros for worthless carbon credits? ' (excuse my rather rough translation of diplomatic niceties)

Today, the European Parliament, in one of its emblematic consensus votes, decided by a majority of 615 - by 25 votes against - that instead of getting wobbly on Kyoto, the EU should enforce a 30% emissions cut by 2020 - and a staggering 80% reduction by 2050. (http://euobserver.com/9/23496). Not that anybody in Europe would take note, given the routine nature of such show of hands.

Tomorrow, Canada's three opposition parties will most likely succeed in winning its Kyoto vote in the House of Commons, thus possibly triggering new elections that may be decided on the contentious climate treaty. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2de17e3f-76c1-4cd4-8d8c-849c5d7c872a&k=5894

What these developments have in common is that they are taking place in a significantly reshaped political landscape where traditional positions and habutual disparities on climate change policies have been diluted beyond recognition - if not abandoned for good. In short, what we are witnessing is the internationalisation of what I call the 'Cameron-Effect.'

By this I mean the greening of the conservative parties of the Anglo-Saxon world. This strategy is a mainly PR driven restyling of conservative parties in the European fashion that has transpired over the last ten years or so. What Australia's, Canada's and America's political right is beginning to learn from their British counterparts (and have had to learn under pressure from political opponents) is the need for environmental camouflage - in more or less exactly the same mode socialist, labour and even traditional free market liberals have painted themselves in populist green varnish.

Now that everyone is outdoing each other in green spin and rhetoric, now that every single government on the planet is clamouring for the green vote (left, right and centre), it has become increasingly frustrating for the political left to attack their opponents on environmental credentials. This is one of the reasons why the ostensible conversion of Presidents Bush as a champion of environmental protection is regarded as suspicious if not outrageous as David Cameron's original scheme to don the eco-mantle and call Labour's green bluff.

Which brings us to the touchy Kyoto game. As the economic burden and hurt of EU's Kyoto experiment becomes progressively palpable for ordinary citizens, common businesses and whole sectors of European industries, the opposition to Europe's unilateral policy is mounting. Whether it is growing hostility by the energy intensive manufacturing industry, Europe's airline or Germany's car industries, the traditional ritual of keeping tight-lipped on Kyotoy owing to political correctness has been shattered in recent months. Even Germany's once powerful trade unions have begun to publicly voice their concern about (and started to march in protest against) the detrimental impact of Europe's unilateral climate policy on economic stability and job security.

All things considered, Europe seems to be suffering from a severe bout of Kyoto-schizophrenia. Its governments and political elite (not to mention its science establishment) have invested incalculable amounts of political capital and prestige on the Kyoto Protocol. In more than one way, it has become the foremost and tragic symbol of Europe's "leadership role." A political failure of the Kyoto process would, without a shadow of doubt, cause incalculable trauma to European pride and standing.

Which is why the widely anticipated climb-down on Kyoto-style mandatory emissions cuts and short-term targets that will almost certainly feature in any post-Kyoto agreement that aspires to include China, India and the US is now carefully presented as Angela Merkel's accomplishment or Tony Blair's lasting legacy, etc. In reality, international climate policy will have to become much more realistic (as in Realpolitik). It will almost have to start from scratch if a truly global, transparent and cost-effective agreement is to be achieved in the real world of highly disparate and conflicting interests. As far as I can judge, it remains to be seen whether a face-saving and economically viable compromise can be achieved in the next few years among the world's superpowers.

Posted on February 15, 2007 01:29 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

February 14, 2007

Final Chapter, Hurricanes and IPCC, Book IV

Two years ago NOAA's Chris Landsea resigned from participating in the IPCC citing concerns that the chapter on hurricanes had been politicized, specifically citing the role that Kevin Trenberth, IPCC convening lead author for the chapter that covered hurricanes, had playing in an October, 2004 media event hyping a hurricane-global warming connection.

With this post we'd like to follow up and in the process close the book on this particular dispute -- at least for us here at Prometheus. The "hurricane wars" are probably far from over, but we should acknowledge that both Chris Landsea and Kevin Trenberth both come out of this situation looking pretty good. Both can and should feel vindicated. Read on if you are interested in a few final details from the last chapter in this story.

The first signs that there might be a happy ending to this saga were evident in June, 2005 when Kevin Trenberth authored a commentary in Science in which he wrote:

[T]here is no sound theoretical basis for drawing any conclusions about how anthropogenic change affects hurricane numbers or tracks, and thus how many hit land.

This led me to conclude at the time:

Landsea and Trenberth are scientifically on the same page, and the perspectives now being espoused by Trenberth [in Science] are (in my interpretation) entirely consistent with what Landsea argued at the time he stepped down from the IPCC.

So it shouldn't have been too surprising when the IPCC accurately reported the state of scientific understandings of tropical cyclones and climate change in its recent summary for policy makers, despite some last-minute concerns. (Of course, the WMO Consensus Statement was probably the most significant factor shaping the IPCC's final judgments.) When the full IPCC WG I report comes out, I have no doubts there will be some room for quibbling about the details on this subject, but the big picture presented in the SPM appears to me to be just about right.

Yesterday in an online Q&A with the public organized by the Washington Post Kevin Trenberth addressed an explicit question about this issue:

Washington, D.C.: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Chris Landsea resigned a year ago from the IPCC and leveled charges that the IPCC, and you in particular, had a overly-politicized view of global warming trends. (link to washingtonpost.com here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29397-2005Jan22.html). Specifically, I believe that Landsea objected to the fact that some on the IPCC would "utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming." I assume that you disagree with Mr. Landsea. Do you believe that recent hurricane patterns have been negatively affected by global warming?
Kevin Trenberth: This is what the IPCC says in the Policy Makers Summary: "There is observational evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with increases of tropical sea surface temperatures. There are also suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other regions where concerns over data quality are greater. Multi-decadal variability and the quality of the tropical cyclone records prior to routine satellite observations in about 1970 complicate the detection of long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity. There is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones. " This was agreed to by the US Govt and crafted by the lead authors present (including me). Landsea's comments were not correct.

Dr. Trenberth stuck to what the IPCC concluded and did not take the bait offered by this questioner. He was also taking the high ground in claiming that the IPCC SPM accurately reflected the current state of the science. But Chris Landsea should feel good as well because there can be no doubt that his actions helped to ensure that the IPCC got things right in the end.

Kudos to both, but it's time to move on.

Posted on February 14, 2007 03:56 PM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

February 13, 2007

An Evaluation of U.S. Self-Evaluation on Climate Policy

The Bush Administration has provided the most substantive presentation of its climate policies (that I have seen at least) in the form of a speech yesterday by Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs before the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, Germany. With this post are a few reactions to this self-evaluation of U.S. climate policies presented by the Bush Administration. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I come to a different conclusion than the Bush Administration when evaluating U.S. climate policies.

The speech begins by acknowledging that the US policies on climate change are not so warmly received in Europe, with Mr. Volker suggesting that the U.S. is "misunderstood." Then there is this unfortunate spin:

As all of you know, President Bush devoted a significant portion of his State of the Union address last month to the subject of climate change-and to what the U.S. intends to do about it.

Here is that "significant portion" in full:

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.

The Bush Administration seems yet to appreciate that being well understood requires a basis in trust, a condition that is hard maintain in the face of constant spin and heavy-handed information management. Those still following Mr. Volker after this statement were treated to an in depth self-evaluation of U.S. policies, well worth reading.

Mr. Volker starts out with "some clear, simple statements":

*The United States, and this Administration, care deeply about climate change.
*We agree that human activity contributes to global warming.

*We support the recent IPCC report, in which U.S. scientists played a leading role.

*We are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

*We have made tremendous investments in reducing emissions.

*We are working multilaterally to do so.

*We are continuing these efforts.

*These efforts are producing results that stand up favorably against anyone in the world.

Just because we haven't joined the Kyoto Protocol doesn't make any of these statements less true.

Mr. Volker then directly confronts the U.S.-Europe split on climate change:

Now, I know there is a deeply held view among many in Europe that the U.S. Government doesn't get it. That we don't care about climate change, that we are doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and that Europe, while perhaps not perfect, is doing a far better job of tackling the issue than the United States. This proposition--no matter how simple, no matter how widely held, and no matter how much it fits a pop-culture "blame-the-United States" paradigm--is completely wrong, on every point.

This statement (remember, delivered in Germany) is quite bold and aggressive. What accounts for this new-found self-confidence and aggressiveness? Mr. Volker does not make his audience wait long for the answer:

Let me start first with the data, because it is important to have the facts on the table. No question: The United States is the world's largest emitter of CO2. Everybody in the room knows this. But this fact says no more about the United States, than the fact that Germany leads Europe in emissions says about Germany.
The United States is number one in greenhouse gas emissions primarily because it is the number one economy in the world. With 5% of the world's population we produce 25% of global wealth. And despite being relatively clean and green, Germany leads Europe in emissions, because it is Europe's largest economy. Our emissions are not out of line with the size of our economy. And it's worth noting: the International Energy Agency is forecasting that China, with a smaller economy, is expected to surpass U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2009.

More important than current emissions is the trend line. What is actually happening to emissions? Are they being reduced? This, after all, is what Kyoto is supposed to address.

According to data from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, from 2000-2004--the most recent period for which we have good, comparative data--U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.3 percent. This is an increase, but a very modest increase. The EU-25, on the other hand, increased collective emissions by 2.1 percent.

And, no, this is not because the new EU members added since the 2004 expansion run dirtier economies than the previous 15 members, and this then bumps up the numbers. Actually, the new members have the opposite effect. Those nations--by moving away from some older energy technologies like brown coal--are part of the good news story. If the new EU members did not bring down the average, the old EU-15 would get a worse report card--having increased emissions by 2.4 percent during this same time period.

Germany, I should state, had an admirable record of actually cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 0.7 percent during this time period--but Germany's efforts were overshadowed by increases in most other EU economies.

Now let's be honest--even a 2.4 percent increase for the EU-15 is a very modest increase. But given the way this issue gets talked about publicly in Europe, I would venture to say that few people in Europe know that from 2000 to 2004, EU-15 emissions grew at nearly double the U.S. rate, and that Europe, at least during this period, has been moving away from-not towards-its Kyoto target of an 8 percent cut.

The Bush Administration has finally, clumsily, begun moving toward a realpolitik approach to climate change, one that I recommended almost three years ago:

. . . consider this amazing fact: if President Bush in 2001 had, instead of pulling out of the Kyoto process, simply committed the United States to participate and then did nothing else differently since that time, then the United States would be closer to meeting its Kyoto targets than EU members Ireland, Spain, Austria, Portugal, and about even with Denmark.
Ironically, expressing support for the Kyoto process but not taking dramatic action to implement it is the exact climate policy pursued by the Administration of Bill Clinton whose approach to climate policy is substantively very similar to the approach of the Bush Administration. But the two administration's approaches to climate politics could not be more different.

Of course, success in international politics does not necessarily mean good policy will result. . .

The Bush Administration’s new, aggressive approach is based on the surprising discovery that European greenhouse gas emissions have increased faster than those in the United States. Mr. Volker’s talk is even suggestively titled "Post-Kyoto Surprise: America's Quiet Efforts to Cut Greenhouse Gases Are Producing Results." Because the United States over 2000-2004 did relatively better than Europe in the rate of greenhouse gas emissions growth, this has apparently given the Bush Administration the sense that they can thumb their nose at the Europeans and say "nya-nya-nya." An approach more politically effective (from the perspective of the Bush Administration) might have instead been to share in the difficulties of reducing emissions, rather than presenting the US-EU as being opposed to one another. I have doubts that the Bush Administration will ever learn the merits of diplomacy.

What goes unsaid by Mr. Vokler is that a more relevant metric of policy success (as compared, say, to political posturing) in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not the level of emissions of the EU, but rather the absolute amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And on this count both the United States and Europe are performing quite poorly, the small differences between the two over 2000-2004 is pretty much irrelevant.

More fundamentally, a reduction in the growth rate of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions has occurred not by policy design, but by happenstance. To be fair, the Bush Administration has always emphasized reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of economic output, but its targets have been no more aggressive than the long-term rate of transformation of the economy to being less energy intensive. The Bush Administration would be on more solid ground claiming policy success for reductions in emissions intensity greater than the background trend if it had actually presented such outcomes as policy goals at sometime in the past. Instead, it has stumbled upon an outcome that it never actually sought and claimed it as the result of intentional policy action.

It surely must be uncomfortable for the EU to see the Bush Administration trumpeting its greenhouse emissions reductions "successes" after rudely pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. And on the count the Bush Administration once again demonstrates its utter incompetence in international relations to the detriment of its own political agenda. Upon learning that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were less than that of the EU over a short 4-year period, rather than rubbing the European’s noses in their own struggles over climate policy, the Bush Administration might have instead taken a more conciliatory approach. It has once again favored playing politics rather than focusing on the real policy challenges presented by climate change. Ironically, those favoring a more aggressive approach to emissions reductions should welcome the Bush Administration’s ham-handedness in helping to keep the issue alive. A more politically sophisticated approach might not have the same results.

Finally, the notion of adaptation does not appear in the Bush Administration’s self-evaluation. Any climate policy that purports to be comprehensive but does not discuss adaptation must be considered incomplete at best and more likely a failure.

Posted on February 13, 2007 09:04 AM View this article | Comments (21)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 12, 2007

An Inconvenient Survey

Last Friday I visited Savannah, Georgia to participate in a viewing and discussion of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” This is the second time I have had a chance to participate in such an event, and it was a pleasure to participate in this event (including getting to see a thoughtful talk by Georgia Tech’s peter Webster).. This time I thought I’d collect a bit of data. So like the college professor that I am I gave a pop quiz right after the movie. After watching a documentary on climate change one should have the basic facts down, right? Unfortunately, no. Here is the pop quiz I gave with answers on the other side.

1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 4th Assessment Report last Friday. It projects a likely global average temperature increase for 2100 of (degrees C):

A. 1.1 to 6.4
B. 1.5 to 4.5
C. 5.0 to 11.5
D. 7.0 to 9.0

2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 4th Assessment Report last Friday. It projects a (mid-range) global average sea level rise for 2100 of:

A. 16 inches
B. 48 inches
C. 10 feet
D. 70 feet

3. If the Kyoto Protocol is fully implemented, including US participation, the effects on global average temperatures in 2080 would be:

A. Undetectable
B. Reduce the projected increase by 0.5 degrees
C. Reduce the projected increase by 1.0 degrees
D. Reduce the projected increase by 2.0 degrees

4. If the global greenhouse gas emissions magically stopped right now global average temperatures would:

A. Stop increasing immediately
B. Continue increasing for many decades

5. In order to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide requires that net global emissions be reduced from today’s levels:

A. to 1990 levels
B. by 20%
C. by 50%
D. by 100%

Answers:

1. A
2. A
3. A
4. B
5. D

No one in the audience of about 200 people admitted to getting all 5 correct. Judging by the show of hands very few came close to the correct answers on 1, 2, 3 or 5. Most people did get #4 correct. In fact, on 1, 2, and 3 the overwhelming answers were C and D and 5 it was A and B. And this was a very educated, engaged audience. I would venture that a scientific survey would find that Mr. Gore’s movie is more apt to mislead than bring the viewer to a clear understanding of the center of gravity of scientific opinion on climate change.

Is it alarmist? By effect on its uninformed audience, I'd hypothesize based on this nonscientific data set that it is.

What was most troubling was the comments of a few people in the audience who reacted pretty negatively to my remarks. One person commented (paraphrase):

We are here to talk about the end of the world and you want to talk about hurricanes. It is energy policy only we need to talk about, not disasters.

Of course Mr. Gore’s movie is chock full of references to disasters, most notably Katrina. The amazing thing to me is that about 6 people from Savannah that I spoke to in some depth, including taxi drivers and lawyers, mentioned to me that Savannah is fortunate to be in a hurricane shadow – it can’t be hit. The reality is that it can and will be hit, and hit hard. And to the extent that the focus on climate change distracts from hurricane preparation, when that fateful day occurs, the resulting disaster will inevitably be worse.

And if you don’t think that the focus on climate-change-as-energy-policy distracts from the need to adapt to climate change, consider this amazing admission from a state official in New Mexico, reacting to our recent paper in Nature:

The problem, Pielke said, is that advocates fear efforts to adapt to climate change will blunt calls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
That fear has affected New Mexico's ambitious governmental climate change effort.

A report last year from the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer concluded that "adaptation" is critical to coping with climate change and population growth.

But most of the state's climate change effort has focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions rather than on coping with the collision between a growing population and a changing climate.

Jim Norton, one of the state officials heading up the effort, agrees with Pielke that adaptation is critical. But there was a fear, Norton said, that too much emphasis "could sort of divert attention away from solving the problem of growing greenhouse gas emissions." [emphasis added]

Reducing emissions is a challenge well worth undertaking. But when it becomes such an overwhelming focus that nothing else is allowed, especially adaptation in mal-adapated communities, then a virtue becomes a vice. An Inconvenient Truth mislead because it suggests that we only need do one thing to respond to the threat of climate change. The reality is that we must do many things, among which we must evaluate tradeoffs, costs and benefits, risks and uncertainties. And that is a real inconvenient truth.

Posted on February 12, 2007 02:44 AM View this article | Comments (26)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

February 10, 2007

So This is Interesting

Bjorn Lomborg writing in The Guardian 7 February 2007:

Imagine if the director of the CIA published a new assessment of Iran, saying: "I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action."

We wrote here on Prometheus 25 January 2007:

Imagine, by contrast, if the Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, another organization with an agenda to be "policy neutral," were reported in the media to say of the agency’s latest assessment on Iran, "I hope that the report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action."

Not a huge deal, and maybe just a simple coincidence, but we academics tend to notice and be a bit prickly about such things . . .

Posted on February 10, 2007 01:32 PM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

February 09, 2007

Air Capture Prize

This prize looks to raise the stature of air capture technologies that we have discussed here before (Hat tip: James Annan).

Posted on February 9, 2007 04:28 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Technology Policy

February 07, 2007

Clarifying IPCC AR4 Statements on Sea Level Rise

The statements in the IPCC’s AR4 SPM released last week on sea level rise have led to some confusion and conflict over what exactly they said and how it compares to the 2001 IPCC TAR. The IPCC could have made it easier for all of us by presenting the data in a comparable manner. This post reflects my efforts to make sense of this situation. I hope that experts on the subject will weigh in on my initial thoughts.

I conclude that the IPCC has indeed lowered its top end estimates of sea level rise over the 21st century relative to 1990, in contrast to the conclusions at RealClimate which suggest that this has in fact not occurred. For details, please read on.

First, what did the IPCC 2001 TAR say about sea level? It reported:

For the complete range of AOGCMs and SRES scenarios and including uncertainties in land-ice changes, permafrost changes and sediment deposition, global average sea level is projected to rise by 0.09 to 0.88 m over 1990 to 2100, with a central value of 0.48 m

Some information was not included:

In addition, Warrick et al. included an allowance for ice-dynamical changes in the WAIS. The range we have given does not include such changes. The contribution of the WAIS is potentially important on the longer term, but it is now widely agreed that major loss of grounded ice from the WAIS and consequent accelerated sea-level rise are very unlikely during the 21st century.

and

The range we have given also does not take account of uncertainty in modelling of radiative forcing, the carbon cycle, atmospheric chemistry, or storage of water in the terrestrial environment.

This is quite similar to the just-released IPCC AR4 (PDF) which says:

Models used to date do not include uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedback nor do they include the full effects of changes in ice sheet flow, because a basis in published literature is lacking.

The IPCC AR4 does apparently incorporate information from Greenland and Antarctica:

The projections include a contribution due to increased ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica at the rates observed for 1993-2003, but these flow rates could increase or decrease in the future.

It suggests that on the increasing side that:

For example, if this contribution were to grow linearly with global average temperature change, the upper ranges of sea level rise for SRES scenarios shown in Table SPM-3 would increase by 0.1 m to 0.2 m. Larger values cannot be excluded, but understanding of these effects is too limited to assess their likelihood or provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise.

Over at RealClimate they seem to have added to the confusion by asserting incorrectly:

Note that some media have been comparing apples with pears here: they claimed IPCC has reduced its upper sea level limit from 88 to 59 cm, but the former number from the TAR did include this ice dynamics uncertainty, while the latter from the AR4 does not

As documented above the TAR did not include such uncertainties, writing of its Figure 11.12:

Note that this range does not allow for uncertainty relating to ice-dynamical changes in the West Antarctic ice sheet.

I asked RealClimate about this, and they responded:

The TAR range included mass-balance estimates for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (though did not include dynamical changes - i.e. changes due to changes in ice streams, calving, grounding line movement, etc which were then thought to be small). Recent observations point to the vital importance of such terms in assessing the net mass balance, thus since they are highly uncertain, it was thought more prudent to not include the mass-balance terms this time around. Our statement above should probably state that "the former number from the TAR did include some ice-sheet mass balance uncertainty, while the latter from the AR4 does not"

What RealClimate fails to acknowledge is that because the TAR did not consider dynamical uncertainties, then a similar uncertainty range would have to be added on top of the TAR top end estimate to make it apples-to-apples with the top end uncertainty in the AR4. So in effect they cancel out and are not relevant to this discussion.

Presumably when the IPCC AR4 says "a basis in published literature is lacking" it is indeed prudent not to speculate. I would assume that there is also no basis in the published literature to conclude that sea level rise might stop instantaneously next year, so they didn’t include that either;-)

So what then do we get when comparing the two reports? The following figure shows the TAR and AR4 estimates on the same graph, taken from the TAR with the AR4 values superimposed. The AR4 ranges are delineated using the same color scheme as the TAR, but with rounded ends. The AR4 values are for 2090-2099, which I have presented as 2095. There is, as noted above, some error term on the upper end of the range. But it should be applied to both the TAR and AR4 estimates, so for comparative purposes they basically cancel out.

Thus, I conclude that the top end estimate has indeed come down from the TAR to the AR4, and those making this observation are accurately representing the AR4. Why didn't the IPCC just say so?

Posted on February 7, 2007 03:18 PM View this article | Comments (23)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

Lifting the Taboo on Adaptation

Our article is online with Nature. A copy of the full text can also be found here in PDF. Comments welcomed.

Pielke, Jr., R.A., Prins, G., Rayner, S. and Sarewitz, D., 2007. Lifting the taboo on adaptation. Nature, 7 February.

Posted on February 7, 2007 01:05 PM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Scientific Integrity and Budget Cuts

I am watching the Senate Commerce Committee's hearing this morning on "Climate Change Research and Scientific Integrity." I note in this hearing a conflation of allegations of Bush Administration interference in science communication with research budgets for climate scientists. Both Rick Piltz's testimony and that of Rick Anthes emphasized science budgets. Seems to me that such claims are crassly opportunistic. Here are some actual climate science budget facts that should give some pause to such arguments:

From 1995 to 2001:

Climate science funding was cut from $2.234B to $1.886B (constant dollars), representing a cut of 15.6%. With respect to climate science funding as a proportion of domestic discretionary spending the cut is 23%.

From 2002 to 2006:

Climate science funding was cut from $1.792B to $1.674B (constant dollars), representing a cut of 6.6%. With respect to climate science funding as a proportion of domestic discretionary spending the cut is 20%.

Data from Rick Piltz's testimony and the Congressional Budget Office. Note that funding in 2000 and 2001 are virtually identical.

If the Bush Administration's cuts represent an assault on scientific integrity, then why wouldn't the larger cuts by the Clinton Administration also fall under that same category?

In my mind, conflating research budgets with heavy-handed Bush Administration communication policies is a mistake.

Posted on February 7, 2007 09:09 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

Understanding US Climate Politics

This graph from the 25 January 2007 issue of The Economist says a lot about the politics of energy policy in the United States. According to the article, "California's greenhouse-gas emissions per person are on a par with those of Denmark. Relative to the size of its economy, they are lower."

Posted on February 7, 2007 08:32 AM View this article | Comments (31)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

Should A Scientific Advisor be Evaluated According to Political Criteria?

Consider NASA’s James Hansen who complained that he was being interfered with by the Bush Administration which saw Mr. Hansen’s views as inconvenient with respect to their policies on climate change. Dr. Hansen is, by his own admission, outside of the scientific consensus on climate change, as reflected by the IPCC. Should Dr. Hansen’s ability to speak or even hold his job be a function of the political views of the officials who happen to be in office? Hold on to your answer for a moment and click through . . .

Now consider the State of Oregon and its state climatologist:

In an exclusive interview with KGW-TV, Governor Ted Kulongoski confirmed he wants to take that title [of state climatologist] from Oregon State’s George] Taylor. The governor said Taylor's contradictions interfere with the state's stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases, the accepted cause of global warming in the eyes of a vast majority of scientists.
"He is Oregon State University's climatologist. He is not the state of Oregon's climatologist," Kulongoski said.

Taylor declined to comment on the proposal other than to say he was a "bit shocked" by the news. He recently engaged in a debate at O.M.S.I. and repeated his doubts about accepted science.

In an interview he told KGW, "There are a lot of people saying the bulk of the warming of the last 50 years is due to human activities and I don't believe that's true." He believes natural cycles explain most of the changes the earth has seen.

A bill will be introduced in Salem soon on the matter.

Sen. Brad Avakian, (D) Washington County, is sponsoring the bill. He said global warming is so important to state policy it's important to have a climatologist as a consultant to the governor. He denied this is targeted personally at Taylor. "Absolutely not," Avakian said, "I've never met Mr. Taylor and if he's got opinions I hope he comes to the hearing and testifies."

Kulongoski said the state needs a consistent message on reducing greenhouse gases to combat climate change.

The Governor says, "I just think there has to be somebody that says, 'this is the state position on this.'" [emphasis added]

Whatever one thinks about the science of climate change, one should have concern about scientific advisory positions being determined by purely political criteria, as described in the interview with Oregon's governor. Imagine if George Bush said what the Oregon governor said above in regards to James Hansen -- "I just think there has to be somebody that says, 'this is the U.S. position on this.'" We saw exactly this sort of treatment of intelligence expertise with the Bush Administration's shenanigans leading to the Iraq War.

One should also be concerned about double standards among observers. Both Hansen and Taylor are admittedly outside the IPCC's scientific consensus on climate change and both are inconvenient for the elected officials for whom they serve. Do we really want to go down a path where politicians are able to manipulate governmental advisors to suit their policy preferences? Do the rest of us need any semblance of intellectual coherence on this issue? Or should we instead have of scientific advice simply reflect a convenient political litmus test?

Posted on February 7, 2007 02:10 AM View this article | Comments (35)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

February 06, 2007

Post-IPCC Political Handicapping: Count the Votes

The National Journal has updated its poll of opinions on climate change among members of the U.S. Congress, which it first presented last April. The results, with a few exceptions, are much the same. What the poll indicates are that while there are indeed partisan differences on how members of congress view the science of climate change, there is nonetheless a strong majority of members who accept that "it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made pollution." Given this finding, one might wonder what marginal value exists in continuing to debate the science (one answer found below). Here are a few further details.

In its February 3, 2007 issue the National Journal finds (PDF) that 97% of Democrats and 16% of Republicans answered yes (or "consensus" or "part of cause") to the question: "Do you think it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems?"

Let’s assume, for the present discussion, that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is interpreted identically to the IPCC’s "very likely" (meaning >90% certainty, the NJ poll was taken before IPCC's release last week). Let’s also assume that the poll of 72 members is in fact representative of the 535 total. Finally, let’s set aside the debate of whether partisanship drives views on science or vice-versa.

What does this poll signify?

It means that in the Senate there are 57 members who believe that there is no "reasonable doubt" on the cause of global warming, and in the House this number is 258. These are strong majorities.

With respect to the policy questions asked by the National Journal here is how the numbers break out for those favoring various policies:

Mandatory CO2 Limits:

House 243
Senate 54

Carbon Tax

House 123
Senate 27

Cap and Trade

House 290
Senate 65

These counts (again, if an accurate reflection of members’ positions) suggest a few important conclusions.

1. The issue of science is no longer relevant to debate in Congress. A majority in both chambers accepts the human role in climate change, and further a majority accepts the need for action, including mandatory caps on carbon dioxide.

2. A carbon tax is largely unrelated to debate over the science. Even if the entire House were to be comprised of members who accept the science of climate change, as this factor alone drove voting behavior, the vote would be even. However, among Democrats only 50% favor a carbon tax, indicating that there are significant factors at play beyond just views of the science. If one posits that Republican views on a carbon tax are different than Democrats (big stretch), let’s say half as favorable (to be generous) with respect to their views of the science, then this would mean that Congress would have to be at least 75% Democratic to get a majority favoring a carbon tax. Under the present political landscape – not gonna happen.

Bottom line – the votes for action appear to be there. So too is broad public acceptance of the reality of climate change and a need for action. Why then is not action happening more quickly?

There are probably a few answers:

1. When push comes to shove. It may be the case that among many people global warming is an issue with more emotional affect than implications for action. In the U.K. for instance, where climate change is squarely on the agenda, only 11% of respondents to a recent poll indicated that they would fly less to reduce their emissions. The current debate in Europe reflects the difficulties of actually reducing emissions even in the context of apparent strong political and public support.

2. Political overreach. Some who want action on climate change have suggested that it might be best for the 110th Congress not to act in order to wait for a Democratic president to be elected in 2009 (or a least someone who is not GWB). The thinking is that even stronger legislation will be possible under those conditions. This might be wishful thinking. A good rule in politics is to take what you can when you can get it.

3. Those skeptics. Just when you thought that we’d seen the end of the debate over climate skeptics, it turns out that some scientists are busy trying to keep them in the limelight. Yes, you read that right. Consider that immediately upon release of the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers the RealClimate blog immediately followed up its 1,280 word review of the IPCC SPM with a 1,585 word essay on some anti-IPCC statement from a group of self-appointed climate skeptics. Without RealClimate’s generous lavishing of attention and imputed significance, the anti-IPCC document would probably have gone unnoticed by most folks. Like old Cold Warriors longing for the Soviet Union the complete and utter domination of the IPCC consensus view seems difficult for some to accept. This issue runs far deeper than bloggers worried about being out of a job, as it will no doubt manifest itself in debates over climate change research budgets. A strong case can be made that now that the science is settled, at least from the standpoint of justifying mitigation, that there is ample room to downsize significant aspects of the climate research enterprise. After all, plate tectonics is not a big area of research.

4. Fighting is more fun than winning. The dynamics of debate over climate change in the blogoshpere might be a good indication of the broader political dynamics for many. It is easy to transform the issue into skeptic vs. nonskeptic in order to debate science, or Republican vs. Democract to debate politics, or environmentalist vs. capitalist to debate the economy/environment, or any of a number of wedge issues that people find fun and exciting to discuss. We see that achieving pragmatic action on real issues -- which might involve moving beyond the science or reaching a political compromise with one's sworn enemies seems pretty tame and unexciting for many. I have little doubt that for some people, climate change is all about the fight, not the victory, so preserving conflict is paramount.

Bottom line from this post: The votes are there. What is lacking, as I’ve often asserted, are a wide range of policy options to exploit the current political receptivity. In the absence of good options, it is likely that we’ll continue see symbolic action (at best) and loud exhortations, as the battle over climate change continues.

Posted on February 6, 2007 08:31 AM View this article | Comments (38)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

February 05, 2007

Upcoming This Week . . . [UPDATED]

A preview of what to expect this upcoming week here on Prometheus:

On Wednesday Nature will be publishing a commentary that I co-authored with Gwyn Prins (University College London/Columbia University), Steve Rayner (Oxford University’s James Martin Institute), and Dan Sarewitz (ASU). The piece is titled "Lifting the Taboo on Adaptation." We’ll post it here as soon as it is available.

This just in from the House Science and Technology Committee staff:

I just now got out of a meeting with the senior Republican Members of the Science Committee and they decided they want to go in a different direction for Thursday's IPCC hearing. Rather than have you testify, they want me to find a witness from industry for the hearing.

So no testimony for me this week . . .

On Thursday, I have been invited by the House Committee on Science and Technology to testify at a hearing along with leading IPCC scientists. I’ve been asked to discuss the relationship of scientific advice and policy making. This week’s testimony will be straight out of The Honest Broker. Despite my occasional comments about sausage factories, it is an honor to have a chance to present some of our work to policy makers, and I welcome the attention being given to the challenge of connecting science to decision making. Tune in here later this week for my prepared testimony, oral remarks, and reactions. Do note that your favorite "perfidious corporate lapdog"/"closet Republican" (to pick two of my favorite quotes from last week;-) was once again invited by the congressional minority. As always your comments and reactions are welcomed – positive, negative, or indifferent.

On Friday, I’ll be appearing in Savannah, Georgia at an event with Georgia Tech’s Peter Webster where we’ll watch a screening of An Inconvenient Truth and then give short presentations on science and policy issues of climate change immediately after. Here is how a local Savannah paper described the upcoming event:

The film will be followed by a discussion led by Georgia Tech climatologist Peter Webster, who Bonnell said "truly believes we're about to fry," and Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who stands in the middle of the climate change debate, calling himself a "nonskeptical heretic."
"I'd say don't be put off by the person speaking, just look at the ideas," Bonnell said. "We're hoping people will be engaged by what they say."

Should be an interesting week.

Posted on February 5, 2007 03:39 PM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Sterman and Sweeney paper on public attitudes and GHG mitigation

Back in August, when you are were on summer vacation, we highlighted a John Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney preprint titled "Understanding public complacency about climate change: adults’ mental models of climate change violate conservation of matter." Their paper is now out in Climatic Change and is well worth the repeat notice here.

Between last August's post and today we've seen the November midterms sweep in a Congress seemingly committed to addressing climate change, six months more of consistent media coverage of the issue, ten industry titans push the federal government for limits on CO2, and the release of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. Does that translate into the American public demanding action on climate change? Apparently not yet.

To help understand why, here's the Sterman/Sweeney abstract:

Public attitudes about climate change reveal a contradiction. Surveys show most Americans believe climate change poses serious risks but also that reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sufficient to stabilize atmospheric GHG concentrations can be deferred until there is greater evidence that climate change is harmful. US policymakers likewise argue it is prudent to wait and see whether climate change will cause substantial economic harm before undertaking policies to reduce emissions. Such wait-and-see policies erroneously presume climate change can be reversed quickly should harm become evident, underestimating substantial delays in the climate’s response to anthropogenic forcing. We report experiments with highly educated adults – graduate students at MIT – showing widespread misunderstanding of the fundamental stock and flow relationships, including mass balance principles, that lead to long response delays. GHG emissions are now about twice the rate of GHG removal from the atmosphere. GHG concentrations will therefore continue to rise even if emissions fall, stabilizing only when emissions equal removal. In contrast, most subjects believe atmospheric GHG concentrations can be stabilized while emissions into the atmosphere continuously exceed the removal of GHGs from it. These beliefs – analogous to arguing a bathtub filled faster than it drains will never overflow – support wait-and-see policies but violate conservation of matter. Low public support for mitigation policies may arise from misconceptions of climate dynamics rather than high discount rates or uncertainty about the impact of climate change. Implications for education and communication between scientists and nonscientists (the public and policymakers) are discussed.

Posted on February 5, 2007 11:02 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

Loose Ends -- IPCC and Hurricanes

Just a few loose ends that may be of interest to those following this issue:

1. The International Institute for Sustainable Development continues their invaluable tradition of providing a window into the negotiations with first-hand reports. Here is what their report says about the negotiations over hurricanes in the IPCC:

Regarding tropical cyclones, the US drew attention to a consensus statement produced at a recent WMO cyclone workshop about the difficulties of detecting cyclone trends, and cautioned that using the terms "global" and "trend" to describe an increase in the intensity of tropical cyclones could open the IPCC to criticism. The Netherlands and the Philippines agreed that the proposed language, "satellite records suggest a global trend toward more intense tropical cyclones since about 1970, correlated with observed warming of tropical sea surfaces temperatures," was too strong. Germany and Kenya disagreed, deferring to the judgment of the Coordinating Lead Authors in assessing the scientific literature. The Coordinating Lead Authors clarified that the WMO workshop participants were hurricane scientists and not climate scientists, and that this statement, released six months after the WGI AR4 underlying report was submitted, was not peer-reviewed or open to comment. The issue was referred to a contact group, where participants discussed variability in the data and shortcomings in the modeling approaches, highlighted the importance of reflecting the main conclusions of the underlying chapter, and noted recent studies in support of both sides. As there was common ground on the robustness of evidence within the North Atlantic, the agreed text focused on the “observational evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic” and included a more detailed discussion of the factors that complicate identification of long-term patterns. A row in the table on extreme weather events (Table SPM-1) on "intense tropical cyclone activity increases" was modified to reflect the text agreed in the contact group, adding "in some regions." [emphasis added]

Of all groups I would think the IPCC Coordinating lead Authors could do better than offer a critique suggesting that the relevant experts were not "climate scientists." (Close readers will recall that we've seen that argument made here at times.) In any case, the team that wrote the WMO statement was populated by many leading researchers who by any definition are indeed "climate scientists," including luminaries like Tom Knutson and Kerry Emanuel.

2. Randy Dole, a member of the U.S. delegation to the IPCC sent in this nice comment referencing my interpretation of the SPM statements on tropical cyclones:

Thank you for your thoughtful and balanced assessment of what the IPCC SPM says. You have got it right. Your careful analysis on what the report says and how it compares to the WMO consensus statement is most appreciated.

Thanks Randy!

Posted on February 5, 2007 02:22 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

February 02, 2007

Follow Up: IPCC and Hurricanes

The IPCC report is out (PDF) and here is what it says about hurricanes (tropical cyclones). Kudos to the scientists involved. Despite the pressures, on tropical cyclones they figured out a way to maintain consistency with the actual balance of opinion(s) in the community of relevant experts.

Here is the discussion of observed changes:

There is observational evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with increases of tropical sea surface temperatures. There are also suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other regions where concerns over data quality are greater. Multi-decadal variability and the quality of the tropical cyclone records prior to routine satellite observations in about 1970 complicate the detection of long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity. There is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones.

Interestingly, in a table that discusses attribution of trends to anthropogenic causes it reports that there are some trends observed in some regions in tropical cyclone behavior, writing that these trends "more likely than not" represent the "likelihood of a human contribution to observed trend." But then this statement is footnoted with the following qualification:

Magnitude of anthropogenic contributions not assessed. Attribution for these phenomena based on expert judgement rather than formal attribution studies.

So there might be a human contribution (and presumably this is just to the observed upwards trends observed in some basins, and not to downward trends observed in others, but this is unclear) but the human contribution itself has not been quantitatively assessed, yet the experts, using their judgment, expect it to be there. In plain English this is what is called a "hypothesis" and not a "conclusion." And it is a fair representation of the issue.

The projections for the future are as frequently represented in the literature:

Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical SSTs. There is less confidence in projections of a global decrease in numbers of tropical cyclones. The apparent increase in the proportion of very intense storms since 1970 in some regions is much larger than simulated by current models for that period.

This comment on the process was offered by Australia's Neville Nicholls, who was one of the authors responsible for drafting the language on tropical cyclones:

"I was disappointed that after more than two years carefully analysing the literature on possible links between tropical cyclones and global warming that even before the report was approved it was being misreported and misrepresented. We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link. But the premature reports suggested that we were asserting the existence of much stronger evidence. I hope that when people read the real report they will see that it is a careful and balanced assessment of all the evidence."

The open atmosphere of negotiations in the IPCC is probably something that should be revised. How anyone can deny that political factors were everpresent in the negotiations isn't paying attention.

Posted on February 2, 2007 05:37 AM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

February 01, 2007

Report from IPCC Negotiations

From NOAA's Randy Dole in Paris, lifted from the comments:

Roger and all,

I generally stay out of blogs, but as a member of the US delegation here I would strongly counsel against premature judgment. Once the final document is out, I hope that you and others will fairly compare what the final report says with the WMO consensus statement. I suspect that an objective analyst who carefully reads both the IPCC and WMO documents - that is, does not cherry pick - will find far more common ground than might now be anticipated.

The two reports are not identical of course, nor should they be, but in the end the careful reader will see far more areas of agreement than current reports might suggest. For those who are relying on press reports or any earlier drafts of the IPCC SPM, you will simply be misled.

In short, wait for the report, look carefully at what it says, and then evaluate and critique. This would be the fair process.

See you back in Boulder,

Randy Dole

P.S.: A little after midnight here in Paris, still at UNESCO, but the final draft has been approved. Just waiting for one final review to ensure all agreed upon changes have been made.

Posted on February 1, 2007 05:47 PM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

IPCC on Hurricanes

The IPCC Summary for Policy Makers is not out yet, but if this report in the Washington Post is in fact true, then we are in store for some controversy:

Global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those in the Atlantic such as Katrina, an authoritative panel on climate change has concluded for the first time, participants in the deliberations said Thursday.

This will be controversial for several reasons. First, the WMO consensus was written by a range of scientists, including Kerry Emanuel and Greg Holland, who have argued that there is a strong global warming signal, but who have also accepted that their colleagues have valid arguments as well. Second, the IPCC cannot consider recent studies since it has a publication deadline (exactly what that is I don’t know but it was spring-ish 2006). Thus, the IPCC is a bit like a time machine telling us what the literature said about a year ago. The WMO statement incorporates more recent literature. However the IPCC is being presented as new. Third, the IPCC’s lead man on hurricanes and climate change is a fervent partisan in the debate itself. Whether his views are correct or not, it does not help the legitimacy of the process to see a carefully constructed consensus statement among 120 scientists with diverse views overturned by a very (very) narrow set of participants that may be only a few people.

This issue no doubt will become even more politicized than before, with partisans on both sides rejoicing or attacking. For my part, the IPCC overturns the WMO statement with some considerable risk to its own credibility. Of course, we’ll have to wait until May to actually find out the basis for this rejection.

Posted on February 1, 2007 08:09 AM View this article | Comments (18)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

January 31, 2007

Even More: Mr. Issa’s Confusion and a Comment on Budget Politics

At the Waxman hearing yesterday one of the more unproductive exchanges was between Mr. Issa and Dr. Brifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The UCS released a report chronicling responses to a request for information from climate scientists about their perceptions about politics and science. Mr. Issa focused on the statistical power of the survey, which is the wrong way to look at it. The responses were the responses. They are not evidence of a larger population – the responses ARE the population. That being said the UCS supports my own contention that politics and science are inherently intermixed.

The UCS survey does have its own problems. For instance it lumped in budget issues as political interference. Dr. Shindell also did this at the end of the hearing. If not giving scientists enough money is evidence of political interference then what isn’t? Here are some representative examples cited in the UCS report about how to improve climate science “integrity” (p. 22):

”I believe that climate research at NASA is being undermined by the current administration. This is accomplished not through direct threats of intimidation, but through lack of funding. . .”
“The U.S. Climate Change Science Program has not received sufficient funding . . .”

“Problems with climate research in the federal government mainly have to do with funding . . .”

“I have not worked directly on climate change since funding was eliminated in my area. Other areas of much less importance have been emphasized as a result.”

“Funding for climate research is a factor of 5-10 below critical mass to develop a designed climate observing system.”

[This last one is my favorite - $10-$20 billion, right!]

By adding the politics of the budget process into the mix the UCS has revealed that climate science is indeed very political indeed.

Posted on January 31, 2007 07:58 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

Additional Reactions – Waxman Hearing

Here are a few additional thoughts on yesterday’s hearing and reactions to it.

Here are some impressions – and they are just speculations -- on the politics of the issue of "science suppression" and where it might be headed. First, one notable feature of yesterday’s hearing that you only would have noticed if you were there or watched was the reaction of Rep. Christopher Shays, a moderate Republican. He seemed pretty ticked off at the hearing at the testimony of Rick Piltz in particular and gave him a brief hard time. Mr. Shays commented that he came to the hearing expecting to hear about science suppression but that he had instead heard minor complaints about report edits in a partisan context. He may have been posturing (always possible), but if he was indeed sincere, then Mr. Waxman may have to engage in a bit of logrolling to maintain/retain any sense of bipartisanship in this area of oversight.

Second, the hearing has received a lot of media attention; it even overshadowed the Senate hearing the same day on climate policy. This is of course good for Mr. Waxman and increases pressures on the Bush Administration. But it also raises the bar for future attention pretty high. What does the committee do next? They could invite a few more agency officials, Jim Hansen comes to mind, but there would be a good chance, from a media perspective, of being the same story, which may not generate the same buzz.

Third, President Bush is a lame (very lame) duck, and the presidential election season is getting closer every day. There is not much time available for oversight investigation of any sort. Meantime, the principle bad guys in the story in the Bush Administration have resigned or moved on (in one case to ExxonMobil). Both NASA and NOAA have changed their media policies (for the better?). The Union of Concerned Scientists continues to release reports indicating that science and politics intermix, but if they don’t watch out, they might do such a good job that people might start thinking that . . . science and politics intermix. The Bush Administration can stonewall Mr. Waxman’s request for documents for a long time, and I wouldn’t bet that Mr. Waxman would issue subpoenas on this issue, since the lack of responsiveness by the Administration is almost certainly just a politically useful as the documents themselves. For all of these reasons it seems like there will be diminishing political returns to the issue of "science suppression" especially in the context of Mr. Waxman’s interest in other areas of oversight with more political traction, like the war in Iraq.

For the above reasons, I speculate – and it is just speculation – that we have seen the high water mark on Congressional attention to the issue of “science suppression.” I hope that I am wrong. It would be very informative and useful for Mr. Waxman to bring in media relations officials from various science agencies to examine what they do and how they do it. But I am not expecting this to happen. It is more likely that some other committee, such as the Science Committee takes up aspects of this issue if only to demonstrate ownership of their own turf. Therefore, for the Waxman committee I will put the over/under on future hearings on science suppression at one (bumped up from 0.5).

Finally, I fully expect that scientists who are exploiting their authority to advance their political views do not appreciate someone pointing out the close relation of science and politics. This also goes for those advocates who argue for their political agenda based on an appeal to objective, impartial authorities. Telling enough is that most public responses to my testimony along these lines have carefully avoided responding to anything that I actually wrote. I expect the loudest public complaints from those scientists most active politically. There is a stark contrast between what I see on the web versus what is in my inbox, which is reassuring.

Posted on January 31, 2007 05:09 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

January 30, 2007

Instant Reaction – Waxman Hearing

There is much I could say about the hearing today. Apparently parts of it were on C-Span and will be replayed, and I think the streaming video is available for anyone who wants to subject themselves to four hours inside the sausage factory . . . .

For me the most interesting set of exchanges illustrated exactly the dynamics I discussed in my prepared testimony (available here in PDF). First, Representative McCollum spent some time getting NASA’s Drew Shindell on record explaining that the views of Soon and Baliunas (two scientists who wrote a controversial paper cited by the White House in opposition to the findings of the IPCC) did not and could not overturn the IPCC consensus. (I completely agree with this point.) Dr. Shidell gave in far to easy (and contributed) to the discussion that because the scientists in question had the wrong degrees, that they need not be taken seriously. (I disagree with that – science should be judged on its merits.)

Then, Rep. Welch, apparently not even appreciating the irony, took issue with my invocation in my testimony of the WMO consensus statement on tropical cyclones, which has recently been endorsed by the AMS Executive Council. I pointed out that the Committee's background memo was highly selective in its presentation of hurricane science, which seems fairly obvious, but which they apparently did not like me doing. He claimed that they had just emailed Judy Curry and Michael Mann, and they had written back, apparently both taking issue with the WMO Consensus! In fact, according to Mr. Welch Dr. CUrry's and Dr. Mann's views are more representative of the state of the science than that expressed by the WMO. (Judy and Mike are welcome to share their emails to the Committee here if they’d like.) Surprise, surprise – they could find some experts who disagreed with the WMO consensus!

Did he not see that he was doing the exact same thing that Rep. McCollum was criticizing the White House for? I tried to point out this irony, not sure if I made the point very well. (Dr. Shindell illustrated that he doesn’t know much about the hurricane community when he asserted that Michael Mann is a leading hurricane/climate scientist whose views should be taken over the WMO, but maybe he misspoke or I misheard.) I stick to my views, as if there is any area of science I know well it is the hurricane/climate debate.

Henry Waxman tried to salvage the exchange by pointing out that I am in fact a "political scientist" so what the hell do I know about hurricanes anyway;-) Hey, if you can’t win on the facts attack the man. I believe that strategy speaks for itself quite loudly.

I am not sure what Mr. Waxman thinks he accomplished with this hearing other further politicizing the issue of science politicization. The whole exercise seems to prove that the politicization of science is endemic, as I argued in my testimony. If Mr. Waxman was interested in actually improving policies governing science he’d haul down agency press officers and those responsible for the process of approving government reports to focus on actual processes. The repeated calls for science and politics to be separate are just empty exhortations without discussion of actual policies.

Posted on January 30, 2007 01:39 PM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

Waxman Hearing Testimony - Oral Remarks

Here are my remarks as prepared for delivery at 10AM today at the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. They might still change. They are pretty brief, as I only have 5 minutes. Here is the fully referenced written testimony [pdf], which goes into a lot more detail.

I thank the Chairman and the Committee for the opportunity to offer testimony this morning. I am a professor at the University of Colorado and also director of the university’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. A short biography with more details can be found at the end of my written testimony.

My main point today is that politics and science cannot in practice be separated. Consequently, policies for the production, promotion, and use of information in decision making should be based on the realities of science in politics, and not on the mistaken impression that they can somehow be kept separate. Efforts to separate them will in most case only contribute to the pathological politicization of science.

Imagine the following situation:

The president has in his administration a range of scientific experts on the most important policy issue of the day. However, the president is denied access to that advice by the manipulative actions of one of his primary advisors, who we’ll call "the Admiral." It turns out that the Admiral has the president’s ear on matters of science but he himself has in fact never had any formal scientific training. He justifies his actions on the belief that United States is engaged in a fundamental religious, political, and economic conflict between good and evil. When two leading government scientists seek to provide advice to the president that differs from that being offered by the Admiral, the Admiral asks the FBI to open investigations of these scientists. One of the scientists subsequently faces hearings to consider his lack of loyalty to the United States and he never again works as a government scientist. The other scientist warns that this case indicated to scientists that

"scientific integrity and frankness in advising government on policy matters of a technical nature can lead to later reprisals against those whose earlier opinions have become unpopular."

One of the nation’s leading scientist writes that the relationship between government and scientists has been "gravely damaged" because the government has given the impression that it would "exclude anyone who does not conform to the judgment of those who in one way or another have acquired authority."

The year? 1954
The President? Dwight Eisenhower
The Admiral? Lewis Strauss
The Scientists? Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, and Vannevar Bush

This vignette drawn from Benjamin Green’s excellent new book Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945-1963 (Stanford University Press, 2007), along with the other examples recounted in my written testimony discussing issues of science and politics from presidential administrations from Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton, show that science and politics have always been issues of concern for policy makers. And the subject of today’s hearing indicates that today is no different.

There are however reasons why today’s conflicts are receiving more attention from scholars, political advocates, and politicians.

1. There are an increasing number of important issues which are related to science and technology in some way.
2. Policy makers increasingly invoke expertise to justify a course of action that they advocate.
3. Advocacy groups increasingly rely on experts to justify their favored course of action.
4. Congress, at least for the past six years, and perhaps longer has been derelict in its oversight duties, particularly related to issues of science and technology.
5. Many scientists are increasingly engaging in political advocacy.
6. Some issues of science have become increasingly partisan as some politicians sense that there is political gain to be found such as on stem cells, teaching of evolution, and climate change.
7. The Bush Administration has engaged in hyper-controlling strategies for the management of information.

I’ll now give just several very short vignettes which illustrate how fundamentally science and politics are inter-related.

The language of science in public discussions lends itself to politicization. For instance, The New York Times reported last year that scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had complained because they had been instructed to use the phrase "climate change" rather than the phrase "global warming." A Republican strategy memo did recommend use of the phrase "climate change" over "global warming”" and environmental groups have long had the opposite preference. Another federal scientist, at NOAA, described how he was instructed by superiors not to use the word "Kyoto" or "climate change."

To cite another example, several years ago the Union of Concerned Scientists, as part of its advocacy campaign on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, recommended the use of the word "harbinger" to describe current climate events that may become more frequent with future global warming. Subsequently scientists at NOAA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the Fish and Wildlife Service's Polar Bear Project began to use the phrase in their public communication in concert with advocacy groups like Greenpeace. The term has also appeared in official government press releases. Policy makers and their staff are of course intimately familiar with these dynamics : we have just recently seen them in practice as Republicans and Democrats have battled over framing President Bush’s proposed troop increases in Iraq as a "surge" or as an "escalation."

An example of how easy it is to misrepresent science in a political setting, consider the memorandum prepared last week by the majority staff of this Committee to provide background information on this hearing. The memorandum states, quite correctly, that "a consensus has emerged on the basic science of global warming." It then goes on to assert that:

". . . recently published studies have suggested that the impacts [of global warming] include increases in the intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms . . .."

It supports this claim by citing three papers. But what the memorandum does not relate is that authors of each of the three cited studies recently participated with about 120 experts from around the world to prepare a consensus statement under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which concluded that "no consensus has been reached on this issue."

The WMO Statement was subsequently endorsed by the Executive Council of the American Meteorological Society. Thus, the science cited in the Committee memo is incomplete and misleading. Such cherry picking and misrepresentations of science are endemic in political discussions involving science.

What has occurred in the preparation of this memorandum is in microcosm exactly the same sort of thing that we have seen with heavy-handed Bush administration information management strategies which include editing government reports and overbearing management of agency press releases and media contacts with scientists. Inevitably, such ham-handed information management will backfire, because people will notice and demand accountability. This oversight hearing today is good evidence for that.

My written testimony goes into far more detail on issues of press releases, agency media policies, empanelment of federal advisory committees, and other subjects which I would be happy to discuss with you further,

Thank you.

Posted on January 30, 2007 03:12 AM View this article | Comments (18)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

January 29, 2007

Mike Hulme on Avery and Singer

Over at Post-Normal Times the Tyndall Centre's Mike Hulme has a thought-provoking review of a recent book by Dennis Avery and Fred Singer. Here is an excerpt:

Too often the reasons we disagree about what to do about climate change are framed in this way, as disputes about the truth claims of some aspect of biogeophysical science – is the world warming; are greenhouse gases responsible; will this ice-sheet collapse? This reflects one view of science, the conventional Enlightenment view of science as an objective, disinterested endeavour incrementally leading us closer and closer to a universal and immutable view of reality … past, present and future. This is ‘normal’ science.
But for many years now, around 25 at least, philosophers and practitioners of science have identified a different mode of scientific activity, a mode where stakes are high, uncertainties large and decisions urgent, and where values are embedded in the way science is done and spoken. This is what Silvio Funtowicz labelled in 1993 ‘post-normal’ science. Disputes in post-normal science focus as often on the process of science – who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy - as on the facts of science. The IPCC is a classic example of a post-normal scientific activity. The IPCC is a large procedural assessment activity involving first of all scientists, but then later entraining a broad range of other experts from government, business, civil society to evaluate the quality of the assessment, before the modified text is presented to government representatives for their amendment and approval.

But there is also a third way of interpreting contemporary science, which is yet one further step removed from the binary truth-falsehood view of Singer and Avery. This third way of seeing science pays more attention to the social and cultural context in which science works and speaks than to the phenomena being studied. Who are the scientists, what are their values, motives and preferences, why are they being asked to study this particular problem rather than some other problem, and who funds them? This understanding of science is what sociologists have termed its social construction.

Read the whole thing.

Posted on January 29, 2007 07:50 AM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

Congressional Testimony

I am scheduled to testify at this hearing tomorrow on "political interference in the work of government climate change scientists." Should be interesting. My testimony will be posted here tomorrow morning. If we come across a link to the streaming video, we'll post in the comments. Stay tuned . . .

Posted on January 29, 2007 06:47 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

January 27, 2007

Climate change a 'questionable truth'

That is the headline of a lengthy article by Margaret Wente, a columnist for The Global and Mail, on climate policy and politics. The following excerpt introduces the piece:

Is the sky really falling? How fast and how hard? And if the vast majority of scientists agree, then why don't governments act? After all, nobody wants the world to melt.
If you're an average, concerned citizen, no one will blame you for being confused or angry. The global-warming debate has become so shrill, so political and so polarized that it's impossible for even a reasonably well-informed person to figure out who or what to believe. Only one thing is for sure: Science isn't all that is driving this debate. Politics, ideology and scaremongering are too.

Posted on January 27, 2007 12:35 PM View this article | Comments (19)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 26, 2007

What a difference a year and maybe a movie makes

by Tom Yulsman

Consider this quote: “We believe climate change is a serious issue and that action must be taken.” Last year, that might have been said by an environmentalist in testimony before Congress — or maybe not, because discussion of the issue in Congress was controlled by Republicans who were more interested in what ExxonMobil had to say on climate change. But those words were actually spoken today by Ken Cohen, ExxonMobil’s vice president for public affairs.

In a conference call with bloggers, Cohen outlined the company’s positions on the issue, coming intriguingly close to endorsing one policy response to global warming over another: a carbon tax as opposed to a cap and trade system.

"Most economists who have looked at this issue would come away saying a carbon tax makes the most sense," Cohen said. "It’s the most efficient policy. The most sector-neutral. It doesn’t favor or disfavor one part of the economy over another."

Was the company prepared to endorse this approach? "If Exxon- Mobil were to come out in favor of a carbon tax today, many people would react and say that if we’re for it, there must be some problem with it," Cohen half-joked. "We do look seriously at carbon tax proposals.”"But the devil is in the details, he said, and Exxon-Mobil’s position on any policy proposal will depend on how it’s structured. "It is a regressive tax," he noted. "Do we want it to be revenue neutral? We could take out another regressive tax, like the sales tax. How pure is the tax? Does it apply across the economy? Or does it apply only to one sector and not others?"

What I found remarkable was not his thinking on this and other policy issues per se but the very fact that a high ExxonMobil official thought it was important enough to take an hour and fifteen minutes out of his day to chat about options for global warming mitigation with a bunch of bloggers.

After hanging up the phone, I had the distinct impression that the ground had shifted dramatically under my feet. "Global warming: yes or no?" is so over, as my teenage daughter might say. Scientists, engineers, environmentalists and academic policy experts aren’t the only ones now discussing policy options seriously and publicly. Suddenly, ExxonMobil is talking seriously and publicly too.

Well, maybe seriously. I guess that still remains to be seen.

As readers of Prometheus no doubt know, a day before the State of the Union address, the heads of 10 major U.S. corporations called on the president to support mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. The group included the chief executives of GE, Duke Energy, DuPont, PG&E, Alcoa and others. The corporations have joined together with leading environmental organizations, including Environmental Defense, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and the World Resources Institute, to form the United States Climate Action Partnership. USCAP has put forward a plan designed to cut U.S. annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 70 to 90 percent of today’s production in just 15 years.

Cohen did not endorse or reject this approach. "This is part of a very healthy process," was about as far as he would go. Even so, there is something startling about ExxonMobil now taking part in the discussion about policy options, instead of spending lavishly to enforce gridlock. Last year, Britain’s Royal Society estimated that ExxonMobil gave $5.685 million in 2005 to 39 groups it said misrepresent the science of climate change. This year, ExxonMobil promised the society that it would halt this funding. And it has cut off its support of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

An earthquake occurs when enough strain builds up along a fault line, causing the ground on opposites sides to suddenly break free and shift violently. In the past few years, we’ve witnessed a steady build up of strain along the fault line marking the divide between the science of global warming on one side, and public, corporate and political perceptions on the other. The scientific evidence clearly linking human activities to a warming climate has been pulling hard on the fault for years, causing some creep but no major release. Over the past year, the strain began to build even more. For example, in a poll sponsored last January by Pew Internet and the American Life Project, 64 percent of those surveyed said they believed global warming "is the result of human activity such as driving cars and burning fuels." Soon thereafter, 86 evangelical Christian leaders publicly urged prompt action on an initiative to fight global warming.

And then came the movie. "An Inconvenient Truth" premiered in May, and since then it has grossed $24,146,161 at the box office here in the U.S., making it the third highest grossing documentary film since the early 1980s. By August, polling was showing that 61 percent of Americans believed global warming was "a problem that requires immediate government action." (PDF)

Since then, Pew surveys show public support for immediate action subsiding a bit. But with California’s initiative to tackle climate change, the Democratic take over of Congress, the introduction of at least four major bills to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and strong support for action by ten major U.S. corporations, the fault line has finally broken. And now, apparently, not even ExxonMobil can deny that reality.

But now what? After corporate titans called on Bush to take strong action on global warming, his spokesperson, Tony Snow, told them not to hold their breath: "The President has always believed, when it comes to climate change, that the best way to achieve reductions is through innovation, and to figure out ways to come up with energy sources that are going to meet our economy's constant demand for energy, and at the same time, do it in a way that's going to be friendly for the environment."

Fair enough. But as we all know, we got no innovation in the president’s State of the Union address — just pablum and a throw-away line about climate change. And as Clifford Krauss pointed out in yesterday’s New York Times, "Thirty years after it was founded by President Jimmy Carter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the edge of the Rockies here still does not have a cafeteria." One year after Bush visited NREL during his last spasm of support for renewable energy, "the money flowing into the nation’s primary laboratory for developing renewable fuels is actually less than it was at the beginning of the Bush administration."

Overall, the administration’s 2007 budget request for the DOE’s office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy totaled $1.176 billion. That’s half a billion less than its request for NASA’s solar system exploration program, and peanuts compared to the $3 billion NASA was seeking for the program to send people to the Moon and Mars.

When I asked Ken Cohen, ExxonMobil’s VP, what he thought about this, he said "it’s not just a function of dollars alone. For example, Stanford [to which the company has given lavishly for energy research] has told us, ‘Don’t give us more money.’" The reason, according to Cohen: Stanford doesn’t quite know how to spend additional funding.

Maybe it’s an arguable position. But I’m curious to hear what Stanford has to say about this! More to the point, Cohen did not exactly leap at the opportunity to lend support to expanded government R&D efforts in energy efficiency and renewables. At the same time, he acknowledged that much needs to be done to bring these technologies along. "Right now, 80 percent of the world’s energy demand is met with traditional fuel, oil, natural gas and coal," he said. "By the year 2030, it will still be the case that most of the world’s energy will be supplied by those sources. That’s a function of their flexibility, and the fact that they are cost effective and scalable on a global basis. So, for example, solar energy, while viable for niche applications, needs a paradigm shift to allow it to be scaled up and be as effective as traditional fuels."

If that paradigm shift is to come, Cohen seemed to suggest that it will happen largely because of private R&D, not government exertion. "The market is a very efficient allocator of resources," he concluded.

So much for ExxonMobil throwing it’s impressive bulk behind a government-led, Moon-shot R&D effort for energy efficiency and renewables. But at least Cohen pretty much admits what the company’s position is. Bush, on the other hand, talks big about government spending on energy innovation. But his actions don’t come remotely close to matching his words.

And that may well mean that we’ll have to wait two years for policy action. But it’s clear now that if nothing else, either a carbon tax or a cap and trade system is inevitable sooner or later. If ExxonMobil is not shooting either of those options out of the water — if, in fact, it is very publicly saying that policy responses not only are inevitable but necessary, and that one option actually makes more economic sense than the other (the carbon tax) — then action is much closer than I had thought possible just a few months ago.

"Let’s all agree that action should be taken," Cohen said. "We should be talking about the effective actions that we should take to start us on a path to reduce CO2." He even acknowledged that science could conceivably show that the widely discussed target of stabilizing carbon in the atmosphere at 550 parts per million is too low.

Now, after the earthquake, we find ourselves in a remade landscape.

Posted on January 26, 2007 04:01 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Yulsman, T. | Climate Change

Richard Benedick on Climate Policy

The always excellent Issues in Science and Technology (and if you don’t subscribe you should) has a great essay in its winter issue by Richard Benedick, former deputy assistant secretary of state and chief U.S. negotiator of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Protect the Ozone Layer. The essay is titled "Avoiding Gridlock on Climate Change" and appears on pp. 37-40. Mr. Benedick knows something about international environmental agreements. His essay is not yet online, but I have excerpted some key passages below.

He begins by leveling some string criticism at the annual gatherings under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

These UN mega-conferences have by now developed a predictable pattern. Considerable time is occupied by tedious problems of coordinating positions and tactics, both inside the huge national delegations and within blocs of countries such as the European Union and other regional or "like-minded" coalitions. There are the usual dire warnings— fully justifiable—of impending global catastrophe. There are trivial protocol debates and ritualistic ministerial speeches exhorting complicated and unrealistic actions. There are cultural diversions such as boat rides on the Rhine or dance performances in Marrakech. As the end nears, all-night negotiating sessions contribute to a sense of destiny. But despite the customary self-congratulatory finale, the results at Nairobi, as at preceding meetings, were embarrassingly meager. . .

Part of the problem, as he sees it, is a short-term obsession with targets and timetables.

The climate meetings, obsessively focused on short-term targets and timetables applying only to industrialized nations, have become trapped in a process that is unmanageable, inefficient, and impervious to serious negotiation of complex issues that have profound environmental, economic, and social implications extending over many decades into the future. . .

He suggests that that the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol actually serves the interests of industry, oil-producing countries, and the Bush Administration. These views qualify him for instant "non-skeptic heretic" status (sorry, couldn’t resist;-).

The Kyoto Protocol, lamely defended by its proponents as “the only game in town,” now best serves the interests of politicians whose rhetoric is stronger than their actions and of those commercial interests and governments that want no meaningful actions at all—notably, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Near East oil producers, and the U.S. administration, which is not unhappy with the treaty’s lack of progress. . .

In a crucial passage, Mr. Benedick goes a long way to dispelling some of the myths of the ozone experience. Reading the following closely.

It is worth recalling that the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, later characterized by the heads of the UN Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization as “one of the great international achievements of the century,” was negotiated by only about 30 nations in nine months, with delegations seldom exceeding six persons and with minimal attention from outside observers and media. I doubt whether the ozone treaty could have been achieved under the currently fashionable global format.
We might draw some useful lessons from the ozone history. In the late 1970s, the ozone science was actually much more disputed than the climate science of today, and the major countries that produced and consumed chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were hopelessly deadlocked over the necessity for any controls at all. In this situation, the first international action on protecting the ozone layer was neither global, nor even a treaty. Rather, it was an informal accord among a loose coalition of like-minded nations, including Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and the United States, to individually and separately ban the use of CFCs in aerosol spray cans.

This measure alone resulted in a temporary 30% drop in global CFC consumption (temporary because these “wonder chemicals” were continuing to find new uses in numerous industries.) But the action was nevertheless significant for the future. The resultant technological innovations demonstrated to the skeptics (in this case the European Community, Japan, and the Soviet Union) that controls were feasible, at least for this class of products. It also gave the United States and other proponents of a strong treaty the moral and practical high ground in later negotiations to restrict all uses of CFCs. Yet, if anyone had actually proposed a 30% reduction target, it would surely have been rejected as impossible.

An important lesson here is that a specific policy measure, not an abstract target, could stimulate unanticipated technological innovation. The policy measure drove the agreement on targets in the later ozone protocol, not vice versa. In contrast, the half-hearted performance of most governments with respect to climate policy measures has not matched their political rhetoric about the urgency of targets.

Another important lesson from the Montreal history was that not all countries need to agree in order to take a substantial step forward. It is also relevant to note that, in contrast to Kyoto, developing nations did accept limitations on their CFC consumption, but only when they were assured of equitable access to new technologies. Technology development is the missing guest at the Kyoto feast. . . [Emphasis added. –RP]

He makes a case that climate change needs to be grappled with piecemeal, eschewing the fantasy of a single global agreement that will drive policy and technology. As highlighted above, experience suggest that the direction of causality is precisely backward -- it is the presence of smaller scale agreements and technological innovation that makes global agreements possible. This is the lesson drawn by Pielke and Betsill (1997) (PDF).

The climate problem could be disaggregated into smaller, more manageable components with fewer participants—in effect, a search for partial solutions rather than a comprehensive global model. An architecture of parallel regimes, involving varying combinations of national and local governments, industry, and civil society on different themes, could reinvigorate the climate negotiations by acknowledging the diverse interests and by expanding the scope of possible solutions. To be sure, even here success would require a degree of genuine political will among at least a significant number of key governments. Nonetheless, by focusing on specific sectors and policy measures in smaller, less formal settings with varying combinations of actors and by not operating under UN consensus rules, the possibilities for achieving forward motion would be increased. The process and results could be termed protocols or forums or agreements, but their essential character would more closely resemble a pragmatic working group than a formal diplomatic negotiation. . .

He discusses some details on issue areas where he thinks that subglobal cooperation and coordination might take place. I don’t reproduce any of the details here, other than to list these issue areas:

Energy research and development Transportation Power generation Agriculture, coal, and adaptation technologies Other technology R&D agreements Government procurement policies Regional cooperation

He concludes by observing that we need to be expanding our options, not foreclosing them, a view often advocated here.

There are no easy answers; we could begin by admitting that over a decade of global negotiations has not brought notable progress. We should be open to new ideas.

Ever the diplomat, in the end he offers some conciliatory words to the UNFCCC suggesting that his vision might operate in parallel. My reading of his argument is that the reality is that progress on climate change won’t be made until we break free from the current approach.

Posted on January 26, 2007 08:45 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | International

January 25, 2007

SOTU '07: An A or a D+ ?

David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists appeared in the NY Post yesterday, giving Prez. Bush an A on energy during the SOTU Tuesday night. I only knew that because the same reporter got a hold of me, but didn't print my response. I gave him a D+. Then again, I was looking at the combined energy/climate change picture, not just energy; perhaps Mr. Friedman was only referring to energy.

On energy and climate change it was hard to find an A in that performance, unless you take the pre-speech talking points released by the White House as saying something new. In the speech itself Bush barely mentioned energy and gave only the briefest gloss to climate.

The only thing new from past SOTU's was his 20/10 initiative: 20% less gasoline use in 10 years. Problem is, that is 20% less than the projected increase in ten years, not a 20% decrease from 2006 consumption. The release says, "The President's Plan Will Help Confront Climate Change By Stopping The Projected Growth Of Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Cars, Light Trucks, And SUVs Within 10 Years." Ok, fine, a worthy goal. But transport from the gasoline-burning vehicles is obviously only one small part of the emissions portfolio. Emissions from electricity generation, diesel-burning transportation, commercial flight, etc. are not addressed. Further, if some of the new alt fuels are coming from coal-derived liquid synfuels then we're talking about increases in GHGs, not decreases. California's EPA is already raising this flag.

There were a couple of things to like in the SOTU: new attention on CAFE, more attention on plug-in hybrids, and a heap of new (proposed) funding for alternative fuels. Unfortunately each of those comes with a "but." Plug-in hybrids I see as one of the best ways to reduce fuel consumption, but without a strong commitment to cleaner grid electricity plug-ins don't mean much, and I didn't hear anything of substance on electricity. Dealing with alternative fuels had better mean finding economically and energetically viable non-corn sources of ethanol, and there was some attention placed there with some proposed funding for biofuels, but history tells me that watching us develop alternative fuels will be like watching Bill Murray waking up every morning in Groundhog Day. In other words, corn, corn and more corn. As one expert is quoted in that Times article:

Mr. Goldstein said that rather than speed up the process of producing more ethanol, Congress should “step back and reflect on the damage we have already done.”

Briefly, some other issues with SOTU:

- The President's proposal on cutting gasoline consumption includes a safety valve clause. The EPA, DoE and Dept. of Ag. all have the authority to waive or modify a proposed Alternative Fuel Standard, which obviously weakens it.

- From the White House release: "By establishing such a visible and ambitious fuel standard, America's global leadership will help encourage our friends and allies to consider similar policies." Is that what we're relying on to solve a global problem? Hoping that bringing up an ambitious fuel standard "encourages" similar behavior from other countries?

- "Congress Should Not Legislate A Particular Numeric Fuel Economy Standard. The Secretary of Transportation should be given the authority to set the fuel standard, based on cost/benefit analysis, using sound science, and without impacting safety." Whether Congress or the DoT sets a standard is less important than whether it is set so as to be as protected as possible from political interference. I see an excess of objectivity problem creeping up here, with competing C/B analyses and fights over whose "sound science" is "sounder."

In short, I'm not sure where the UCS is coming up with an "A" for Bush's old/new proposals, and the NY Times clearly agrees with me. Other mixed reactions are summed up here.

Posted on January 25, 2007 01:38 PM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

IPCC, Policy Neutrality, and Political Advocacy

We have commented in the past here about how the leadership of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has flouted its own guidance to be "policy neutral" by engaging in overt political advocacy on climate change. The comments by its Director Rajendra Pachauri reported today again highlight this issue:

I hope this [forthcoming IPCC] report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action as you really can't get a more authentic and a more credible piece of scientific work.

Imagine, by contrast, if the Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, another organization with an agenda to be "policy neutral," were reported in the media to say of the agency’s latest assessment on Iran, "I hope that the report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action." He would be looking for a new job in no time, I am sure. Why should climate change be treated differently?

The past reaction to my comments on political advocacy by IPCC leadership has been mixed. Some who share the IPCC's advocated agenda see no problem in the IPCC leadership engaging in such advocacy. Who wouldn’t want such a group perceived as authoritative and legitimate on their side? (Similarly, I am sure neo-cons would welcome a CIA Director advocating action on Iran!) By contrast some opposed to the advocated agenda have seized upon the obvious inconsistency in the IPCC’s views on "neutrality" to try to impinge the credibility of the organization. From my perspective, while both of these perspectives are to be expected (and I am sure will make their views known in response), there is a third view that matters most -- and that is the question of the appropriate role of organized expertise in decision making, whether it is the CIA or IPCC. This last view is quite independent of (or it should be) what one thinks about the issues of climate policy.

It seems obvious that if the IPCC leadership is inconsistent in its statements on "policy neutrality" then it does risk becoming perceived as an organized interest, not unlike an NGO, which will eat away at its own authority and independence, which derives in no small part from its claims to "neutrality." The IPCC could correct this perception (or reality) of inconsistent behavior by removing its goal of being "policy neutral" and openly admit a political agenda that it is advocating. Alternatively, the IPCC's leaders could eschew public discussions of what they prefer for political outcomes. Neither of these options seems particularly realistic. A formal departure from stated "neutrality" would harm the IPCC’s credibility, so it won’t do that. And the temptation to use scientific authority as a tool of politics is very strong, and won’t stop unless scientific leaders in the IPCC suggest that it should stop.

The best option of all, and which I recognize is fanciful dreaming on my part, would be for the IPCC to present decision makers with a wide range of policy options and their consequences, recognizing that the IPCC is an advisory body, not an advocacy group. There should be room in public discourse on climate change for an authoritative group to comprehensively assess options and their consequences, recognizing that advisors advise and decision makers decide. The tension between the IPCC's stated objective of "policy neutrality" and behavior by its leaders that is decided "non-neutral" is unlikely be sustainable. The IPCC should come to grips with what it means by "policy neutral."

Posted on January 25, 2007 08:40 AM View this article | Comments (34)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics | The Honest Broker

January 24, 2007

AMS Endorses WMO TC Consensus Statement

Full text from action by the American Meteorological Society on the recent consensus statement (PDF) by the World Meteorological Organization on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change:

The American Meteorological Society endorses the "Statement on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change" by the participants of the World Meteorological Organization’s 6th International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones (IWTC-VI), released on 11 December 2006.
(Adopted by AMS Council on 14 January 2007)
Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., 87

Posted on January 24, 2007 04:35 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Will Toor on the CU Power Plant

Will Toor, Boulder County Commissioner (and former Mayor of Boulder and Director of the CU Environmental Center) has provided a thoughtful response to our commentary earlier this week on the new University of Colorado power plant. Here are Will's comments:

Thanks Will!

Will Toor on the CU Power Plant

I think what this issue illustrates is the difficulty of achieving GHG reduction goals without regulatory authority. The City of Boulder, like other local governments, has a number of tools it can use; building codes to compel lower energy use in new and remodeled buildings; incentive programs to encourage investments in increased energy efficiency within existing buildings; transportation programs aimed at reducing vehicle miles travelled; incentive programs aimed at encouraging a shift to more efficient vehicles; and working with the utility to get more renewable energy on the grid. The city may have the ability to require that existing buildings be brought to a higher efficiency standard over some time period. But the city does not have the legal (or practical) ability to set up a cap and trade system, to tax motor fuels, to mandate vehicle standards,or to mandate the fuel mix of the utility. Also, as a state institution, CU is exempt from most regulations that the city may impose. While city action is important, it is pretty clear that regulatory requirements at the state and preferably national level are required.

What is rather fascinating to me is that this is an issue where CU could so easily reduce emissions by purchasing windpower from the local utility, at least during a transition period to some longer term solution, at a very modest cost. All of the moves towards renewable energy at CU have been driven by the university's customers - the students. Students not only voted to tax themselves to pay for windpower for the student controlled buildings, but also taxed themselves to set up funds to invest in energy efficiency and solar, and agreed to a very large fee increase to build new academic buildings only with a commitment from the campus administration that those buildings meet the LEED Gold standard of the US green building council and that the electricity for these buildings come from 100% Green-E ertified renewable sources. CU is unusual in that is has taken significant steps towards sustainability, but these have been driven from the bottom, not by leadership from the level of the chancellor or the president. So it may not be surprising that the chancellor is, at least initially, proposing to ignore the impact of the power plant decision on carbon emissions. However, given the very modest costs involved, I am guessing that the final outcome will be quite different. The surrounding community and students are likely to put some significant pressure on CU to take a different approach; and as a public institution CU now faces a new state administration and legislature that has a clean energy and climate change agenda, and is unlikely to agree to provide tens of millions of dollars of state capital funding for this project without the carbon emissions being addressed.

Posted on January 24, 2007 07:54 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Energy Policy

January 22, 2007

Recycled Nonsense on Disaster Losses

If you want an example of the sort of scientific exaggeration that should concern both scientists and advocates involved in the climate debate (but typically goes uncorrected), next week's Newsweek magazine has an article on the growing tab of disaster losses, which it attributes to global warming.

Around the country, [insurance] companies have been racking up record property losses from freakish weather, such as the ice storms last week that paralyzed much of the Great Plains and froze California's citrus crops. In recent years, wildfires in the Northwest, drought and hail in the Midwest, windstorms, lightning strikes on power grids, soil subsidence and other calamities of nature have led to cumulative property losses that exceed those caused by hurricanes. "There's a shift going on to more frequent, extreme weather events," says Evan Mills, an environmental scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "It's as much an issue in the heartland as on the coast."
Global warming is the culprit, claim many—including several insurers who are canceling policies. While scientists cannot determine whether a single weather event is caused by a natural cycle, or is evidence of more permanent, malignant climate change, the pattern of mounting losses is clear. According to Mills, weather-related catastrophe losses have increased from about $1 billion a year in the 1970s to an average of $17 billion a year over the past decade. In 2005, the year of Katrina, that figure reached $71 billion.

We have interacted with Evan Mills before, and despite having his work throughly debunked and the existence of an expert workshop report on the topic cosponsored by Munich Re, he continues to fundamentally misrepresent the state of the science to suggest that comparing disaster losses unadjusted for societal change from the 1970s to the present says something about global warming. It does not. Here are relevant conclusions from our 2006 workshop:

Analyses of long-term records of disaster losses indicate that societal change and economic development are the principal factors responsible for the documented increasing losses to date.
Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions.

In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.

Posted on January 22, 2007 04:32 PM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Pielke’s Comments on Houston Chronicle Story

Kevin Vranes and I are quoted in a Houston Chronicle story today on the "overselling" of climate science. Kevin just posted his reactions. I have a few reactions as well.

First, I was surprised to see the following quote from NAS President Ralph Cicerone, which I had not seen before:

I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history.

Not only is this absurd on its face, it is politically dangerous for those wanting action on climate change. Consider another similar statement along these lines from RealClimate’s Ray Pierrehumbert:

On the subject of controversy and evidence for evolution vs. evidence for CO2-induced global warming, I'd say both are well supported but that in some ways the case for anthropogenic global warming is a bit more straightforward. That's because its mostly physical science rather than biology. We have quantitative mathematical representations of far more of the process, and ways of testing individual bits in a more straightforward way (as in laboratory measurements of infrared absorption by CO2). Evolution proceeds slowly, and while there are definitely cases where it can be observed in action, reading the fossil record presents difficulties that are in some ways more challenging than reading the paleoclimate record. There are cases where the difficulties are comparable (e.g. figuring out Cretaceous CO2 levels, or making sense of satellite measurements of tropical lapse rate trends) but on the whole, we know how to take a reductionist approach to climate better than we know how to take a reductionist approach to biology. [Emphasis added. -Ed.]

The comparisons by Drs. Cicerone and Pierrehumbert to smoking and evolution are of course political comments in the guise of science. The thinking appears to be that if you accept certain political action on smoking and evolution, then you necessarily must accept certain political action on climate change because the scientific cases in smoking and evolution are weaker than in climate change yet we take certain actions in those cases. Talk about overselling . . .

The political danger is of course that it is quite appropriate to take issue with the fundamental premise of these statements and use that to argue that we shouldn't be taking action on climate change until the science is as certain as smoking or evolution. Then one is caught up debating . . . guess what . . . the science of climate change in relation to evolution and smoking, and not policy actions in the face of fundamental uncertainties. I don't care if climate science is or is not more certain than evolution or smoking, it doesn;t matter one bit for the case for action.

Second, it is interesting to see Judy Curry, a frequent commenter here, offering some support for Kevin Vranes’ views about their being some tension in the community. Of course, she is well positioned to know given that the hurricane community has seen more than its fair share of such tensions.

Finally, I’m quoted at the end of the story as follows:

"I can understand how a scientist without tenure can feel the community pressures," says environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes' at the University of Colorado.
Pielke says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to "dampen" the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.

"The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming," Pielke says. "But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake."

For those wanting more details about pressures I’ve personally experienced, please have a look at this post.

Posted on January 22, 2007 10:49 AM View this article | Comments (46)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

Notes in the Houston Chronicle

Roger and I are quoted in an article by Eric Berger (who has a good science/science journalism blog of his own) running today in the Houston Chronicle. It's an outgrowth of my AGU/climate scientist tension post from late December.

It's interesting that I learned that the article was up from dueling emails in my inbox this morning – one from a (non-skeptic) climate scientist saying that I was right on, another saying that I must be in the pocket of Exxon.

My take home message is this:

But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans? Is the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming or natural variability? Are Antarctica's ice sheets at risk for melting in the near future?
To the public and policymakers, these details matter. It's one thing to worry about summer temperatures becoming a few degrees warmer.

It's quite another if ice melting from Greenland and Antarctica raises the sea level by 3 feet in the next century, enough to cover much of Galveston Island at high tide.

and then later in the article:

Much of the public debate, however, has dealt in absolutes. The poster for Al Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, depicts a hurricane blowing out of a smokestack. Katrina's devastation is a major theme in the film.

The details matter. So does the risk. As Roger says in the article:

"The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming," Pielke says. "But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake."

Are we risking our credibility? The point I'm trying to get across is that as a community we might not be giving the public and policy makers enough credit. We are shying away from giving them the details, perhaps worried that if they have the details they might not see climate change as a big threat, and might not be compelled to address the risk. This is C.P. Snow's two-cultures tension. Have we in the climate sciences internalized C.P. Snow's lessons yet? I think not.

Posted on January 22, 2007 10:28 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

January 21, 2007

Hans von Storch on Political Advocacy

[Hans von Storch posted this very thoughtful comment on the thread from last week on the recent partnership of leading climate scientists and the National Association of Evangelicals to advocate for political action on climate change. We think that Hans' comments deserve a bit more prominence so have reproduced them here. -RP]

I remember that there was a few years ago a web page in UK, which made public a statement of a religious group about climate change; a very concerned statement. It was signed by, among others Sir John Houghton (who signed in his capacity of former IPCC chair), Bob Watson and other brass of the IPCC guild [The UK statement referred to can be found here. -RP]. Thus, the disclosure of the encroachment of religion into top climate science levels is nothing new. It would have been better if this group had been open about this fact earlier.

We all are bound by certain culturally constructed values; religion is just one, and it has been particularly barbarian in times. In other times rather humanitarian. For a scientist the problem is that these values interfere with our analytical skills; not in the sense that we would execute statistical tests in a biased manner or that we would fail in our maths. But in the way we ask; in our preparedness to accept certain answers or to remain skeptical to certain answers. And finally, it may lead us to misuse our scientific authority to push for conclusions, which are beyond the realm of science.

None of us is free of this interference: this group is to be applauded for being explicit and honest. But they should also accept that claims of independence have to be given up when speaking about the social implications of anthropogenic climate change. They are, and likely have been, issue advocates. They are certainly still scientists, but they are advocates as well. In a sense they are publicly paid NGOs. NGOs play an important and welcomed role in the public discussion and decision process, like most other lobbying groups – but everybody knows what their agenda is.

Those of us who want to try to limit the influence of our values on our scientific analyses, should try to analyze these values and their potential influence on our professional performance. We should see our present activity in a historical context and reflect upon our cultural and social conditioning. We may be able to limit the degree of subjectivity of our work to some, maybe just a very minor, extent.

Posted on January 21, 2007 04:43 PM View this article | Comments (33)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | The Honest Broker

January 20, 2007

Hypocrisy Starts at Home

If you want a sense of how difficult it will be for 6.5 billion people to reduce, much less eliminate, their emissions of fossil fuels, consider this telling vignette from the University of Colorado, my home institution, here in Boulder.

The Daily Camera, our local paper, reports today that the University is going to build a new power plant:

The University of Colorado is making plans for a new plant to replace the aging power facility near the corner of 18th Street and Colorado Avenue.
Originally built in 1909, it's both inefficient and too small to keep up with the university's growth, CU officials say.

The new plant would cost $60 million to $75 million and be running in 2011 at the earliest, said Paul Tabolt, CU's vice chancellor for administration. It is tentatively planned for a spot northeast of the Coors Events Center.

One thing the new power plant wouldn't provide is electricity, which could affect Boulder's ability to adhere to the Climate Action Plan passed by voters in November. That plan involves spending more than $820,000 a year on energy efficiency and other measures to reduce the city's heat-trapping gases 24 percent by 2012 so that Boulder meets Kyoto Protocol goals.

According to the CU Power Plant home page, as recently as 2003 the current power plant, powered by natural gas, not only provided for all campus electricity needs, but it also produced a surplus of power which it provided to the grid.

But due to the high cost of natural gas CU decided to stop using its own natural gas-powered power plant in favor of purchasing power from Xcel Energy. According to a December, 2006 campus study (PDF) of options for providing power:

The recent increase in the price of natural gas along with increasing turbine maintenance costs has forced Utility Services to reconsider the balance of reliability and economics. These increasing costs have compelled Utility Services to shut down both generators except for forced or planned outages.

Why does this matter from the standpoint of the city of Boulder's environmental goals? Again according to the December, 2006 study:

Gross [greenhouse gas] emissions to the environment are increased when the University purchases electricity from Xcel Energy since the electricity comes primarily from coal fired plants instead of the University’s gas fired system. Approximately 80% of Xcel Energy’s electricity is produced by coal fired generating stations, although wind and other sustainable sources are included in their grid areas.Also, Xcel Energy’s new coal fired plant will utilize extensive emission reduction equipment and existing coal fired plants are being retrofitted for emission reduction. These measures will make the emission from coal fired plants nearby equal to the emissions from gas fired plants. Since two alternatives of this study provide for the shutdown of the University’s cogeneration system and the purchase of all electricity from Xcel Energy Utilities, emissions from coal fired plants into the environment may increase under these two alternatives. An alternative is for the University is to purchase all power from wind sources, or Green renewable energy credits (REC’s), which will reduce emissions.
An alternative to this proposal is to maintain the cogeneration system at the University. Maintaining cogeneration capability allows the University the option of offsetting any or all of the coal fired emissions that would be produced if the electricity was purchased from Xcel Energy. This option comes at a significant operational cost on an annual basis, since abandoning the cogeneration system has a cost reduction of nearly $2 million per year.

According to this U.S. EPA website electricity from natural natural gas produces about half of the greenhouse gases that electricity produced from coal. Given the energy needs of the Boulder campus, it is not unreasonable to think that a permanent doubling of its greenhouse gas emissions for electricity will make Boulder's goal of meeting the Kyoto Protocol a moot point.

Here is what The Daily Camera reported about my Environmental Studies compatriot Professor Jim White's description the trade-offs involved, and also the reaction of the Chancellor, Bud Peterson:

Jim White, a CU professor of environmental studies, said generation that doesn't involve renewable energy, such as wind, would take some sheen off CU's reputation as an environmental hotbed. He said CU's national leadership in environmental-science research should be reflected in the university's actions.
"In the end, money drives a lot of what we're talking about," White said. "But I think there's a moral imperative. You've got to balance the money issues with doing the right thing."

CU Chancellor Bud Peterson said the university could buy wind-energy credits for $250,000 a year.

"Given our budget, that's not a lot. We could be bragging about how we're carbon-neutral," Peterson said. "Quite frankly, I'd rather take $250,000 a year and invest it in a way that can make a meaningful difference."

So keep these facts in mind:

*The University will be spending $60-$75 million to build a new power plant for steam.

*The University prides itself on being environmentally conscious.

*The University is about to institutionalize for a decade or longer a doubling of its greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation.

*The city of Boulder has passed a law to meet the Kyoto targets.

*The Chancellor has balked at spending $250,000/year, or 0.3% of the cost of the new power plant on this issue.

Whatever one thinks about climate change or greenhouse gas emissions, this story from the University of Colorado tells you all you need to know about the difficulties of actually reducing emissions even in the context of strong political support, strong public support, and the existence of a law providing a (modest) emissions target and timetable. This is the situation that on a much larger scale Europe is now grappling with, and I suspect, the United States eventually will be as well.

Posted on January 20, 2007 09:09 AM View this article | Comments (27)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Education | Energy Policy

January 19, 2007

Heidi needs a lifeboat

If you think we, RealClimate, ClimateAudit, etc. have it bad with the occasional troll, you have to see what happened to Heidi Cullen.

Heidi is the Weather Channel's on-air climate expert with a Ph.D. in oceanography/climate from Lamont-Doherty (yes, same degree as me; yes, same place; yes, she's a friend). She started up the Climate Code, which has a weekly TV component and an in-depth web component, including a blog.

Heidi might be excused for not having been in this game for long. In her third post she went out on a limb and basically said that if an on-air meteorologist can't be bothered to get themselves educated about the science of AGW before spouting off about it from their position of authority, then they don't deserve to carry the AMS seal of approval:

I'd like to take that suggestion a step further. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming. (One good resource if you don't have a lot of time is the Pew Center's Climate Change 101.)
Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.

OK, maybe not what I would have said, but not deserving of the absolute thrashing Heidi has received from the universe of "climate change is a socialist plot" types. If you think tribalism is bad on the main-line climate-related blogs, page through a few comments on Heidi's original post. At last count there were 1349 comments, and most appear to originate out of Rush Limbaugh's audience of renowned climate experts (Rush apparently mentioned Heidi on a show). If you haven't been paying attention, Limbaugh is an expert in solar influence on climate and a renown expert on Joseph Stalin and Stalinism (equating it with ultra-liberalism in his post...), and he has a very large audience of climate and Stalinism/socialism experts that follow his teachings (yes, they're not the same thing, but both terms are being thrown about freely). They, en masse, took the opportunity to educate Dr. Cullen on climate and weather, which I'm sure Dr. Cullen has appreciated (although you can draw your own conclusions from reading her follow-up post).

It's up to you to decide whether what Heidi wrote was over-the-line (I don't agree with her idea, but I don't think it was over-the-line either). But if you're a climate scientist reading this you may take a strong between-the-lines message home:

a) As Roger has argued many times, and as I have argued in different ways, you do not perform science in a box. The level of attention that Heidi is getting on this shows that our society cares very deeply about this issue – if not always for the same reasons that you care.

b) Like it or not, you are involved in a science where the results may catalyze political and cultural fights far beyond anything you can imagine. Even if you don't engage in the fights yourself, you need to understand your connection to them.

c) Putting the focus on climate skeptics instead of climate science, as Heidi did, is a recipe for this kind of explosion. This level of controversy is clearly counterproductive, serving as a compelling distraction from "moving this discussion forward" (Heidi's words). We could do very well to stop engaging skeptics as skeptics, and simply engage climate policy on its own merits. (see also)

d) It should be obvious that these explosions of controversy emerge because the perceived stakes of climate change regulation are so high. Many fear that this isn't really about climate change at all, but about controlling lifestyles. 'Envirohippies want to change our way of life, just like Islamic terrorists do. They both must be battled.' Climate scientists need to fully absorb the fact that many laypeople view the climate "debate" in precisely these terms. It would be far more effective for our community to engage this fear head-on than to continue to engage, debate and highlight the remaining "skeptics" for being "skeptics."

Posted on January 19, 2007 11:38 AM View this article | Comments (45)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

January 18, 2007

Putting climate change on the Hill's front burner

There is no doubt that Congress is (belatedly) ramping up interest in climate change policy. I wrote about EIA's reaction to Sen. Bingaman's cap-and-trade proposal here (note: don't misinterpret what I wrote just because certain people linked to it).

Now via CQ, Majority Leader Pelosi is setting up "a special task force to examine global warming issues, but the panel will not have legislative authority."

Pelosi’s decision to create a task force without bill-drafting powers followed days of pushback by some Democratic committee chairmen who feared her plan would encroach on their panels’ powers.
The Speaker has ordered the eight or so chairmen whose panels have jurisdiction over some part of the global warming issue to produce legislation addressing the problem by June.

(Interesting aside for those of you who aren't familiar with the inner workings of Congress: for the most part, a bill will only have one committee of jurisdiction in the Senate, but may have many in the House. Which obviously makes Pelosi's cat-herding job on this that much tougher.)

For those that want to move forward, the problem is, as I mentioned last month, Rep. Dingell. Again from the CQ story:

Among those opposed to creating a new panel is John D. Dingell, D-Mich., who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee. Dingell, dean of House Democrats, has consistently fought efforts to tighten the Clean Air Act in ways that could hurt the domestic auto industry.

And insofar as Detroit wants him to stall climate change legislation, or find ways to make it as friendly as possible to Detroit, he will certainly be there to oblige.

So the D's have a problem in Dingell as an internal gatekeeper, and considering his seniority, I'm guessing that Ms. Pelosi doesn't have a lot of power to hold him in line. What will be interesting is what Detroit gets out of it. Ah, sausage.

Posted on January 18, 2007 05:12 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

Kudos for Explicit Political Advocacy

A number of prominent scientists -- including the well-known James Hansen, Judy Curry, Paul Epstein, and Rita Colwell -- have joined with the National Association of Evangelicals to advocate for political action on climate change. They released a statement (PDF) yesterday which stated:

We believe that the protection of life on Earth is a profound moral imperative. It addresses without discrimination the interests of all humanity as well as the value of the non-human world. It requires a new moral awakening to a compelling demand, clearly articulated in Scripture and supported by science, that we must steward the natural world in order to preserve for ourselves and future generations a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment. For many of us, this is a religious obligation, rooted in our sense of gratitude for Creation and reverence for its Creator.

Here at Prometheus we often call out scientists who hide their political agendas behind science, particularly on climate change. But in this case, there is none of that, to these scientists' credit. These scientists are explicit about their political values and their efforts to use a seemingly "strange bedfellows" association with a major religious group to influence the political process (PDF).

The role of science in policy and politics is much more straightforward when scientists clearly identify when they are advocating for values that they strongly hold, rather than suggesting that it is science that compels particular political outcomes.

Posted on January 18, 2007 03:36 AM View this article | Comments (19)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | The Honest Broker

January 16, 2007

Change the Climate, Plant a Tree?

In today’s New York Times Stanford’s Ken Caldeira has a thought provoking op-ed on the impact of planting trees on the global climate system. His basic argument is that planting trees is not a solution to rising carbon dioxide levels, even though trees remove carbon from the atmosphere. Although perhaps not intentioned, Caldeira’s op-ed indicates that the approach of the Framework Convention on Climate Change may be fatally flawed. Caldeira ends up, as these discussions often do, focused narrowly on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. However, his own argument suggests that a broader perspective is needed. In the end we return to the start -- what is the problem posed by climate change, anyway?

Caldeira begins by observing that trees do indeed remove carbon from the atmosphere:

We add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every time we use energy from coal, oil or gas; but each tree can remove more than a ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over its lifetime. Based on this logic, it might seem a good idea to go out and plant a tree to slow global heating.

And because of this he notes that many initiatives have sprung up around the world to “offset” emissions by planting trees.

. . . projects have sprung up throughout the world claiming to help cool the earth, ready to accept your money and plant a tree in your name. The computer company Dell will now donate $2 from every laptop sale to planting trees in an effort to offset the carbon dioxide emissions that result from powering their computers. For a 2 percent to 4 percent surcharge on bills, Pacific Gas and Electric will offer to offset its customers’ carbon emissions by helping to preserve California’s carbon-storing forests.

Sounds great, right? Well, not really. Caldeira explains that planting trees may not in fact have the desired effects on the climate system.

While preserving and restoring forests is unquestionably good for the natural environment, new scientific studies are concluding that preservation and restoration of forests outside the tropics will do little or nothing to help slow climate change. And some projects intended to slow the heating of the planet may be accelerating it instead.

This is not a new perspective. It has been present in the literature for years. For example, Marland et al. wrote in 2003:

Changes in land surface can result in emission or removal of CO2 to the atmosphere and thus to changes in the Earth’s radiation balance. Changes in land surface can also change the radiation balance by altering the Earth’s surface albedo. In addition, changes in land surface can alter the fluxes of sensible and latent heat to the atmosphere and thus the distribution of energy within the climate system; and in so doing can alter climate at the local, regional, and even global scale. Mitigation strategies that give credits or debits for changing the flux of CO2 to the atmosphere but do not simultaneously acknowledge the importance of changes in the albedo or in the flows of energy within the Earth system might lead to land management decisions that do not produce the intended climatic results.

Marland, G., Pielke Sr., R.A., Apps, M., Avissar, R., Betts, R.A., Davis, K.J., Frumhoff, P.C., Jackson, S.T., Joyce, L., Kauppi, P., Katzenberger, J., MacDicken, K.G., Neilson, R., Niles, J.O., Dutta, D., Niyogi, S., Norby, R.J., Pena, N., Sampson, N., Xue, Y., 2003. The climatic impacts of land surface change and carbon management, and the implications for climate-change mitigation policy. Climate Policy 3:149–157. (PDF)

Why is it that removing carbon doesn’t have the desired climatic effects? Caldeira explains that there are multiple influences on the climate system, with the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide being only one of them, especially at the higher latitudes. Further, the effects of carbon dioxide are not so large as to overshadow the other effects. In fact Caldeira suggests that the other climate effects are on par with those of the radiative effects of carbon dioxide.

Trees don’t just absorb carbon dioxide — they soak up the sun’s heating rays, too. Forests tend to be darker than farms and pastures and therefore tend to absorb more sunlight. This has a warming influence that appears to cancel, on average, the cooling influence of the forest’s carbon storage. This effect is most pronounced in snowy areas — snow on bare ground reflects far more sunlight back to space than does a snowed-in forest — so forests in areas with seasonal snow cover can be strongly warming.
In contrast, tropical forests appear to be doubly valuable to the earth’s climate system. Not only do they store copious amounts of carbon, the roots of tropical trees reach down deep, drawing up water that they evaporate through their leaves. In the atmosphere, this water may form clouds that reflect sunlight back to space, helping to cool the earth.

As usual, it is when discussing the significance of science for policy that things get tricky. Caldeira first highlights (but does not explicitly say so) that the Framework Convention on Climate Change is incapable of dealing with the broad range of forcings that are important in the climate system.

These findings have important policy implications. It has been suggested that agreements to limit climate change should consider carbon stored in forests. If so, they would need to consider the direct climate effects of forests so as to avoid perverse incentives to plant warming forests in places like the United States, Canada, Europe and the former Soviet Union. However, tropical forests, which are generally found in developing countries, may be due a double climate credit — one for their carbon storage and another for their cooling clouds.

However, as we have detailed here on many occasions, the Climate Convention is focused only on a narrow subset of forcings relevant to the climate system. Its Article 1 makes this explicit when it defines “climate change” as:

a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

The albedo effects of forests are not in fact covered under this definition – nor are other effects of land use, the biogeochemical effects of carbon dioxide, or other human-caused effects on climate change (for an overview of these aspects of climate science, see my father’s excellent blog). Caldeira’s perspective suggests that the Framework Convention offers too narrow a perspective on climate change if it is to be used as a policy instrument to actively manage the climate. Caldeira wisely reminds us that the goals of slowing carbon dioxide growth or stopping climate change are not the primary reason for concern about climate change, even though policy is often presented in that manner. Emissions reductions are means, not ends:

The broadest goal is neither to slow the growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere nor to slow climate change, but rather to preserve the irreplaceable natural balance that sustains life as we know it on this planet.

But here is where Caldeira’s argument falls apart. Despite acknowledging that the goals of climate policy must be broader than simply slowing emissions, he suggests in the end that that is exactly what we should be doing.

But the notion that we can save the planet just by planting trees is a dangerous illusion. To preserve our environment, we must drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and this will require a major transformation of our energy system. A primary goal for the next half-century should be to transform our energy system to one based on clean, safe and environmentally acceptable energy sources like wind, solar and perhaps nuclear. This means solving the real problems involved with storing and distributing power, providing energy for transportation, and using nuclear plants.

He says nothing about what we should do about the effects of land use that he believes have a local or regional influence that rivals the radiative effects of carbon dioxide. He explains how this might occur in California.

Consider Pacific Gas and Electric’s surcharge plan [Described above. Ed.]. While the carbon soaked up by California’s forests reduces atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations everywhere, cooling Crete, Cancún and Calcutta, the sunlight they absorb warms the state and the surrounding region.

My reading of this statement is that unless there is attention to the effects of local/regional land use on climate in California under some scenarios of afforestation the effects greenhouse gas emissions on climate would be counteracted. Because land use change occurs all over the world it could have similar effects in other places (and of course different or opposite effects elsewhere, and everything in between). Caldeira completely ignores these effects in his discussion of advocating policy focused only on carbon dioxide. In fact, he goes so far as to advocate the planting of trees,

We want to avoid climate change so that we might pass these diverse natural riches on to future generations. In this light, preserving and restoring forests is a valuable activity, regardless of its impact on climate — we need more trees, not fewer.

Huh? Climate change resulting from greenhouse gases is bad, but the exact same climate change resulting from more trees is good? This is logically inconsistent. If society should indeed be concerned about future climate change because of its impacts on things that people care about, say on California snowpack and water resources, then the specific cause of climate change should not matter for deciding whether or not a problem exists. It is inconsistent to suggest that carbon dioxide-caused climate change is a problem, but land use-caused climate change is not.

Caldeira concludes as follows:

We cannot afford to indulge ourselves with well-intentioned activities that do little to solve the underlying problem. Instead, we must demand that our political leaders do more to revolutionize our energy system and preserve our environmental inheritance for future generations.
And then we can plant a tree.

All of this boils down to how we define the problem. Is it in fact dealing with the impacts of climate on things we care about? Or is it about transforming energy systems and preserving the environment? The difference matters because defining the problem in these different ways lead to very different portfolios of policy alternatives and justifications for them.

Posted on January 16, 2007 08:43 AM View this article | Comments (33)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 15, 2007

Common Sense in the Climate Debate

Here is a column by Cathy Young in the Boston Globe that (obviously) I think is pretty much on target.

Ms. Young cites a blog post by Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy studies at UCLA and a blogger (two appealing characteristics, if I say so myself) which can be found here.

Posted on January 15, 2007 08:32 AM View this article | Comments (52)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

January 11, 2007

EIA releases analysis on Bingaman's carbon cap-and-trade leg

You wonky wonks who have nothing better to do but follow the ins and outs in D.C. will remember what happened on climate change in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. (The quick answer is, "nothing." The more astute answer is, "horsetrading.")

Then-Ranking Member (now Chair) of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Jeff Bingaman, wanted to offer a cap-and-trade amendment to the Energy Bill. He initially had then-Chair Domenici's support, but without House support, and watching previous energy bills derailed due to irreconcilable differences in Conference, Domenici pulled his support late. That led Bingaman to agree to withdraw the cap-and-trade amendment in exchange for a promise to discuss the issue in-depth in the following year. (Good recap by the AIP here.)

Sen. Bingaman then sent a letter with five other Senators (3 D's, 3 R's) to the Energy Information Administration (which resides in DoE), requesting that the EIA examine how Sen. Bingaman's cap-and-trade proposal would affect the U.S. economy.

The EIA is now done with the analysis and you can get the just-released 80-page report here.

The results came to me in a Dem-side press release from Senate Energy with the title, "EIA Analysis of Mandatory Climate Legislation Shows: Detailed Plan Won’t Harm U.S. Economy" and that seems to be true, but at the same time, reductions in CO₂ are minor. In fact, over the 20-year life of the proposal what we see is a cut in emissions growth, from 44% to 21%. Again, we're still talking about a (very significant) growth in U.S. emissions.

In the reference case, total power sector CO2 emissions are projected to increase 44.4 percent between 2004 and 2030 as the industry increases its use of fossil fuels, particularly coal (Figure 5). However, in the Phased Auction case, CO2 emissions are forecast to increase by less than half that amount, about 21 percent between 2004 and 2030, because of a greater reliance on nuclear and renewable and a less carbon-intensive fossil fuel mix.

It does appear that the changes in GDP are modest over the life of the proposal, but I don't see any gains in GDP, only losses.

The image is Figure 20 from the report and the relevant text from page 30:

The higher delivered energy prices and the collection of additional government revenues lower real output for the economy in both the Phased and Full Auction cases. They reduce energy consumption, but also indirectly reduce real consumer spending for other goods and services due to lower purchasing power. The lower aggregate demand for goods and services in the both the Phased and Full Auction cases results in lower real GDP relative to the reference case (Figure 20). Relative to the reference case, total discounted GDP over the 2009 to 2030 time period is $232 billion (0.10 percent) lower in the Phased Auction case and $462 billion (0.19 percent) lower in the Full Auction case. Projected GDP impacts generally increase over time, as the cap-and-trade program requires larger changes in the energy system. Relative to the reference case, real GDP in 2030 is $59 billion (0.26 percent) lower in the Phased Auction case and $94 billion (0.41 percent) lower in the Full Auction case.

I'm guessing that an economist would call this minor, but then I'm not an economist. (It certainly is cheaper than war, isn't it?)

The question is, does a reduction from a 44% increase in CO₂ to a 21% increase in CO₂ really do anything for us? We can get into the whole "it's a first step!" vs. "why waste our time with meaningless steps?" debate again, but the fact remains: under this plan CO₂ is still going up 21% to 2030, and the impacts on global temperatures from this "decrease in emissions growth" will be negligible. The impacts on the economy also seem minor, but by pushing a press release with the title, "Detailed Plan Won’t Harm U.S. Economy" without mentioning that the plan won't have much of an impact on climate, either, is an unfortunate omission. The political incentive to not ask for major pain from average Americans is quite clear (as GW has so beautifully shown, pushing ahead on an absurd war and cutting taxes at the same time). But we have two choices: do nothing or do something (for the record, I strongly favor the latter). I read the EIA analysis as, essentially, "doing nothing while saying that we're doing something."

Posted on January 11, 2007 11:45 AM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

January 09, 2007

New Literature Review: Hurricanes and Global Warming

J. Marshall Shephard, a professor at the University of Georgia, and Tom Knutson, NOAA GFDL, have just published a review paper titled "The Current Debate on the Linkage Between Global Warming and Hurricanes" with the journal Geography Compass, which publishes review articles. The full text of the paper can be found here in html and it is also available from that page in PDF.

The paper reinforces the conclusions of the recent consensus statement of the World Meteorological Organization (note that T. Knutson was a lead author of the WMO statement), concluding:

Significantly more research – from observations, theory, and modeling – is needed to resolve the current debate around global warming and hurricanes.

Posted on January 9, 2007 03:19 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Robert Muir-Wood in RMS Cat Models: From the Comments

[We think that Robert Muir-Wood's comments on the Tampa Tribune article that we discussed yesterday deserve to be highlighted. Robert thanks much for participating and adding this context from RMS. -Ed.

Robert Muir-Wood
RMS

It might be useful to provide some more measured background to this story than is to be found in the Tampa Tribune.

The idea for holding an expert elicitation on hurricane activities emerged at RMS during the summer of 2005. Expert elicitations are commonplace in the earthquake community, but, this was the first time (we believe) one had been attempted among climatologists. All those invited to the Oct 2005 meeting were told in the invitation that the purpose of the meeting was 'to predict the activity rate of hurricanes, relevant to impact and loss modeling .. over the next 3-5 years'. Four scientists agreed to attend; Jim Elsner, Mark Saunders, Kerry Emanuel and Tom Knutson. Through the meeting, and in email exchanges in the days thereafter, a consensus was achieved around expected rates of Cat1-5 and Cat3-5 storms in the Atlantic Basin and at US landfall for the period 2006-2010. This consensus does not mean that everyone walks out of the meeting having agreed an identical answer but that everyone's view has been equally weighted in arriving at an expected activity rate.

RMS then took these findings and prepared to implement them in the RMS Hurricane Cat model. In the model Atlantic hurricanes are split into five separate populations according to the area of formation and track. The research to determine which track types were expected to show predominant increases was undertaken by Manuel Lonfat and based on his findings the 'increment of activity' was distributed among the track types to preserve the overall activity rate budget at landfall. There are alternative perspectives on regionalization (as emphasized by Jim Elsner), but as such a high proportion of intense hurricanes affect Florida, the Gulf and the Southeast, for the same increase in activity rates, modeled loss results in these regions are relatively insensitive to reasonable alternative regionalizations.

At the end of this process (in March 2006) a press release was issued along with a white paper describing all the work that had been undertaken - both after being checked with the four experts. Ultimately the results of the implementation of the increase in activity rates were the responsibility of RMS and we did not look to get the experts to endorse the outcome around changes in modeled losses. A scientific paper describing the whole procedure is now in process of being published in a peer reviewed journal.

In October 2006 the expert elicitation was repeated to cover the period 2007-2011. All four original experts were invited and only Jim Elsner declined, citing that he was ‘under contract’ with another modeling organisation. At the second expert elicitation there were seven climatologists, who were presented with results from twenty statistical/climatological forecast models, each being assigned 100c of probability to be assigned among the different models. The results from this exercise (in terms of expected levels of Cat1-5 and Cat 3-5 landfalling activities) were within 1-2% of the mean expected activity rates of the first expert elicitation. Again all the models, their results and the outcome of the elicitation will be published in scientific journals.

The political response to the ‘insurance crisis’ currently underway in Florida is looking for someone to blame. Cat modelers are simply the messengers relaying news concerning the significance of a period of significantly higher hurricane activity that has persisted in 9 out of the last 12 years and that climatologists, as polled at the most recent expert elicitation, expect to continue for a decade or more longer. There is a need to get journalists and politicians in Florida to focus more attention on the reasons for the increase in hurricane activity and, in particular, the role of climate change.

Posted on January 9, 2007 09:25 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Disasters | Risk & Uncertainty

January 08, 2007

An Update: Faulty Catastrophe Models?

Last April we discussed at length the profound significance to hurricane risk estimation of changes made by a leading company, Risk Management Solutions or RMS, to the implementation of catastrophe models used by insurance, reinsurance, among others in the risk management business. A news story from yesterday’s Tampa Tribune provides a perspective that underscores our original analysis.

Last April we wrote:

It does not seem to me that RMS recognizes how profoundly revolutionary this perspective is, or its potential consequences for their own business. What they are say is that the historical climatology of hurricane activity is no longer a valid basis for estimating future risks. This means that the catastrophe models that they provide are untethered from experience. Imagine if you are playing a game of poker, and the dealer tells you that the composition of the deck has been completely changed – now you don’t know whether there are 4 aces in the deck or 20. It would make gambling based on probabilities a pretty dodgy exercise. If RMS is correct, then it has planted the seed that has potential to completely transform its business and the modern insurance and reinsurance industries.

Yesterday’s Tampa Tribune has an article on the changes to the RMS model, which includes comments from scientists consulted by RMS who suggest that the changes to the model are scientifically unsupportable. Here is an excerpt from the news story:

The leading computer model used by the insurance industry to justify huge rate increases in coastal areas nationwide relies on faulty science, says an expert credited with helping develop it.
"I think it points to a problem with the way these modeling groups are operating," said Jim Elsner, a professor of geography at Florida State University.

Elsner was one of four experts on a panel assembled in late 2005 to provide input for the computer model by Risk Management Solutions of Newark, Calif.

He said the results, details of which were brought to his attention by the Tribune, contain assumptions that are "actually unscientific."

The flaws identified by Elsner and another panelist have nationwide implications. The expert input was used to justify loss estimates that have prompted major insurance companies to request homeowners rate increases of up to 40 percent.

The problem: RMS took a consensus of experts that there will be more storms across the Atlantic, then added its own projections about which U.S. regions would be most affected.

In an interview Saturday, Gov. Charlie Crist called RMS's actions "apparent misrepresentations" that are stunning and appalling, but in a way, part of a pattern.

"It almost doesn't shock me because this industry has been taking remarkable advantage of our people," Crist said. "Big insurance is about to face a new day in Florida."

The article reveals that the changes made by RMS apparently did not reflect what they were told by a panel of scientists that they convened to provide an informal expert elicitation:

In March, RMS surprised the insurance industry with a dramatic change in the benchmark catastrophe software model it sells access to. Instead of using historical models based on more than 100 years of storm data, RMS announced a "medium-term" five-year model for 2006 through 2010.

The models contain specific data on tens of millions of homes, allowing insurers to estimate risk based on computer simulations of possible storms.

Based on the new model, RMS said hurricane losses would increase by 40 percent over the Gulf Coast and 25 percent to 30 percent in the other regions.

Consumer advocates tried to raise alarms at the time, with little success.

Robert Hunter, a former Texas insurance commissioner now with the Consumer Federation of America, said the primary reason for the change to the five-year model appeared to be pressure from the insurance industry.

Thomas R. Knutson, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, N.J., and another RMS expert panelist, said the five-year timeline didn't come from the experts.

"I think that question was driven more by the needs of the insurance industry as opposed to the science," he said.

In March, RMS said the five-year model was developed in cooperation with the expert panel that included Elsner and Knutson, and that based on their perspective: "Increases in hurricane frequency should be expected along the entire U.S. coast, but will be highest in the Gulf, Florida, and the Southeast, while lower in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast."

"I didn't make any such statement of that type," Knutson said Friday.
Elsner said he warned RMS about flaws in the model. "I said that's not a good way of doing it," he recalled, and said RMS exaggerated the basic science "well beyond what we expected."

Though RMS said in March that the expert panel "agreed unanimously that a forward-looking view of risk should reflect a higher probability of landfalling hurricanes," Elsner said there was no consensus.

It doesn’t sound like we’ve heard the end of this issue:

Other experts in the catastrophe-modeling business have questions, too.
Long-term historical data are still the most credible, given the sparse data available for projecting the next five years, Karen Clark, chief executive officer of AIR Worldwide, said in a speech in the summer. Her company is an RMS competitor. Clark encouraged insurance companies not to replace the long-term model with the short-term one. Still, AIR has launched its own version of a five-year program for customers.

The details of how RMS arrives at its projections are considered a trade secret.

"We have never been able to get what they call the information out of the black box to review their models," said Bob Lotane, a spokesman for Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation. He said a public modeling system the state is working on should provide a way to verify the RMS projections.

Crist said information from RMS might be subpoenaed.

As we concluded last April,

From the perspective of the basic functioning of the insurance and reinsurance industries, the change in approach by RMS is an admission that the future is far more uncertain than has been the norm for this community. Such uncertainty may call into question the very basis of hurricane insurance and reinsurance which lies in an ability to quantify and anticipate risks. If the industry can’t anticipate risks, or simply come to a consensus on how to calculate risks (even if inaccurate), then this removes one of the key characteristics of successful insurance. Debate on this issue has only just begun.

Posted on January 8, 2007 12:31 PM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Risk & Uncertainty

The Steps Not Yet Taken

Dan Sarewitz and I have a new chapter in press on climate policy:

Sarewitz, D. and R. Pielke, Jr., (2007, forthcoming), The Steps Not Yet Taken, Controversies in Science and Technology, Volume 2, edited by Daniel Lee Kleinman, Karen Cloud-Hansen, Christina Matta, and Jo Handelsman (publisher TBA). (prepublication version here in PDF)

Here is how we start off the chapter:

The climate system of the planet earth, and the energy system built by those who inhabit the earth, are today seen as the integrated elements of a single problem: global warming. In turn, scientific inquiry, public concern, and policy prescription have given rise to an international regime for controlling the behavior of the climate through management of the global energy system. In this chapter we explain why this regime, and in particular its codification through the Kyoto Protocol, is a failure. Our central point is simple: protecting people and the environment from the impacts of climate is a different problem from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming. The policies that have resulted from combining these two problems are, as a consequence, failing to meaningfully address either problem. Policies to reduce global warming must be pursued independently of policies to reduce climate impacts.
First we explain why the Kyoto Protocol is not achieving its environmentally modest goals, a failure that has no connection to the refusal of the United States to sign onto the treaty, but rather reflects the complexity of energy systems and their management. We then consider the impacts of climate on society through the lens of Hurricane Katrina. Such impacts are unrelated to global warming, and cannot be addressed by emissions reductions. Instead, they require policies specifically focused on reduction of socioeconomic vulnerability to climate.

But emissions reductions are a key societal goal, and next we discuss the role of technological innovation in pursuing that goal. Current policies, embodied in Kyoto, are inappropriate and insufficient for making the necessary progress. A cornerstone of our argument is that much of the failure to date of climate change policy originates in a misunderstanding of the appropriate roles of science and technology in social and political change. Proponents of action on global warming have treated scientific evidence as the central catalyst for motivating necessary change, while technological advance has been viewed as a second-order consequence of such change. We argue that this reasoning is backwards, and that technological innovation is a much more effective scaffolding upon which to address energy policies than scientific knowledge.

The Kyoto Protocol is not effectively addressing the climate impacts problem or the energy technology problem. Although Kyoto is often portrayed as only a first step toward establishing an effective international climate change regime, we conclude that it is a step in the wrong direction.

You can read a prepublication version of the whole chapter here in PDF. Comment welcomed!

Posted on January 8, 2007 01:03 AM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Energy Policy

January 07, 2007

Climate Determinism Lives On

Andy Revkin of the New York Times has an article in today’s paper which suggests that the different political outcomes on on climate change in the United States and Europe might be explained to some degree by their different climates – positing that Europe has one climate and the United States has many. Somewhat bizarrely on this sociological and political question Andy quotes a number of physical scientists, and the results are about what one would expect. For instance, Penn State’s Michael Mann opines:

[Mann] has another theory about why Washington, particularly, has lagged even as some states and cities have moved ahead to limit such emissions. "The East Coast of the United States, and particularly the mid-Atlantic region, did not warm nearly as much as rest of globe over the 20th century," Dr. Mann said. "And that’s where the decision-making is going on."

Perhaps someone at Penn State’s political science department might share with Professor Mann the fact that our elected representatives actually come from all over the United States. More generally, had Andy Revkin spoke to relevant experts like Bill Travis, Nico Stehr, or Mickey Glantz he might have learned that climate determinism – the idea that regional climate differences can explain social and political outcomes -- has been completely discredited for decades in the social sciences. Some even called the idea racist. He might have simply queried Wikipedia:

The fundamental argument of the environmental determinists was that aspects of physical geography, particularly that of climate, influenced the psychological mind-set of individuals, which in turn defined the behaviour and culture of the society that those individuals formed. For example, tropical climates were said to cause laziness, relaxed attitudes and promiscuity, while the frequent variability in the weather of the middle latitudes led to more determined and driven work ethics. Because these environmental influences operate slowly on human biology, it was important to trace the migrations of groups to see what environmental conditions they had evolved under.
Between 1920 and 1940, environmental determinism came under repeated attacks as its claims were found to be severely faulted at best, and often dangerously wrong. Geographers reacted to this by first developing the softer notion of "environmental possibilism," and later by abandoning the search for theory and causal explanation for many decades. Later critics charged that determinism served to justify racism and imperialism. The experience of environmental determinism has left a scar on geography, with many geographers reacting negatively to any suggestion of environmental influences on human society.

The climate community, and those that cover it, have a blind spot when it comes to social science.

Posted on January 7, 2007 01:58 AM View this article | Comments (17)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 06, 2007

Who Said This? No Cheating!

One day, anthropologists, sociologists, and maybe even psychoanalysts will look back on the early-twenty first century debate on climate change with incredulity and bafflement. Consider the following statement as a weekend pop quiz – no Googling if you wan to play along!

I worry a little bit about what you might call the Tyranny of the IPCC. . . That gives me some slight willies. . . Sure, IPCC is confident about the existence and cause of recent warming . . . But there are other areas -- mainly around the effects of climate change -- where the IPCC says, in effect, "we don't know for sure yet." Does that mean all respectable people must stay silent about those effects until the IPCC ratifies a consensus conclusion? Yes, we have to leave science to the scientists. But science is not a priesthood that can or should impose quietude on the rest of us. Our informed gut feelings about how things will turn out are legitimate. People make statements beyond what's strictly supported by the peer-reviewed evidence all the time.

Was this statement made by:

(a) A Republican U.S. Senator from a Midwestern state with a panhandle in a Senate floor speech
(b) A scientist formerly associated with the IPCC responding to being labeled a "skeptic" by his peers
(c) An environmentalist writer defending Al Gore’s scientifically unsupportable statements
(d) A prominent NASA scientist defending his work projecting rapid future sea level rise
(e) A conservative blogger explaining why the notion of scientific consensus is really cover for a political agenda

Click through for the answer (click on Comments now to reply before reading the answer):

The answer is (c). The author is Dave Roberts at Grist magazine. He writes these views over at the Gristmill blog. To best serve the pop quiz we did cut out some of what Dave wrote to preserve ambiguity, so please do go and read the whole thing. We have every respect for Dave as a passionate advocate for causes that he believes in (check him out on TWC, also a music recommendation for Dave;-). But at the same time his willingness to forgive departures from scientific standards in support of causes and people that he believes in makes him no different from his opponents who do the exact same thing.

In the comments on Dave’s post climate scientist Andrew Dessler tries to gently make this exact same point:

I am very leery letting Al Gore or anyone "supplement" the IPCC. If we let Al Gore inject his scientific expertise, then why shouldn't we let James Inhofe also make pronouncements on the science. Gore and Inhofe are both advocates, and their interpretation of the science clearly reflects their preferred policy choices. I would therefore argue that science should be left to the professionals. I know that sounds elitist and I'll probably get flamed for it, but so be it.

This pop quiz should be interpreted as a lesson in the politicization of science. It is very easy to hold different standards for representations of science as a function of different political or policy commitments. Some, like Prof. Dessler will say that the antidote to this is to focus on getting the best scientific assessments possible. Others, like me, recognize that scientists who produce assessments are people with values and political agendas. So I argue that the only way to move beyond this situation is to of course seek the best science but to also discuss policy options explicitly, rather than orienting the climate debate solely with respect to science. Science is comfortable, and allows some a convenient excuse not to discuss policy (or worse a way to smuggle politics under the cover of "science"). But we should remember that we talk, debate, and argue about climate change because it matters, and because the decisions that we take matter as well. The answer to this is not to pretend that science can be discussed in a vacuum, or to suggest that politicians are legitimate voices on where future science is going.

The answer lies in explicitly discussing policy – what should we do, when, at what cost, with what effects, etc.? Everything else is a distraction.

Posted on January 6, 2007 02:47 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Scientific Assessments

January 05, 2007

Lahsen and Nobre (2007)

A Summary, by Myanna Lahsen

Lahsen, Myanna and Carlos A. Nobre (2007), "The Challenge of Connecting International Science and Local Level Sustainability: The Case of the LBA," Environmental Science and Policy 10(1) 62-74. (PDF)

This paper identifies some central challenges involved in bringing about applications-oriented research and associated institutions related to sustainability on the basis of “global change science”, using the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) as an example. The LBA is an integrated regional study carried out by an international science program – indeed, the largest program in international scientific cooperation ever focused on the Amazon region. Over the last decade, the LBA has carried out over 120 studies and contributed quantitative and qualitative understanding of the functioning of tropical ecosystems and their linkages to the Earth System. It has produced over 700 peer-reviewed publications, the vast majority in international science journals. Additionally, LBA has trained hundreds of young scientists, most of them from Amazonia. In this and other ways, it has self-consciously sought to improve past models of “scientific colonialism” involving Northern-funded science experiments in less developed countries which did little, and usually nothing at all, to improve the knowledge and infrastructure in the latter (note: henceforth, “North” and “South” refer to the global North and South unless otherwise specified).

The LBA fell short in other respects, however, in particular in its explicit goal to produce sound scientific understanding in support of sustainable development. Deforestation of the tropical forests of Amazonia has increased to clearly unsustainable levels and at great social and environmental cost. Sustainable management of ecosystems requires appropriate public policies and regulatory frameworks. Yet translating the scientific knowledge created in LBA into public policies has proven to be much more difficult than its planners anticipated. Key to overcoming the obstacles is greater knowledge and capacity to develop and disseminate appropriate technologies and methodologies for sustainable management of the environment. Few developing countries are making substantial investment to develop this capacity. This is of huge consequence as the funding-structures, interests and incentive structures – and even the knowledge base – of developed-country-dominated international scientific efforts are inadequate to meet present challenges. The LBA serves to illustrate this inadequacy.

Aside from merely identifying humans’ environmental impact, the LBA’s mission, as stated in its planning document, was to help safeguard the Amazon’s basic ecological processes. In addition to its scientific capacity building component, the sustainability dimension is the most obvious point where LBA research could bring benefits at the national and local levels. It is also the least developed dimension of the LBA. An independent mid-term review concluded that the program had performed weakly in the area of identifying and developing social, political and economic implications of the findings, especially as concerns sustainable development in the Amazon region.

One may trace part of the root problem to resource disparities between the global North and South at the levels of human and material resources related to knowledge production and mobilization. These disparities complicate the science-policy interface in less developed countries (Lahsen in press; Lahsen forthcoming (a); Lahsen forthcoming (b) and as such can weaken the effectiveness of efforts to assess and combat human-induced climate and associated effects. It also limits the level of participation and input of less developed countries in international scientific programs and policy efforts, allowing Northern nations, and especially the United States, to overwhelmingly dominate the production and framing of science underpinning international environmental negotiations. Studies suggest that this dominance can translate into political gain and that it at times weakens less developed country representatives’ trust and regard for international environmental assessment and negotiation processes (ibid).

Simply modeling science agendas in the South on those in the North would be a mistake to the extent that this would perpetuate the evaluation criteria and incentive structures that result in high quality research, yes, but without the necessary connection to applications at the regional, national and local levels. Had an Amazon-based institution led the LBA from the planning stages on, for instance, this would not have guaranteed that sustainability concerns would have been more central. Brazilian scientists – especially in the richer South of the country but also those in the Amazon – are increasingly hooked into international science and subject to the same incentive structures as their Northern peers.

Ways must be found to link excellence in research more tightly to urgent environmental and societal problems, attending to the perverse effects of presents incentive structures and heeding insights captured in calls for “sustainability science” (Cash, et al., 2003; Clark 2003; Clark and Dickson 2003; National Research Council 1999).

References:

Cash, David W., William C. Clark, Frank Alcock, Nancy M. Dickson, Noelle Eckley, David H. Guston, Jill Jäger and Ronald B. Mitchell (2003), `Knowledge Systems for Sustainable Development,' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 100, No. 14, 8 July, pp. 8086-8091.

Clark, William C. (2003), Institutional Needs for Sustainability Science link in PDDF

Clark, William C. and Nancy M. Dickson (2003), `Sustainability Science: The Emerging Research Program,' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 100, No. 14, 8 July, pp. 8059-8061.

Fogel, Catheleen A. (2002), `Greening The Earth With Trees: Science, Storylines And The Construction Of International Climate Change Institutions,' Doctoral Dissertation (Environmental Studies: University of California, Santa Cruz).

Lahsen, Myanna (in press), `Distrust and Participation in International Science and Environmental Decision Making: Knowledge Gaps to Overcome,' in Mary Pettinger (Ed.), The Social Construction of Climate Change (Ashgate Publishing).

Lahsen, Myanna (forthcoming (a), `Knowledge, Democracy and Uneven Playing Fields: Insights from Climate Politics in - and Between - the U.S. and Brazil,' in Nico Stehr (Ed.), Knowledge and Democracy (Transactions Publishers).

Lahsen, Myanna (forthcoming (b), dependent on acceptance of completed revisions). "Science and Brazilian environmental policy: The case of the LBA and carbon sink science" Climatic Change.

Posted on January 5, 2007 01:33 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

January 04, 2007

Progressive Radio Network Interview, Today 1PM MST

Later today I'll be discussing climate change with Steve Barnett on his show "Paradise Parking Lot" on the Progressive Radio Network. You can tune in live at 1:00 PM (Mountain Time) today here.

Posted on January 4, 2007 10:21 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

New Publications: Reconciling the Supply of and Demand for Science

Dan Sarewitz, Steve Dovers, and I have guest edited a special issue of Environmental Science & Policy which is titled Reconciling the Supply of and Demand for Science, with a focus on carbon cycle research. The papers in this special issue have just been published, and since each of the papers has an author or co-author here at our Center we are happy to provide links below to the full set of papers in the order that they appear in the special issue. Over coming days and weeks we may prepare focused posts on a few of the papers. Meantime, have a look, feedback appreciated!

Dilling, L., 2007. The opportunities and responsibility for carbon cycle science in the U.S., Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 1-4. (PDF)

Sarewitz, D. and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2007. The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 5-16. (PDF)

McNie, E., 2007. Reconciling the supply of scientific information with user demands: an analysis of the problem and review of the literature, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 17-38. (PDF)

Lövbrand, E., 2007. Pure science or policy involvement? Ambiguous boundary-work for Swedish carbon cycle science, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 39-47. (PDF)

Dilling, L., 2007. Towards science in support of decision making: characterizing the supply of carbon cycle science, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 48-61.(PDF)

Lahsen, M. and C. A. Nobre, 2007. Challenges of connecting international science and local level sustainability efforts: the case of the Large-Scale Biosphere–Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 62-74. (PDF)

Logar, N. J. and R. T. Conant, 2007. Reconciling the supply of and demand for carbon cycle science in the U.S. agricultural sector, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 75-84.(PDF)

Posted on January 4, 2007 07:38 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Climate Change | Science Policy: General

January 03, 2007

RealClimate Comment

RealClimate has not always decided to post my comments. So here is what I just submitted on their thread reacting to Andy Revkin's piece this week:

Nice post.

When I first presented the idea of a third "tribe" in the climate debate, partly tongue-in-cheek, I did so to recognize a another political position on climate change. Not science. That political position is characterized by people who accept the IPCC (hence, non-skeptic, i.e., "skeptic" as a noun, as often used in derogatory fashion on this site) but reject the targets and timetables approach that is codified in the Framework Convention. This includes a variety of different, even mutually inconsistent approaches proposed by people as diverse as Steve Rayner, Bjorn Lomborg, Dan Sarewitz, and Gregg Easterbrook. (And in some quarters -- maybe here -- simply mentioning the name Lomborg is enough to be labeled a heretic, ;-) )

Now, as far as I know you guys have no views on the Framework Convention one way or the other, or at least that is what you say. So this political debate has nothing to do with what you present here, and this third way should not be relevant, right? The reality is that if climate policy is going to move forward, it has to break out of (a) positioning everything in terms of science, and (b) framing everything in terms of alarmists and skeptics/contrarians. And like it or not, RealClimate is a big player in keeping this Manichean view alive, such as with your recent "year in review" and incessant skeptic obsession.

I don't care if this third way on climate policy is called the middle, top, bottom, left, or right. And I have no affinity for the NSH tag. What I do care about is that people engage in serious discussions of actual policy options in manner that is far more diverse that has existed to date. If that is something that RC wants to venture into, we'd all benefit.

Happy 2007!

Posted on January 3, 2007 07:14 PM View this article | Comments (26)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Climatic Change Special Issue on Geoengineering

The August, 2006 issue of the journal Climatic Change has some interesting commentary reacting to Paul Crutzen’s idea that climate change might be dealt with by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere. Here are a few excerpts from these commentaries on Crutzen:

Ralph Cicerone, National Academy of Sciences, Wasington, DC (PDF, subscription required)

I am aware that various individuals have opposed the publication of Crutzen’s paper, even after peer review and revisions, for various and sincere reasons that are not wholly scientific. Here, I write in support of his call for research on Geoengineering and propose a framework for future progress in which supporting and opposing viewpoints can be heard and incorporated. I also propose that research on geoengineering be considered separately from actual implementation, and I suggest a path in that direction. . .
A commonly held view is that commitment to geoengineering would undercut human resolve to deal with the cause of the original problem, greenhouse gases in the case of climate change; Crutzen states such concerns as did Cicerone et al. (1992), Schneider (1996), and Schelling (1996). There is a widespread, perhaps universal belief that humans must first attempt to limit these emissions. Crutzen notes that worldwide agreements may not prove to be effective. Most scientists believe that there is also a danger from ignorance of harmful side effects, and there are other reservations against geoengineering on ethical grounds. While some people fear that research will lead to direct experimentation and to geoengineering interventions, I believe that we should encourage research, and separate research from actual interventions (see below). Research is needed to reduce ignorance, and it is likely that gaining an acceptable amount of knowledge before intervention will take many years. Freedom of inquiry itself has moral value.

Jeffrey Kiehl, NCAR, Boulder, CO (PDF, subscription required)

It is important to note that Crutzen argues that this idea be studied in depth and openly before any large scale action is taken. A basic assumption to this approach is that we, humans, understand the Earth system sufficiently to modify it and ‘know’ how the system will respond. . . .
We have already ‘chosen’ to geoengineer our climate system through our use of fossil fuels, where the engineering of the climate system is an inadvertent by product of our values around forms of consumption. Proposals to consciously alter the climate system to treat the symptom of our behaviors imply we understand all of the complexities of Earth as a system. At times Earth performs a stratospheric albedo enhancement experiment through the eruption of volcanoes. As pointed out by Crutzen, the Earth does cool due to this experiment, but this experiment also provides ample evidence of the non-local and non-linear response of Earth’s climate system, e.g. winter NH warming. This example exhibits how Earth’s climate system is far more complex than a simple energy balance picture. For this reason, I support Crutzen’s argument that more detailed and comprehensive modeling studies be carried out with regards to experiments. But my concern is that all models have their limitations (e.g. note the inability of models to predict the appearance of the Antarctic ozone hole before it was observed). When will we know a model is ‘good enough’ to go out and perform a real experiment?

On the issue of ethics, I feel we would be taking on the ultimate state of hubris to believe we can control Earth. We (the industrially developed world) would essentially be telling the (rest of the) world not to worry about our insatiable use of energy. In essence we are treating the symptom, not the cause. Our species needs to begin to address the cause(s) behind the problem. For example, an analysis of the U.S. contribution to CO2 emissions indicates that these emissions in part arise from three factors: the large number of SUVs, the size of homes, and distance we drive to work. I would argue that the first two of these factors are ones of choice, and not necessity. Yet, the American public chooses to buy SUVs and build large homes. Why? It seems that we need to address the fundamental issue of value, before tinkering with a system that we do not completely understand.

Lennart Bengtsson, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany (PDF, subscription required)

Here I will bring up three major issues, which must be more thoroughly understood before any geo-engineering of climate could be considered, if at all. The three issues are (i) the lack of accuracy in climate prediction, (ii) the huge difference in timescale between the effect of greenhouse gases and the effect of aerosols and (iii) serious environmental problems which may be caused by high carbon dioxide concentration irrespective of the warming of the climate. . .
. . . our understanding of the effects on aerosols on climate is less well understood than the greenhouse gases. Aerosols are not well mixed and interact with clouds in a complex way, where many questions are still open as we lack detailed empirical data. In addition, the role of clouds in regulating the climate under changed forcing conditions is not yet known with sufficient details. Present climate models are highly parameterized and the processes regulating the interaction of clouds, aerosols and radiation through the depth of the atmosphere are highly tuned. We do not yet know for sure to what extent we overestimate the feedback effect from the greenhouse gases and thus need the aerosols as compensation or whether we underestimate the effect of the greenhouse gases and thus the effect of aerosols is less significant (Rodhe et al., 2000). . .

So in conclusion, I do consider it more feasible to succeed in solving the world’s energy problem, which is the main cause to the present concern about climate change, than to successfully manage a geo-engineering experiment on this scale and magnitude, which even if it works is unable to solve all problems with the very high concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Michael McCracken, Climate Institute, Washington, DC (PDF, subscription required)

. . . if greenhouse gas emissions are not going to be reduced, there will not only need to be an increasingly aggressive geoengineering effort to counter-balance the radiative influences, but the effort also would need to be continued virtually indefinitely. Although it might be conceivable for one nation to actually commit to such a program, it seems rather unlikely that a global coalition of nations could be kept together to sustain such a diversion of resources for a task that would seem, to the typical citizen, to generate no immediate or direct benefits . . .
In addition to the political, ethical, and economic issues that such a long-term commitment would raise, there is also a potential legal impediment. Reacting to the attempts at weather modification during the Vietnam War, the nations of the world agreed in 1978 to the UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques4 (Fleming, 2004), which essentially prohibits weather modification that any nation would consider hostile or environmentally damaging. In that “climate” is really a mathematical construct created by averaging over the weather, it would not be far-fetched to argue that this treaty might well not permit geoengineering schemes to be used for the purpose of climate change, or counterbalancing it (indeed, changing climate patterns is specifically mentioned as being covered in one of the understandings of the treaty). The notion of one or a few countries proceeding on some geoengineering approach without the permission of all countries would almost certainly be considered hostile by some nation. . .

There has already been some experience with political consideration of geoengineering, and in this case additional considerations arose. In its initial formulation in mid 2001, President Bush’s Climate Change Technology Initiative included consideration of geoengineering as one of the possible approaches, and indeed a meeting was held in the fall of 2001 and a draft report prepared (Ehsan Khan, personal communication). A powerful argument against proceeding emerged, namely that if a viable and low cost geoengineering alternative really were available, economic analysis would then seem to argue against continuing to try to reduce CO2 emissions. As such, geoengineering would really be, in essence, an enabler for undiminished addiction to fossil fuels, roughly equivalent to foregoing fire insurance based on an assurance that the fire department was right next door and could quickly put out any blaze. In addition to adding to the perception that the Administration’s emission reduction program was not serious, relying on Geoengineering came across as only conceivable if one had an unrealistically complete understanding of all the possible situations that could lie ahead (i.e., could be absolutely assured it would work in all cases for an indefinite time).Without such knowledge, particularly regarding the potential for surprises and abrupt change, full reliance on geoengineering to counterbalance the climate-changing effects of greenhouse gases would, over time, not only compound the necessity of sustaining the Geoengineering option, but also mean that stopping might well result in even greater consequences than if one had not pursued the geoengineering approach at all, especially in comparison to devoting the resources to reducing the costs of non-fossil energy technologies. . .

What is clear from review of the various options is that it is easier to warm the climate than to cool it. For this reason, continued and increasing emissions of greenhouse gases merit very serious control efforts.

Mark Lawrence, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany (PDF, subscription required)

An intriguing dichotomy has developed within the field of atmospheric and climate research. On the one side, it has become common practice to examine pessimistic future scenarios of anthropogenic pollutant emissions and their environmental impacts. Not surprisingly, compared to the alternative "best guess" or "maximum feasible reduction" emissions scenarios, the pessimistic scenario simulations tend to predict large changes in the climate system and air quality. These scenarios can certainly attract attention to the possibly disastrous consequences of a careless environmental stewardship. However, they can also backfire politically, being seen as "unrealistic scare tactics" or "Hollywood horrors" put forth by scientists with environmentalist agendas. Furthermore, each simulation can only show one potential outcome among many possible states for a strongly perturbed climate. The predicted extreme outcomes of pessimistic scenarios will tend to vary widely from model to model. Unless this is communicated effectively, it can lead to confusion among policy makers, and can reduce confidence in such predictive studies. Nevertheless, such pessimistic scenario calculations are not only allowed, but are strongly condoned, for instance by the IPCC (2001), which employs these types of pessimistic scenarios as a central part of its regular assessments. This is well justified, given the most important outcome of these scenario calculations: scientists learn, and they learn a lot about the behavior of the earth system. The key is ensuring that the results are reported to the public and policy-making sectors as clearly and responsibly as possible, which is part of the purpose of the intense IPCC review procedure.
On the other side of the dichotomy, serious scientific research into Geoengineering possibilities, such as discussed in the publications by Crutzen (2006) and Cicerone (2006), is not at all condoned by the overall climate and atmospheric chemistry research communities. Quite the contrary, according to Cicerone, “refereed publications that deal with such ideas are not numerous nor are they cited widely”. In the discussions that surrounded the drafting of Crutzen’s article, there was a passionate outcry by several prominent scientists claiming that it is irresponsible to publish such an article focused on a particular geoengineering proposal. . .

I deeply hope that we will never see an era where widespread geoengineering like that discussed by Crutzen is being practiced, but there is no way to guarantee that this will be the case. Crutzen expresses the sincere concern that we may eventually reach the state of extreme climate change where the overall international sentiment is in favor of applying geoengineering. If we do not conduct careful research now, we will not be prepared to advise politicians on how to best approach large-scale geoengineering applications – including providing sound information on the various risks involved, and on which ideas should not be pursued further. . .

Many concerns have been expressed about the possible future application of widespread geoengineering. Especially worrisome is that it could end up being used as an excuse for not needing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in which case it follows that the intensity of any geoengineering efforts (e.g., the amount of sulfur injected into the stratosphere per year) would also need to increase to keep pace with accumulating, long-lived greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, geoengineering is being discussed intensely, at least outside of the formal scientific literature, and it is not going to go away by ignoring it or refusing to discuss it scientifically. Thus, I would argue that it is our responsibility to do what scientists do best: explore it, understand it deeply, and eventually describe the key points of this understanding in terms accessible to the educated public and policy-making communities, in order to support well-informed decisions on geoengineering in the future.

Posted on January 3, 2007 12:01 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 02, 2007

Profiling Frank Laird

Andy Revkin’s article in the New York Times yesterday suggested that there are an untapped set of views on climate policy that might be worth hearing from. We thought it might be worth profiling some of these voices periodically. One such perspective is provided by Frank Laird, a professor in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Frank is also a friend and a faculty affiliate at our Center at CU.

One of Frank’s areas of expertise is energy policy, and specifically renewable energy policies. His excellent 2001 book Solar Energy, Technology Policy, and Institutional Values, (Cambridge University Press), was a finalist (one of the top 3) 2004 Don K. Price Award for the best book in science and technology policy or politics, awarded by the American Political Science Association. I reviewed his book in 2002 for the journal Policy Sciences and you can see my review here in PDF. Frank's book illustrates how technologies become objects onto which political partisans map their valued ends and means. While values don’t always change quickly, a technology – in this case solar energy and nuclear energy -- can be favored at different times for difference reasons by different political camps. Politics does make strange bedfellows. Consequently we should be careful in linking a particular technology with a political perspective. In the case of solar energy, Laird argues, success in making such a linkage is one factor which arguably held back the further expansion of solar technologies in the 1970s. Laird also shows quite convincingly how energy policy decisions made in the 1950s and 1960s have shaped where we are at today.

Frank has written on climate change as well. In 2000 he wrote Just Say No to Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets in Issues in Science and Technology. In that article he wrote:

The critiques in this paper are not based on skepticism about the nature and seriousness of climate change, and they are not intended to give aid and comfort to the diminishing band of greenhouse skeptics. I assume for this analysis that the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are correct. . . . Although the science still contains substantial uncertainty, as climate scientist Stephen Schneider and others remind us, that uncertainty cuts both ways, so that the effects of climate change could be significantly worse than the models predict. That downside potential is all the more reason why we need policies that will actually help us to put off and cope with whatever changes will come. The Kyoto Protocol emissions targets will only hinder our collective ability to do that.

His critique remains current today:

Effective international actions to cope with climate change should be based on three principles. First, the international institutions that will implement climate change treaties must be understood as catalytic, not regulatory. Second, actions on climate change need to make effective use of the substantial institutional developments already in place around the globe. Third, the goals of the treaty must be process-oriented, not descriptions of some final outcome. . .
The Protocol requires a major overhaul. It is based fundamentally on the monitoring, reduction, and trading of GHG emissions: a foundation that guarantees stiff political opposition and years of arcane technical arguments, absorbing the time, energy, and money of many participants. Nations, the UN, and NGOs organizations have so many diplomatic, financial, and technical resources tied up in Kyoto that it would be tragic for it to fail now; such a failure would set back international climate change efforts for years. It is time to let go of the failed emissions targets and seek new paths that will better serve everyone's needs.

I encourage everyone to read the whole article. It is short essay but prescient. Frank is current studying renewable energy policies in the United States and Germany.

Posted on January 2, 2007 06:53 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Technology Policy

January 01, 2007

Nonskeptical Heretics in the NYT

Andy Revkin has a well-done article on the "middle ground" in the climate change debate. I fully expect that many of the usual suspects on the extremes of the debate (both sides) will respond to this story by saying that they've been in the middle all along. A two-sided debate rarely welcomes a third view, especially one that makes as much sense as that espoused in the NYT article. Here is an excerpt:

Amid the shouting lately about whether global warming is a human-caused catastrophe or a hoax, some usually staid climate scientists in the usually invisible middle are speaking up.
The discourse over the issue has been feverish since Hurricane Katrina. Seizing the moment, many environmental campaigners, former Vice President Al Gore and some scientists have portrayed the growing human influence on the climate as an unfolding disaster that is already measurably strengthening hurricanes, spreading diseases and amplifying recent droughts and deluges.

Conservative politicians and a few scientists, many with ties to energy companies, have variously countered that human-driven warming is inconsequential, unproved or a manufactured crisis.

A third stance is now emerging, espoused by many experts who challenge both poles of the debate.

They agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge, but say the appropriate response is more akin to buying fire insurance and installing sprinklers and new wiring in an old, irreplaceable house (the home planet) than to fighting a fire already raging.

"Climate change presents a very real risk," said Carl Wunsch, a climate and oceans expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It seems worth a very large premium to insure ourselves against the most catastrophic scenarios. Denying the risk seems utterly stupid. Claiming we can calculate the probabilities with any degree of skill seems equally stupid."

Many in this camp seek a policy of reducing vulnerability to all climate extremes while building public support for a sustained shift to nonpolluting energy sources.

They have made their voices heard in Web logs, news media interviews and at least one statement from a large scientific group, the World Meteorological Organization. In early December, that group posted a statement written by a committee consisting of most of the climatologists assessing whether warming seas have affected hurricanes.

While each degree of warming of tropical oceans is likely to intensify such storms a percentage point or two in the future, they said, there is no firm evidence of a heat-triggered strengthening in storms in recent years. The experts added that the recent increase in the impact of storms was because of more people getting in harm’s way, not stronger storms.

There are enough experts holding such views that Roger A. Pielke Jr., a political scientist and blogger at the University of Colorado, Boulder, came up with a name for them (and himself): "nonskeptical heretics."

"A lot of people have independently come to the same sort of conclusion," Dr. Pielke said. "We do have a problem, we do need to act, but what actions are practical and pragmatic?"

Posted on January 1, 2007 10:44 AM View this article | Comments (31)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 28, 2006

Draft Paper for Comment: Decreased Proportion of Tropical Cyclone Landfalls in the United States

Below you will find a short, draft paper on the decreasing proportion of U.S. hurricane landfalls to total North Atlantic hurricanes from 1851-2006 that I will soon submit for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. I am not worried about pre-publication on the web and the policies of the big journals as Nature has already declined to send it out for review, suggesting that the specialty journals are a more appropriate venue. I have shared earlier versions of the paper with a range of different scientists inside (and outside of) the tropical cyclone research community, and I thank those who have so far responded for their helpful suggestions. I welcome any comments readers here may have as well.

Decreased Proportions of Tropical Cyclone Landfalls in the United States: Data Artifact, Blind Luck, Natural Variability, and/or Global Warming?

Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
28 December 2006
DISCUSSION DRAFT

Introduction

This short note is motivated by several recent studies that examine Atlantic tropical cyclone statistics over the past century and a half finding a significant upward trend (Holland and Webster, 2007; Mann and Emanuel, 2006). Both studies attribute an observed increase in North Atlantic (NATL) tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic causes. This paper uses a simple approach to examine trends in U.S. hurricane landfalls 1851-2006. The annual number of U.S. hurricane landfalls has remained remarkably constant over this period exhibiting no trend. However, out of the total NATL storm activity, the proportion of landfalling storms making landfall in the United States has exhibited a marked decrease. These trends raise important but heretofore largely unexamined research questions about tropical cyclone landfall theory, data, and analyses.

North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Data

Two datasets in this analysis are kept by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The first dataset includes all tropical cyclones of at least tropical storm strength (i.e., maximum winds >17 meters/second) in the NATL 1851-2006 (1). The second dataset includes all such storms that affected the U.S. coastline at hurricane strength (i.e., maximum winds of >33 meters/second) (2). It is widely accepted that the number of landfalling storms is among the most accurate metrics available for tropical cyclones in the Atlantic (Landsea 2005, Emanuel 2005).

Issues about data quality are at the center of a vigorous and scientifically productive debate within the tropical cyclone research community (e.g., Landsea et al. 2006, Kossin et al. in press). This paper proceeds under the same assumptions on data quality used by Holland and Webster (2007),

Before 1945 the overall statistic of total tropical cyclones numbers contains useful information . . . In summary, we consider that the veracity of the NATL tropical storm data base is sufficient to enable the broad brush analysis that we undertake in this study. Prior to 1945 we concentrate on the total number of tropical cyclones, irrespective of intensity.

And also Mann and Emanuel (2006),

A reasonably reliable record of annual North Atlantic tropical cyclone counts is thus available back into the late nineteenth century.

The point here is not that these conclusions about data quality are necessarily correct, but to argue that if one accepts the analyses in these studies predicated on the fidelity of long-term counts of NATL tropical cyclones, then it follows logically that one also has to accept the analysis presented here using the exact same data.

Analysis

Figure 1 shows the total number of United States hurricane landfalls 1851-2006.

There is no trend in the data. This finding is generally accepted, and is supported by the lack of trend in normalized U.S. hurricane damage over the past century (Pielke, et al. under review). Figure 2 shows the percentage of total storms that affected the United States as hurricanes from 1851-2006 (3).

There is a decrease in the proportion of storms striking the United States from any starting point prior to about 1970. This decrease increases in statistical significance as the record is extended further into the past. A linear trend line is presented on the graph for both the raw data and the 9-year moving average (4). Apparent in Figure 2 starting in 1944, which is considered to be the most accurate data period in the Atlantic (Neumann et al. 1999, Landsea et al. 1999), is a decrease in the proportion of storms striking the coast over this time period as well (statistics discussed below). Holland and Webster (2007) identify three climatic regimes, 1905-1930, 1931-1994, and 1995-2005. The proportion of landfalling storms for each of the three eras indicates a steady decline, respectively at 31.8%, 17.0%, and 14.6%.

Figure 3 shows for 1950-2006 the relationship of the percentage of landfalling storms and NATL August-September-October (ASO) sea surface temperatures (5).

On this time scale at least there is no significant relationship, though perhaps a more comprehensive statistical analysis that goes beyond the present focus may yet reveal a relationship (cf. Jagger et al. 2007).

Discussion

The data presented here suggests some interesting possibilities which cannot be resolved based on the data presented here.

First, it is possible that the decreasing trend in U.S. landfalls as a percentage of total storms is a statistical artifact resulting from an undercount of historical storms. The number of landfalling storms is certainly known with much higher certainty than the total number of storms. Thus, an undercount of the total number of storms would artificially increase landfalling storms as a percentage of total storms. This first interpretation is consistent with a view that the NATL record is most accurate since 1970, and that inaccuracies exist prior to that time. This view on data quality would also be inconsistent with those who argue that the NATL record is complete since 1944 (cf. Landsea et al. 1999). If the decreasing trend is an artifact of the datasets, then it would obviously call into question any analysis of trends based on the total number of storms over thuis time period.

Second, it is possible that the decreasing trend in U.S. landfalls as a percentage of total storms is (at least in part) a reflection of the actual behavior of the climate system. That is, if one accepts the trends reported by Holland and Webster (2007) and Mann and Emanuel (2006), then logically, it follows that one also has to accept the trends reported here. In this case, if NATL tropical cyclone activity has indeed increased, then there has also been a significant decrease in the proportion of storms that strike the U.S. coast.

Under this second possibility there is then the question of attribution. Figure 3 indicates that, at least since 1950, there is in fact no obvious relationship between NATL ASO SST and the proportion of total storms that make landfall. Given this finding, if SSTs are indeed the principle factor explaining increasing tropical cyclone activity, as some studies have suggested (e.g., Holland and Webster (2007), Mann and Emanuel (2006), Hoyos et al. (2006)) and SSTs are largely forced by greenhouse gases (Santer et al. 2006), then it follows that explaining the decreasing proportion of landfalling storms requires further investigations of climate processes beyond trends in SSTs. In other words, if global warming is increasing the incidence of NATL tropical cyclones, then the same dataset that indicates this result also suggests that global warming, and/or some other factors, are acting to diminish the proportion of total storms that strike the United States.

Emanuel (2005) raises the possibility that simple randomness might explain the lack of a trend in landfalling storm intensities in the presence of such a trend in the entire NATL. This may very well be the case (Pielke 2005); however, Emanuel’s point was made with respect to an integrated index of power dissipation, for which the landfalling component was only about 1% of the total NATL data. In the case of total storms, about 20% of the total storms make landfall over the entire dataset. It is therefore quite unlikely that randomness alone explains these results.

This conclusion is unavoidable if one accepts the results of Holland and Webster (2007) that "data errors cannot explain the sharp, high amplitude transitions between the climatic regimes in the North Atlantic, each with an increase of around 50% in cyclone and hurricane numbers." With an increase of 50% in total hurricane numbers in two transitions among three climate regimes, and landfalling storms representing approximately 20% of the long-term total, it is statistically improbable that these changes would not manifest themselves in increased landfalls, all else being equal. Consider that that 31.8% of all storms that made landfall during 1905-1930 (Holland and Webster’s first NATL TC climate regime). Under a binomial distribution the probability of subsequently observing 131 or fewer landfalls out of 788 in the period 1931-2006 (i.e., the actual observations) at the earlier period’s probability of landfall is less than 0.00001. Thus, it necessarily must be true that either the data is flawed or there are real changes in the landfall characteristics of NATL climatology.

More recently, from 1944 to 1974 17.9% (31 years, 55/307) of total NATL storms made landfall in the U.S., and from 1975-2006 (31 years, 51/360) 14.2% of total NATL storms made landfall in the U.S.. The probability of observing 51 or less landfalls in the second period at the earlier period’s landfall rate is 0.054. Thus, there is reason to believe that even in the most recent half century where storm counts have been assumed to be most accurate there are either data problems or real changes have occurred in the climatology of NATL tropical cyclone landfalls.

Conclusion

This short note has revisited trends in U.S. landfalling hurricanes both as annual totals and as a proportion of total North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity from 1851-2006. The data indicate that there are no trends in landfall numbers but a marked decrease in the proportion of storms that make landfall. There are several possibilities for this decrease.

•One explanation is that earlier data fails to accurately represent the total actual number of tropical cyclones, thereby artificially increasing landfalling storms as a proportion of the total.

•A second explanation is that the trends in the total number of storms are in fact reflective of increasing Atlantic activity and the decreasing proportion that make landfall results from some yet unknown climate process that may or may not have a relationship to human activity. There is no obvious relationship between SSTs and landfall proportions.

•A third possibility, that the remarkable stability of landfall numbers over time is due to randomness, is highly unlikely simply for basic reasons of probability if one assumes that landfall proportions are constant over the long run.

Scientists are nonetheless in agreement that the coming decades will see landfall numbers that exceed the average from 1970-1994. Decision makers should take care not to overlook the possibility that future landfall rates may exceed that observed in the historical record, whether due to global warming, randomness, natural causes, or some combination. A lack of knowledge about the future means that surprises should be expected. Given the importance of landfalling storms to decision makers, a concluding recommendation is that the research community should place even greater attention to the challenging and important scientific questions of hurricane landfall climatology.

Footnotes

1. http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Storm_pages/Atl/ATLdate.dat

2. http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/ushurrlist18512005-gt.txt See the NOAA WWW page for a discussion of "affected the U.S. coastline."

3. The use of a ratio based on total storms follows the similar use of a ratio by Holland and Webster (2007) to examine trends in storm intensity.

4. Note that a 9-year moving average is used simply because this is the smoothing used in Holland and Webster (2007).

5. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center provides NATL SST indices by month from 1950 here: http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/data/indices/sstoi.atl.indices

References to be added

Posted on December 28, 2006 01:14 PM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

December 24, 2006

Calling Carbon Cycle Experts

We'd welcome an explanation of the possible (or non) significance of this new paper in Science for understandings of the global carbon cycle. A news story contained the following interesting paragraph (italics added):

Scientists say the discovery could bear on estimates of the pervasiveness of exotic microbial life, which some experts suspect forms a hidden biosphere extending miles underground whose total mass may exceed that of all surface life.

Posted on December 24, 2006 06:58 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Biotechnology | Climate Change

December 22, 2006

And I'm focused on adaptation?

An excellent and eye-opening story from Keith Bradsher in yesterday's NYT provides a new angle on the economics of the Kyoto Protocol:

Foreign businesses have embraced an obscure United Nations-backed program as a favored approach to limiting global warming. But the early efforts have revealed some hidden problems.
Under the program, businesses in wealthier nations of Europe and in Japan help pay to reduce pollution in poorer ones as a way of staying within government limits for emitting climate-changing gases like carbon dioxide, as part of the Kyoto Protocol.

Among their targets is a large rusting chemical factory here in southeastern China. Its emissions of just one waste gas contribute as much to global warming each year as the emissions from a million American cars, each driven 12,000 miles.

Cleaning up this factory will require an incinerator that costs $5 million — far less than the cost of cleaning up so many cars, or other sources of pollution in Europe and Japan.

Yet the foreign companies will pay roughly $500 million for the incinerator — 100 times what it cost. The high price is set in a European-based market in carbon dioxide emissions. Because the waste gas has a far more powerful effect on global warming than carbon dioxide emissions, the foreign businesses must pay a premium far beyond the cost of the actual cleanup.

The huge profits from that will be divided by the chemical factory’s owners, a Chinese government energy fund, and the consultants and bankers who put together the deal from a mansion in the wealthy Mayfair district of London.

It seems that mitigation pays.

Posted on December 22, 2006 01:43 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

December 20, 2006

So what happened at AGU last week?

[this is a cross-post from this original]

With thirteen thousand people at a confab of geophysicists and geophysicists-in-training, a few thousand of whom work on something related to the climate system, you expect to hear about climate change. In perhaps a short decade, climate change has rapidly surpassed seismology as the primary membrane between the public and the geophysics research world. Climate is now what most makes the American Geophysical Union relevant to non-members; climate is now what essentially drives the meeting despite the presence of dozens of other specialties represented.

As a physical oceanographer (which by definition also means "climatologist")- become-enviro policy guy, though, I wasn't so much interested in the details of climate science at this year's AGU. What I was (and am) interested in is seeing the conference as a whole. My interest in AGU has strayed from the hardrock science, moving into something more to do with feelings and hunches. That's right, feelings. Hunches. Intuition. The squishy, soft underbelly of the human mind; the part we want to ignore in pursuing geophysical data analysis. What I want to know is attitude. More than the state of the science, I now want to know about the state of the scientists.

I will grant that talking to the people I did at AGU represents a small fraction of all the attendees. I will grant that there is no way to know whether my averaging of attitudes in the climsci world, as sensed by talking with a few people over a few days, scales up to represent the true feelings of the collective. But I will tell you what I found, and what I felt, and whether you think it might represent the current attitude of climsci world is up to you.

To sum the state of climsci world in one word, as I see it right now, it is this: tension.

What I am starting to hear is internal backlash. Sure, science is messy and always full of tension between holders of competing positions, opinions and analyses. That has always been the nature of science, and of course extends to climate science. Tensions come out at meetings, on listservs, on letters pages, and in the press. But these tensions normally surround a particular paper, or a particular question. While much more broadly-based tensions have existed for years on the state of understanding on global warming, they haven't really been tensions internal to the climsci community, but tensions between the climsci community and interested outsiders.

What I am sensing now is something much broader and more diffuse, something that has less to do with particular components of the science in the field and is much more about how the field is composing itself.

What I see is something that I am having a hard time labeling, but that I might call either a "hangover" or a "sophomore slump" or "buyers remorse." None fit perfectly, but perhaps the combination does. I speak for (my interpretation) of the collective: {We tried for years – decades – to get them to listen to us about climate change. To do that we had to ramp up our rhetoric. We had to figure out ways to tone down our natural skepticism (we are scientists, after all) in order to put on a united face. We knew it would mean pushing the science harder than it should be. We knew it would mean allowing the boundary-pushers on the "it's happening" side free reign while stifling the boundary-pushers on the other side. But knowing the science, we knew the stakes to humanity were high and that the opposition to the truth would be fierce, so we knew we had to dig in. But now they are listening. Now they do believe us. Now they say they're ready to take action. And now we're wondering if we didn't create a monster. We're wondering if they realize how uncertain our projections of future climate are. We wonder if we've oversold the science. We're wondering what happened to our community, that individuals caveat even the most minor questionings of barely-proven climate change evidence, lest they be tagged as "skeptics." We're wondering if we've let our alarm at the problem trickle to the public sphere, missing all the caveats in translation that we have internalized. And we're wondering if we’ve let some of our scientists take the science too far, promise too much knowledge, and promote more certainty in ourselves than is warranted.}

I came to this place in a few ways. One was a colleague describing a caveat he put into his poster abstract out of fear --- yes, fear! (He strongly called into question widely-quoted data supporting a decline in snowpack and advance in spring peak runoff in the northern Rockies.) Another was multiple colleagues giving me independent but similar blistering accounts of the GCMs they work on (upcoming post on this). Yet another was listening to competing ideas presented by Torn (GC22A-02) and Knutti (-04) in this session. It was in these and other events and conversations that a theme arose that pervaded my meeting.

None of this is to say that the risk of climate change is being questioned or downplayed by our community; it's not. It is to say that I think some people feel that we've created a monster by limiting the ability of people in our community to question results that say "climate change is right here!" It is to say that a number of climsci people I heard from are not comfortable enough with the science to want our community to push to outsiders an idea that we have fully or even adequately bounded the risk. I heard from a few people a sentiment that we need to stop making assumptions and decisions for decision-makers; that we need to give decision-makers only the unvarnished truth with realistic bounds on our uncertainty, and trust that the decision-makers will know what to do with it. These feelings came of frustration that many of us are downplaying uncertainties for fear of not being listened to.

I don't play in the weeds of climate change anymore, I play in the weeds of how the science gets to policy makers and how the nature of policy-making gets back to the scientists. My own feeling of self-responsibility in this field is to be that translator in any small way I can; to hear what each sides thinks and needs and to play go-between. (I am certainly not the only one, but there aren't many of us, either.) It is for that reason that what I heard concerns me greatly, because I see negative implications for the credibility of the climsci world.

In upcoming posts I will give concrete examples of events and discussions from which I draw these conclusions. For now I leave the concerned climsci community with the thoughts of one former Congressional science fellow who is now back in research science (with some additions of my own): dealing with uncertainty is exactly what Congresspeople do, and they do it a lot better than we do. For scientists, uncertainty is an abstract concept, something that feeds into an academic study, a place where the stakes are low and time-scale is long-term. For politicians and unelected decision-makers, uncertainty is life-or-death, yet decisions must still be made. Politicians constantly make decisions amid levels of uncertainty that would stifle the publication of any academic climate change paper. We need to realize that, give the politicians their due, and get the hell out of their way. Give them the science and the uncertainties and let them make the decisions. Overplaying our hand is a dangerous gambit, and may spell big trouble for us in the future.

I realize that many of you will disagree with the notion that we are overplaying our hand, or are not giving full voice to our uncertainties. I'm not sure the answer to this question myself. But I write all this because I sense a sea change in attitudes amongst climsci people that I know as good scientists without agendas. These are solid scientists, and some told me in no uncertain terms that we are not giving full voice to uncertainties; others implied as much. Therein lies the tension. Where we go from here is anybody's guess, but I tend to agree with the Oracle in the second Matrix movie: we already know the answer to that question, our task is to understand why we are going to do what we are going to do.

Posted on December 20, 2006 02:16 PM View this article | Comments (24)
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

December 19, 2006

Ryan Meyer in Ogmius

Ryan Meyer, whose letter to Science we highlighted a few days ago, also has the cover story in our Center's latest newsletter which has just been put online. Ryan's article is titled, "Arbitrary Impacts and Unknown Futures: The shortcomings of climate impact models" and be found here.

The newsletter, called Ogmius, can be found here in html and here in PDF. Have a look!

Posted on December 19, 2006 02:05 AM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting

December 18, 2006

Misrepresenting Literature on Hurricanes and Climate Change

Greg Holland and Peter Webster have a new paper accepted on the statistics of Atlantic hurricanes. While there are many interesting questions that might be raised about the data and statistics in the paper, here I comment on the paper’s treatment of the existing literature, some of which involves work I have contributed to. In this instance I find their characterization of the literature to grossly misrepresent what the existing research actually says. I have shared my comments with Drs. Holland and Webster, to which I received the following reaction from Greg Holland: "We shall not be modifying the paper as a result of your comments."

Below I present their original text and my comments. We think that readers can judge for themselves whether a mischaracterization of the literature has occurred. I promised Peter Webster that I wouldn’t speculate on their motivations, and so I’ll stick to the facts in what I present below. I do know that when scientists misrepresent each others work, it is likely to stymie the advancement of knowledge in the community, and thus should be of general concern. When such misrepresentations are missed in the peer review process this also should raise some concerns. In this case I find the misrepresentations obvious to see and egregious, occurring in just about every sentence in the relevant paragraph.

Do note that the comments below do not get into their statistical analysis, which is worth considering separately on its own merits, but which goes beyond the focus of this post. Both Drs. Holland and Webster are widely published and respected scientists with admirable track records. They are welcome to respond here if they’d like. And I do note that different people can interpret the literature in different ways, so the below is my reading only.

Holland and Webster’s new paper can be found here in PDF and the text I have excerpted below in bold comes from their pp. 5-6. My comments are interlaid within their text.

Questions have been raised over the quality of the NATL data even for such a broad brush accounting. For example, a recent study by Landsea et al (2006) claimed that long-term trends in tropical cyclone numbers and characteristics cannot be determined because of the poor quality of the data base in the NATL even after the incorporation of satellite data into the data base. Landsea et al. also state unequivocally that there is no trend in any tropical storm characteristics (frequency or intensity) after 1960, despite this being established in earlier papers by Emanuel (2005) and Webster et al. (2005), and more recently by Hoyos et al. (2006).
Here is what I read in Landsea et al. (2006) (PDF): "There may indeed be real trends in tropical cyclone intensity . . ." Holland and Webster report the opposite of what Landsea et al. (2006) actually says. Landsea et al. (2006) state that they do not believe that the data record is of sufficient quality to definitively detect trends. They do not say that there are no trends. Holland and Webster ascribe a claim to Landsea et al. that they do not make.

Figure 1 shows a strong statistically significant trend since the 1970s similar to that found by Hoyos et al. (2006) and Curry et al. (2006). The overall Landsea et al. analysis is curious and is based on the premise that the data must be wrong because the models suggest a much smaller change in hurricane characteristics relative to the observed SST warming (e.g., Henderson-Sellers et al 1998).

Here is what Landsea at al. (2006) actually say: "Theoretical considerations based on sea surface temperature increases suggest an increase of ~4% in maximum sustained surface wind per degree Celsius (4, 5). But such trends are very likely to be much smaller (or even negligible) than those found in the recent studies (1-3)." Landsea et al. (2006) are reporting a finding accepted in the community. Indeed, the recent WMO statement (written and signed by Greg Holland) states, "The more relevant question is how large a change: a relatively small one several decades into the future or large changes occurring today? Currently published theory and numerical modeling results suggest the former, which is inconsistent with the observational studies of Emanuel (2005) and Webster et al. (2005) by a factor of 5 to 8 (for the Emanuel study)." Holland and Webster do not cite the WMO statement.

In contrast, Michaels, Knappenberger and Landsea (2005) argue the opposite, that the models must be wrong because they do not agree with the data. We shall show later that there are factors not included in the models that may explain some of the differences between model and observed trends.

Michaels et al. (2005) do not say that "the models must be wrong because they do not agree with the data." They say that if you run the models with different inputs you get different results. They write (PDF), "when [Knutson and Tuleya’s model is] driven by real-world observations rather than unrealistically parameterized and constrained model conditions, the prospects for a detectable increase in hurricane strength in coming decades are reduced to the noise level of the data." Michaels et al. are not comparing data with models, but looking at modeled output using different inputs.
Further, noticeable by omission is that Holland and Webster ignore relevant work that discusses the relationship of models, theory, and observations that includes Landsea as an author (which seems to be the focus of this paragraph). In particular the following paper discusses this subject explicitly:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C.W. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver, R. Pasch, 2006. Reply to Hurricanes and Global Warming Potential Linkages and Consequences, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 87, pp. 628-631. (PDF)

It particular Pielke et al. (2006) responds to a statement in a related paper (Anthes et al., Greg Holland included in the et al., PDF), that says that there is "broad consistency between observations, models, and theory." This statement is contradicted by Pielke et al. (2006) and WMO (2006), the latter is actually signed by Holland.

Of greater concern is that the conclusions in the Landsea et al. paper are at odds with several previous publications that include the same authors (e.g. Owens and Landsea 2003, Landsea et al. 1999), without introducing any additional evidence. These papers state clearly that the author’s considered that the period of reliable and accurate NATL records commenced in 1944 with the implementation of aircraft reconnaissance.

I coauthored Landsea et al. (1999) (PDF) and in that paper there are indeed statements on concerns about post-1944 hurricane data (e.g., at p. 94). Further, Landsea et al. (2006) cite a range of post-1999 studies acknowledging new uncertainties in data and methodologies, (e.g., C. Velden et al., Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., in press.; J. A. Knaff, R. M. Zehr, Weather Forecast., in press). To say that there has been no additional evidence cited by Landsea et al. (2006) (when Holland and Webster’s work is key to that new evidence) is simply misleading and wrong.

The bottom line here is that while this is just one paragraph in one paper, there is perhaps reason to be concerned about the fidelity of the literature, whatever the underlying causes may be. We have documented other shortfalls in the literature on several occasions on this site. To the extent that these data points are representative of broader problems in the climate literature, scientists should redouble their efforts to exert high standards of quality control. For if I can spot these misrepresentations in the literature, then others will as well.

Posted on December 18, 2006 04:54 PM View this article | Comments (14)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Scientific Assessments

December 16, 2006

Climate Change Hearings and Policy Issues

Ryan Meyer, a PhD student at ASU's Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes and collaborator in our SPARC project, has a letter in the current issue of Science.

Here is Ryan's letter:

The Random Samples item "As earth warms, Congress listens" (6 Oct., p. 29) ends with a proclamation by the National Resources Defense Council's David Doniger that climate change hearings "don't do anything." Although Doniger's frustrations are understandable, his lament misses a crucial point: In fact, it is precisely what climate hearings actually do that so badly hinders policy progress.
Climate change hearings are held because the issue is deeply divisive. As Nobelist Herbert Simon reminded us, "when an issue becomes highly controversial--when it is surrounded by uncertainties and conflicting values--then expertness is very hard to come by, and it is no longer easy to legitimate the experts" (1). Studies of discourse in these settings, including my own analysis of examples from the last 15 years (2-4), show, for example, that discussions of uncertainty have had the dual effect of justifying increased research funding while delaying policy decisions--a win for both the scientists and the politicians!

Scientists must recognize that when they testify at such hearings, they are participating in a political event, not a scientific one. When issues are highly polarized, a hearing may be a useful tool for adding to the public record or building support for a particular policy position, but it should not be seen as a way to impose scientific rationality on politics.

Ryan M. Meyer
Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-4401, USA

References

1. H. A. Simon, Reason in Human Affairs (Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, CA, 1983), p. 97.
2. S. Shackley, P. Young, S. Parkinson, B. Wynne, Clim. Change 38, 159 (1998).
3. J. van der Sluijs, J. van Eijndhoven, S. Shackley, B. Wynne, Social Stud. Sci. 28, 291 (Apr. 1998).
4. R. Meyer, Perspect. Public Affairs 3, 85 (Spring 2006).

The article of Ryan's that he refers to is titled, "Intractable Debate: Why Congressional hearings on climate fail to advance policy" and can be found here in PDF. Do pay attention. Ryan is someone I expect that we'll be hearing much more from.

Posted on December 16, 2006 05:48 PM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

December 15, 2006

Useable Information for Policy

Twenty-two members of Congress have written a letter to the head of the Climate Change Science Program observing that the program is failing to fulfill its mandate under Public Law 101-606 to deliver useable information for policy makers. This is good news.

The letter observes that the Bush Administration has failed to produce an assessment as required by the law, which is supposed to be delivered every four years. This situation is analogous to the behavior of the Clinton Administration which produced a single assessment in 2000, which was six years overdue. The assessment produced by the Clinton Administration was produced within OSTP under the nominal leadership of Al Gore which – rightly or wrongly – put a partisan tint on the product. Some – both on the right and the left -- continue to use the 2000 assessment six years later as a political wedge device.

The letter from the members of Congress observes:

. . . the current CCSP [Climate Change Science Program] website acknowledges that the law directs the agencies to "produce information readily useable by policy makers attempting to formulate effective strategies for preventing, mitigating, and adapting to the effects of global change," . . . The failure of the CCSP to produce a National Assessment report within the time frame required by law has made it more difficult for Congress to develop a comprehensive policy response to the challenge of global climate change.

The CCSP is currently producing 20 different assessment reports but according to the program’s previous direction, the CCSP does not engage in discussion of policy options. It is pretty difficult to produce usable information for policy makers without discussing policy options.

Does the Bush Administration want to avoid disucssion of policy options on climate change? Yes. Did the Clinton Administration also want to avoid discussion of policy options on climate change? Yes. Has much of the scientific community also wanted to avoid discussion of policy options on climate change? Yes. Sounds like a perfect situation for congressional oversight.

The policy failures of the CCSP have nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans, and everything to do with the structure of scientific advice implemented under the CCSP and its predecessor organization. Why do I say this? Because in 1994 I defended my doctoral dissertation on implementation of the climate science program under Public Law 101-606, and the exact same issues involving "usable information for policy" identified by the current letter from the 22 members of Congress existed at that time as well.

It is good to see Congress finally invoking the language in P.L 101-606 calling for usable information for policy makers. This is a matter of the effective governance of science in support of decision making, and it should not be dragged into partisan political bickering. The bipartisan letter from 22 members of Congress is a good place to start.

For details see:

Pielke Jr., R. A., 1995: Usable Information for Policy: An Appraisal of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Policy Sciences, 38, 39-77. (PDF)

Letter from 22 members of Congress to CCSP, courtesy of E&E Daily (PDF)

Posted on December 15, 2006 11:32 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics | Scientific Assessments

Reactions to Report on Al Gore at AGU

70193.09Geophysical-Convention-Gore-.sff.jpg

This news report of Al Gore’s speech at the American Geophysical Union yesterday is interesting for at least three reasons.

Here is the relevant excerpt from the news story:

"We have somehow persuaded ourselves that we really don't have to care that much about what we're doing to future generations," he said.
"We have to find a way to communicate the direness of the situation."

James Hansen, director of NASA'S Goddard Institute for Space Studies, had a front row seat to Gore's hour-long talk. His name often comes up when talk turns to the need in science for a standard-bearer; more than any scientist, he has generated headlines for his spars with the White House on climate change.

He agreed fully with Gore's call. "Scientists have not done a good job communicating with the public," he said in an interview.

The "huge gap" between where the science is and what the public knows, Hansen added, "is partly our fault and part of the problem."

Dan Kammen, co-director of the University of California's Institute of the Environment and a professor in the Energy and Resources Group, said being a scientist activist has its price. He's lost out on grants because of his political positions on energy and climate issues, he said.

"Some of us have been doing this for some time and at some risk," Kammen said.

Are more scientists likely to heed Gore's call? In a few weeks, a pack of climate scientists and politicians are planning a demonstration in front of the White House.

First interesting item: James Hansen asserts that scientists have not done a good job communicating with the public. Of course there is a huge gap between what climate experts know and what the public knows. There are similar gaps between what experts know about the history of Iraq and what the public knows, how a modern automobile works under the hood and what the public knows, functioning of cancer cells and what the public knows, and every single other issue for which experts have specialized knowledge. I will speculate that Dr. Hansen is making a political point, as Mr. Gore did, suggesting that if the public only knew what they knew, then they’d act exactly like Mr. Gore or Dr. Hansen. This of course is the public understanding of science (PUS) fallacy that we have discussed many times here. There are two responses to the PUS fallacy on climate change. First, for many years, and especially 2006 there has been overwhelming awareness of the public about climate change and support for action. What is it that Mr. Gore and Dr. Hansen think will happen if the public becomes more educated? The only place for opinion polls on this issue to go is down. Consider that the EU public overwhelming supports action on climate change and yet EU performance closely resembles that of the United States. There is more to this issue than public opinion. Of course, public opinion matters a great deal if one, hypothetically, is using the global warming issue for some larger goal, like running for president. (Disclaimer: I’ve bet Lisa D. lunch that Mr. Gore will run. We shall see.)

Second interesting item: Berkeley’s Dan Kammen suggest that he has lost out on grants because of his political views? Prof. Kammen is a darling of the climate community, and based on what I’ve seen and read, it is well deserved. I find it hard to believe that he has been punished for his popular and widely accepted views. As I had earlier stated about Bill Gray’s claims about funding, I’d need some evidence to buy such claims.

Third interesting item: "In a few weeks, a pack of climate scientists and politicians are planning a demonstration in front of the White House."

Posted on December 15, 2006 01:50 AM View this article | Comments (30)
Posted to Climate Change

Senator Coal and King Coal

A few items on my desk related to coal are worth mentioning.

First, there has been some recent discussion about a letter from Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) to Exxon-Mobil. I saw it and didn’t think much of it. Politicians politicize. I don’t see the letter as an affront to free speech, quashing Exxon’s right to speech, or having much at all to do with science. What I did find interesting however was Senator Rockefeller’s response to a hometown newspaper taking him to task for writing the letter. In the letter Senator Rockefeller makes the following comment:

We didn't "attempt to squelch debate," as the Daily Mail suggested. Rather, our letter was, in fact, an attempt to create and foster greater debate.
And part of that debate, I believe, requires calling attention to Exxon-Mobil's funding of a pseudoscientific community whose purpose is to prevent us from tackling global climate change.

ExxonMobil is out of step even with its own industry. Other oil companies have explicitly acknowledged global climate change and are moving to develop and support new energy technologies and solutions.

Thankfully for West Virginia, clean coal technology is at the heart of these solutions. And I don't intend to allow deliberate misinformation to undermine our push for major national investments in the clean coal research and facilities that can help solve this problem.

The reality is that we need to have a free and honest debate about how we're going to address a problem that threatens to be of epic proportions.

So Mr. Rockefeller is using the issue of scientific integrity as a means to advance the interests of the coal industry over the oil and gas industry. In other words, he is politicizing the politicization of science. Presumably, Exxon doesn’t have too many jobs in West Virginia. Politics makes strange bedfellows, of course, but I do wonder how Mr. Rockefeller’s views play with those who don’t buy into the idea of "clean coal" such as Dave Roberts at Grist Magazine who keeps telling us that "Coal is the enemy of the human race." It seems like the strongest political consensus on climate change these days is that Exxon is bad; after that, it all breaks down.

This brings me to my second point on coal. I have sitting on my desk yet-to-be-read a book titled Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy (Cambridge, 2007) by Marc Jaccard of Simon Fraser University. The book’s blurbs include positive statements from a crowd of people as varied as Bill Hare (formerly Greenpeace, now PIK) who recommends the book but "remains unconvinced," David Hawkins (NRDC), and the CEO of the World Coal Institute. Spiked-Online has a short essay from Prof. Jaccard, and here is an excerpt:

Some argue that fossil fuels should be abandoned because there are superior alternatives - energy efficiency, nuclear power and renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower. The aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency is desirable. But around the world, humans continue to crave ever-greater access to energy. The global energy system was 16 times larger in 2000 than in 1900. Two billion people today are without electricity and modern fuels, and by 2100 their offspring will be four billion. These people use less than one gigajoule of energy per year while a typical American uses over 300. Even with dramatic energy efficiency gains in wealthier countries, a subsistence level of 30 gigajoules for the planet’s poorer people will still require a three-fold expansion of the energy system during this century. Scale-up is the major challenge for nuclear power and renewable energy. Fossil fuels currently account for 84 per cent of the global energy system. Nuclear is at two per cent and renewables - mostly burning of wood and agricultural residues - at 14 per cent.
The wholesale replacement of fossil fuels in just one century will require a phenomenal expansion. The nuclear industry should grow, but its pace is limited by challenges in siting new facilities, storing radioactive waste and preventing nuclear weapons proliferation. Most renewable energy has low energy density and variable production, which increases land-use conflicts and capital costs.

An essential effort in research and development will decrease the costs of renewables. But zero-emission fossil fuels will remain cost competitive for at least this century. Acceptance of this economic reality means admitting that fossil fuels should be not be regarded as a foe, but rather humanity’s best friend in its quest for a clean, enduring and affordable energy system. Long live the king!

I’ll have more comments after I’ve read his book, but it is safe to say that we’ll be with fossil fuels for a long while.

Posted on December 15, 2006 01:05 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy | Science + Politics

December 12, 2006

WMO Press Release on Hurricanes and Climate Change

This press release (.doc) from the World Meteorological Organization yesterday:

A consensus of 125 of the world’s leading tropical cyclone researchers and forecasters says that no firm link can yet be drawn between human-induced climate change and variations in the intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones.

The WMO is of course one of the parent bodies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Given this pedigree and the importance of this consensus statement, I'm sure that we'll now see this widely discussed on science-related weblogs and in the media. For details on the consensus statement, see our earlier discussion here.

Posted on December 12, 2006 10:17 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

December 11, 2006

You Just Can't Say Such Things Redux

From today's Rocky Mountain News still more evidence that the climate debate is spiraling out of control:

A federal climate scientist in Boulder says his boss told him never to utter the word Kyoto and tried to bar him from using the phrase climate change at a conference.
The allegations come as federal investigators probe whether Bush administration officials tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and attempted to censor their research.

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement - never ratified by the United States and opposed by the Bush administration - that requires nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

Pieter Tans, a senior scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Boulder laboratory, said the ban on using the word Kyoto was issued about four years ago.

"We were under instructions not to use the word Kyoto, which of course is absurd," said Tans, who measures levels of carbon dioxide at NOAA's Global Monitoring Division. He has worked for the agency since 1990.

Tans said the order was issued verbally by his boss, David Hofmann, the division director. Another senior researcher at the Boulder laboratory, NOAA physicist James Elkins, said Hofmann told him the same thing.

Elkins studies greenhouse gases and has worked at NOAA for more than 20 years. He said he can't remember when the directive was issued, but it was "probably in 2000 or 2001."

"When I asked why we weren't supposed to use Kyoto, I was told that we're not supposed to use it in the policy context," Elkins said. "I'm not supposed to be talking about policy."

Hofmann, however, called the allegations "nonsense" and said there was no ban on using the word Kyoto.

"I never said it specifically in those words," Hofmann said. "I probably said that since the Kyoto Protocol is not ratified - is not part of the U.S. program - stay away from talking about Kyoto when you give a presentation."

"It has nothing to do with the science we're doing here," Hofmann said of Kyoto.

The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 and went into effect in February 2005, following ratification by Russia.

Elkins said the prohibition against using the word was lifted after Russia ratified the protocol.

"Once Russia signed Kyoto, it was a done deal," he said.

Posted on December 11, 2006 06:01 PM View this article | Comments (9)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

You Just Can’t Say Such Things

Larry Summers learned the hard way that there are some things that you just don’t do in a university setting. Nancy Greene Raine, Chancellor of Thompson River University in Canada who also was a gold medalist skier in the 1960s, is learning the same lessons.

From the Kamloops Daily News last Saturday via a weblog:

University professors outraged by comments from TRU chancellor Nancy Greene Raine, who expressed doubt on climate change in a national media broadcast, met with her in a hastily called session Friday afternoon.
The meeting was arranged by senior administration at Thompson Rivers University following a cascade of e-mails among faculty concerned that her opinion reflects poorly on the university.

Penny Powers, a professor in the school of nursing confirmed earlier Friday she had been called to the meeting with Raine.

'One of the most important goals of a university is to instill in the students an ability to assess the evidence for and against claims of any kind,' she wrote in an e-mail to faculty.

'What kind of role model do we put in place when the chancellor herself gives poorly-considered credence to widely discredited extremist opinions such as these?' . . .

Charles Hays a professor of journalism at TRU, wrote in a message to colleagues that Greene Raine cannot be the symbolic head of the university and make statements that run counter to the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion.

'And as chancellor, she has accepted a role as the symbolic head of the university. In that role, she owes it to the university not to make statements of opinion and expect that they will be perceived as merely the words of a private citizen.'

The Daily News was unable to reach anyone for comment on what took place during the meeting between faculty and Greene Raine.

What was it that the Chancellor said that set off this firestorm?

. . . another big name in Canadian skiing cautioned that people shouldn't push the panic button.
"I am very suspicious now when I see people make blanket statements because there are two sides to every issue," said Nancy Greene Raine, an Olympic gold medallist in the 1960s who has helped develop some of the top skiing resorts in British Columbia since her retirement.

"And in science there's almost never black and white. We don't know what next week's weather going to be. To say in 50 or 100 years, the temperature is going to do this, is a bit of a stretch for me."

Posted on December 11, 2006 05:40 PM View this article | Comments (33)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Education | Science + Politics

Disquiet on the Hurricane Front

[This op-ed by Dan Sarewitz and Roger Pielke, Jr. on the 2006 hurricane season was not published by a number of major newspapers. So we are happy to share it here. Anyone interested in publishing it before a wider audience, please send us an email. -Ed.]

The 2006 hurricane season has ended without a single hurricane landfall along the Gulf or East coasts. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, journalists, politicians, and even some scientists were proclaiming that the catastrophe of global warming was upon us. A quiet year later, perhaps there is some room for clearer thinking about hurricanes, about global warming, and about society’s vulnerability to climate.

Before this year, the last years without a U.S. hurricane landfall were 2000 and 2001, just a blink of an eye in climate terms, but an eternity in the politics of global warming. In all, hurricane behavior over the past century and more has been highly variable, with periods of great intensity followed by lulls. Scientists remain deeply divided about the role of greenhouse gas emissions in hurricane behavior. But scientists have appreciated for decades the inevitability of a Katrina-like hit on New Orleans. The city was doomed for reasons that have nothing at all to do with global warming: it lies on a subsiding river delta in the heart of hurricane country.

Increasing damages from U.S. hurricane landfalls in the U.S. over the past century are entirely explained by growing socioeconomic vulnerability—that is, by coastal development trends that continually expose more people, more infrastructure, and more economic activity, to hurricanes. If one accounts for the effects of socioeconomic change, then there has been no observable increase in U.S. hurricane damage since data were first collected in 1900.

The future may indeed hold more frequent or intense hurricanes. However, the science at this point shows unambiguously that the effects of any such changes in storm behavior will be completely dwarfed by the effects of continued coastal development.

As Katrina made devastatingly clear, the hurricane problem is one of unsustainable coastal development combined with unconscionable socioeconomic vulnerability. Katrina’s blood relatives are the 2004 south Asian tsunami (220,000 dead) and the 2005 Pakistan earthquake (80,000 dead), not the Earth’s slowly warming atmosphere.

Feel-good appeals to buy hybrid vehicles cannot reduce the entrenched social inequities, irresponsible development trends, and inadequate hazard reduction policies that led to the worst of Katrina’s depredations and that are the cause of rising disaster vulnerability worldwide. Neither can the Kyoto Protocol, carbon trading markets, or other energy policies. There is simply no evidence that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions—as important as they are for other reasons—will lead to any discernible reduction in hurricane impacts over the next 50 to 100 years. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is about as relevant to controlling the impacts of hurricanes and other natural disasters as a nuclear non-proliferation treaty is to protecting public health.
Yet many well-tested policies are available to help reduce vulnerability to natural disasters. These range from building codes that can keep structures from collapsing in a storm or earthquake, to land use regulations that limit construction in disaster-prone areas, to environmental laws that preserve natural features, such as wetlands and forested slopes, that act as buffers against extreme events. The rising toll of disasters around the world demonstrates that nations are greatly underinvested in applying such policies, despite the fact that they are known to be effective, and despite the certainty that more disasters will soon occur.

From a political perspective, it is tempting to exploit the tragedy of Katrina and other natural disasters to promote action on greenhouse gas reductions. But no matter how strongly advocates may feel about global warming, if climate policies are based on the false expectation that emissions reductions will reduce hurricane losses, then political failure is inevitable, because the problem will get worse, not better. (To grasp this point, just consider the political impact of falsely linking Iraq to terrorism).

During this quiet hurricane season, more people moved to the coasts and other locations vulnerable to disasters, ensuring that future losses will be larger than those of the past. At the same time, more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were emitted into the atmosphere. These are separate problems that demand separate solutions. But by turning hurricanes into a greenhouse gas problem, we fail to focus sufficient attention and resources on reducing disaster vulnerability, and thus turn our backs on the victims of future disasters as well.

Posted on December 11, 2006 02:59 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Energy Policy

December 08, 2006

Hurricane Trends, Frequency, Prediction

This post is a slightly edited version of some random musings on hurricane science that I have shared with the Tropical Storms discussion list.

A few thoughts come to mind from the latest round of exchanges on the list.

1. Detection of trends

I call your attention to a recent paper by Rob Wilby:

Wilby, R. L. 2006. When and where might climate change be detectable in UK river flows? Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 33, No. 19, 14 October. (PDF)

. . .under widely assumed climate change scenarios, expected trends in UK summer river flows will seldom be detectable within typical planning horizons (the 2020s). Even where climate driven changes may already be underway, losses in deployable resources will have to be factored into long-term water plans long before they are statistically detectable.

Specifically, Wilby finds that "Assuming no change in variance, annual mean [river flow] must change by 38-46% by 2025 or 28-33% by 2055 to be detectable." These are huge numbers for changes in means and they assume perfect data quality. Wilby explains this result as "The long detection times for trends in UK river flow are due to the low signal-to-noise ratio of hydro-climatic time series at basin scales."

What does this mean for detection of trends in tropical cyclone intensity?

Assuming as the recent WMO report does that there is a 3-5% increase in windspeed for every degree increase in SST, and given that (a) windspeeds are, to date at least, measured with certainties that are arguably not at this level of precision (sometimes using S/S categories that are up to 5 times as large as these values), and (b) SSTs themselves are a noisy series, see e.g. this paper, this community may be in a situation where the science is fundamentally "underdetermined." I think that everyone in this community would benefit from an understanding of the notion of "underdetermination" in science and what it signifies for scientific debates. For an intro see this brief discussion.

For these reasons I have come to the conclusion that the search for detection of trends in TC activity will no doubt motivate much interesting research, but cannot result in a comprehensive community consensus anytime soon.

2. A Theory of (Maximum Potential) Frequency

If the above points may seem pessimistic (well, they are;-) the community need not throw up its hands. It seems to me that a way out of this quandary is for even greater attention to be paid to the development of a theory of maximum potential frequency to parallel MPI (maximum potential intensity) theory. I may be mistaken, but as an outsider looking in, it seems that much of the community is quite comfortable with existing MPI theory and is largely hopeless about a theoretical understanding of frequency (those working on further exploring MPI and developing a theory of frequency, please forgive, I am making a general point).

It also seems to me, perhaps naively, that intensity and frequency cannot be treated as independent, and continuing to treat TC research in this manner is an obstacle to further advances.

I would be interested in any efforts to develop a basin-by-basin theory of maximum potential frequency. For the Atlantic basin for instance, what is the maximum theoretically possible number of TCs that can develop during a single hurricane season, and why? Even starting with the classic six (?) conditions for development provides an upper constraint on the number of developing systems in a particular season. Inherent in the notion of a "season" are the seeds of an MPF theory. Consider that in the Atlantic 2005 saw 28 named storms, could there be 35? Why or Why not? 40? How about 5? Zero?

How about it?

3. The Importance of Prediction

In recent decades, Bill Gray, and others, have drawn a line in the sand, by arguing that in a particular basin the best that can be done in terms of expecting future activity is not to be found based on theory-based models but based on an understanding of statistical relationships which may not be fully understood from a theoretical standpoint. Debates about statistical vs. dynamical approaches to prediction occur across the sciences, and are no different here.

It seems to me that if this community wants to make progress on the debate over hurricanes and climate, it will necessarily have to engage in predictions of the future to a far greater degree that it does now, much as the ENSO community has done. There will be limited successes at first and successes and failures determined by luck. There will also have to be the careful management of public and policy makers expectations.

By predictions I mean - can anyone devise a methodology that can systematically beat out Gray, Saunders, Elsner, NOAA, climatology etc.? Such predictions might be seasonal, multi-year, or longer, but they should be verifiable by actual data on time scales that allow for feedback into the process of research. The experiences of the ENSO community are very instructive (and somewhat humbling) along these lines. If the long-term climate (i.e., over several years and longer) of TCs is indeed nonstationary, then over time those who base their predictions on historical statistical relationships will produce predictions whose skill should be easily exceeded by those using dynamical methods. In practice, in many fields, achieving such success has been difficult -- compare managed mutual fund performance to the naive baseline of the S&P 500, for instance!

Generic predictions about what will happen under 2XCO2 in 2100 are great, but they are unfalsifiable by experience on research timescales, feeding the problem of underdetermination. The alternative to making scientific predictions is that we perpetuate the state of underdetermination in this community and risk detaching ourselves from the fundamentals of this important aspect of the scientific method.

Posted on December 8, 2006 05:52 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Inside the IPCC's Dead Zone

Climate scientist James Annan has related a tale of angst and suffering as a result of peer reviews that will, in broad terms, sound familiar to most academics. His experience raises a question that I’d like to ask of the folks familiar with the IPCC.

I have no idea what James’ paper is about, except that it argues that very high values of climate sensitivity can be ruled out, which I take it is contrary to the views of some others in the field. This situation leads me to consider several general questions about the IPCC:

How does the IPCC handle information that appears after its deadline for citation of peer-reviewed papers that may contradict literature which appears before that deadline?

Doesn’t this create a potential conflict of interest for contributors to the IPCC who are reviewing papers that appear during the drafting process?

Take hurricanes and climate change for example. Whatever the IPCC reports next March, it certainly won’t be as current as the recent WMO consensus report because the IPCC cannot cite literature that appeared after some point early in 2006, and the WMO can. And I'd bet there will be more studies released between now and march. On hurricanes the IPCC may wind up creating confusion by taking the scientific discussion back to early 2006 when in reality much has happened since. Similarly, its discussion of climate sensitivity and other areas could, in principle, suffer from the same lag effects. Now James’ paper was rejected, and for all I know, correctly. But on highly sensitive topics, I find myself agreeing with the AAAS – trust alone is no longer enough.

Posted on December 8, 2006 09:18 AM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General | Scientific Assessments

December 06, 2006

Scott Saleska on Tuning the Climate

[Scott Saleska of the University of Arizona has asked an interesting question in the comments of a post from last week. We have elevated it so that it does go unnoticed. Thanks Scott! -Ed.]

Let's say air capture, or any of the many geoengineering options being widely discussed (e.g. my colleague here at the UofA, Roger Angel's recent idea* to block 1.8% of the incoming energy with a gadget at the L1 Lagrange orbital point), ends up being feasible in a few decades. And let’s say we actually reach the point where we can, as Roger [Pielke, not Angel] suggested, tune the atmosphere’s CO2.

What level do we tune it to? And who gets to decide that level? The "worst off" individual (to follow Rawls famous "Theory of Justice")? Then we probably let the Maldivians decide, since under current projections, sea level rise could completely wipe them off the map. Places like Russia, on the other hand, would probably prefer to have some moderate global warming, because that probably would give them better agriculture in Siberia, and ice-free ports on the north Atlantic.

[* Roger Angel, 2006. Feasibility of cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point (L1), PNAS: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/103/46/17184 (subscription require). Or see the free podcast of his recent talk at our Global Climate Change series at University of Arizona, in which he reviewed a whole range of options from solar cells to Paul Crutzen’s aerosols, to his satellites: http://podcasting.arizona.edu/globalclimatechange.html or any of the others who spoke, focusing mostly on science of climate change]

Posted on December 6, 2006 03:47 PM View this article | Comments (38)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

That Didn't Take Long -- Misrepresenting Hurricane Science

Now that the WMO has issued a consensus statement on the state of climate science, scientists should be careful in how they characterize the overall state of the science. I have complete respect for scientists who have strong views on what the data, models, and theory shows, and fully expect them to make their case to their colleagues and others. However, scientists also should be careful not to represent their own views as in fact representing a consensus of the community when they do not, especially when making arguments for political action.

Here is an example of a scientist involved in the hurricane debate, Michael Mann of Penn State, making a demonstrably incorrect statement about the state of understanding of hurricanes and climate change six days after the WMO issued its consensus statement on tropical cyclones and climate change:

It is the increasingly widespread belief by researchers that increasing sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are leading to increases in various measures of Hurricane activity over time, both globally, and for the tropical North Atlantic region whose storms influence the Gulf coast and East Coast of the U.S..

Here is what the WMO says:

The possibility that greenhouse gas induced global warming may have already caused a substantial increase in some tropical cyclone indices has been raised (e.g. Mann and Emanuel, 2006), but no consensus has been reached on this issue.

And on the existence of trends in storm intensity the WMO says:

This is still hotly debated area for which we can provide no definitive conclusion.

This is a situation that Dr. Mann should understand well, as he has argued strongly for adherence to scientific consensus on his weblog, RealClimate. Dr. Mann's characterization about what researchers increasingly believe about hurricanes and climate change is not backed up by what the researchers themselves are saying. Why does this matter? Because Dr. Mann is using his characterization of the community's views on hurricanes and climate change as a basis for arguing for particular policy actions. As Dr. Mann writes:

We are likely to see only increased warming and increased Hurricane activity, if we continue to increase atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations through fossil fuel burning.

To be clear -- I take no issue with Dr. Mann making an argument that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce hurricane intensity. That is what he believes, and as a scientist conducting research in this area he is someone we should listen to. But when he characterizes the community's views as "widespread" and "increasingly" supporting his perspective, he has engaged in a mischaracterization. Mischaracterizations of science, by themselves, are perhaps of only scholarly interest. But when the mischaracterizations are used as tools of political advocacy they are no longer simply mischaracterizations of science, but instead, they are bad policy arguments.

For scientists wanting to use the notion of consensus as a tool of political advocacy, they risk being perceived as inconsistent when their actions change when they are the ones on the outside looking in.

Posted on December 6, 2006 10:27 AM View this article | Comments (55)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

Andy Revkin on Media on Climate Change

[Andy Revkin shares these comments by email on the media and climate change, which I have reproduced here with his permission. He is blogging them here where he has additional comments, including some specific to today's hearing heald by Senator Inhofe on the media and climate change. Our view here at Prometheus is that Senator Inhofe's hearing, which we watched in full, was a dud all around. We appreciate Andy sharing these comments. -Ed.]

I do think the media have sometimes screwed up in covering climate, in three ways. For a long time they ignored the story because they saw it as a "he says, she says" dispute. Then they ignored it as simply too complex and incremental (not good ingredients for a news story).

Lately, some have presumed that because disagreement is gone on the basics (more carbon dioxide will warm the world) there is now no aspect of the problem that is uncertain. That's led to a lot of "be worried" coverage that really, to my eye, has gone way beyond the science.

After covering human influence on climate for 20 years, through more than one cycle of public engagement and disengagement, I stand by my assertions in The Times and public talks and my new book, The North Pole Was Here, that everyone in this polarized discourse is missing the powerful middle.

There is no serious disagreement in the scientific community at all on the main point -- that humans are exerting a growing influence on the thermostat of the home planet.

To me, that's more than enough to justify a lot of attention, while perhaps not amounting to the kind of real-time disaster that the media tend to get excited about.

There is a tendency of some media to try to fit human-driven warming in the old-style template for an environmental crisis that we grew up with in the 20th century. That is a bad fit. It is harder than that. This problem, and possible solutions, all relate to the future.

Old problems that were dealt with effectively were realtime threats to health and welfare (soot, smog, untreated sewage). Add a filter and they go away.

Even if we turned off every engine on Earth today, there would be no discernible impact on climate for many, many years, if not decades. It'd be great if this issue was easier to understand, and write about, but we're stuck with it the way it is.

The best tonic of course: consider giving as a holiday gift The North Pole Was Here, the one book out there that powerfully conveys this, and is the first to do so for everyone 10 and up (a range including Senators!). It was just named one of the Outstanding Science Books of 2006 by the Childrens Book Council & National Science Teachers Assn.

Posted on December 6, 2006 10:16 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 05, 2006

The Future of Climate Policy Debates

How about this comment from George Monbiot today, a columnist for The Guardian:

[E]very time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.

Or this not long ago from NASA Scientist James Hansen (PDF):

. . . a certain shock treatment is needed, but it would best be delivered with a two-by-four as a solid whack to the head of politicians who remain oblivious to fundamental physical facts.

Allusions to murder and beatings kind of puts a chill on discussing options for climate policy, doesn't it? Maybe that is the point. It certainly makes me think.

In my view people who fashion themselves as public intellectuals have an even greater obligation than everyone else to encourage civil debate and discussion. This applies to people on all sides of political debates. It is all too easy for leaders to incite people to actual violence on issues that they are passionate about. Mr. Monbiot and Dr. Hansen (and others, again on all sides) may not have that outcome in mind as they write such statements, but if they don't watch out, that may be what they get.

So how about we all encourage some common civility in public discussions of climate change, especially from (but not limited to) our public intellectuals?

Posted on December 5, 2006 07:00 AM View this article | Comments (16)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

December 04, 2006

Roger A. Pielke Jr.’s Review of Kicking the Carbon Habit: A Rebuttal by William Sweet

[It is our pleasure to provide a rebuttal by William Sweet, author of Kicking the Carbon Habit, to a review on Mr. Sweet's recent book by Roger Pielke, Jr. which recently appeared in Nature. Mr. Sweet's book can be found online here and purchased through at a discount through Amazon and other online retailers. Pielke's review can be found here in PDF. We thanks Mr. Sweet for his contribution and welcome your comments. -Ed.]

What Just Ain’t So…Also Just Wasn’t Said in the First Place

In a review that appeared in the Oct. 19, 2006 issue of Nature, Roger A. Pielke Jr. praised my Kicking the Carbon Habit for recognizing that there are uncertainties in climate science and yet arguing convincingly that a reasonable person can "still believe that human influence on climate is a problem worth our attention and action." But then he proceeds to claim that the book’s discussion of policy is "regrettably grounded in a fundamental error that surprisingly was not caught in the review process" — an error having supposedly to do with the way the Pacala-Socolow carbon mitigation wedges is presented.

I am not aware that any such error exists, and in a personal communication, Robert Socolow has declared my capsule summary of the wedges model "exemplary." But that is really beside the point. The important thing is that my policy argument, which Pielke radically misconstrues, is not in fact grounded in the Pacala-Socolow model. Rather, it is grounded in story I tell at the critical juncture in Chapter 8 of the Book, the chapter called not coincidentally "Breaking the Carbon Habit." The story has do with Enrico Fermi and the issue of whether Hitler might be able to build an atomic bomb, as seen by Fermi and others at the beginning of World War II.

In a nutshell: Fermi had told the graduate student Isodor Rabi that the idea of an atomic bomb was "nuts." Rabi conveyed that opinion to Leo Szilard, who was sounding the alarm about the possibility of a Nazi nuclear weapon. Szilard suggested Rabi ask Fermi just why he thought the idea was nuts. Rabi did so, and Fermi told him he considered the possibility of a bomb being made successfully was ”remote.” So Rabi asked Fermi what he meant by that. Fermi said that the possibility of a bomb being built successfully was perhaps only about 10 percent. To which Rabi said: "Wait a minute. If I go to the doctor and the doctor tells me that there’s a remote possibility I might die, and that it’s 10 percent, I get excited."

Instantly—and this is mark of intellectual greatness and greatness in leadership as well—Fermi completely changed his mind about the issue. He started to work around the clock on graphite moderation, leading a couple of years later to the famous Chicago pile in which a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was first demonstrated.

The argument in my book is that even if the probability of a climate cataclysm in this century is very small, perhaps (say) only 1 percent, the magnitude of that cataclysm could be so dire, concerted action is warranted right now.* To say, by the way, that I characterize human-induced climate change something worthy of our attention and action is rather an understatement. I consider it the most urgent problem facing humanity today. But my argument about the case for strong immediate action is of a statistical character and is essentially identical to the one laid out by Richard Posner in his book Catastrophe (Oxford, 2004).

This brings me to a second drastic misunderstanding on Pielke’s part — and here I take some responsibility for not having made myself clearer. Kicking the Carbon Habit makes no claims about what is needed to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the long run. In fact it makes no claims about the long run whatsoever, except that the possibility of cataclysmic climate change cannot be ruled out. What the book does is make a case for the United States’ immediately joining in the Kyoto regime and, to that end, for its adopting a program to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by about 25 percent right away.

That means using the low-carbon and zero-carbon technology we can deploy right now, which happens to be the subtitle to the third section of the book. Contrary to what Pielke says in the review, I do not "dismiss the prospects for renewables and carbon sequestration." What I do is show that sequestration, solar energy, and hydrogen-economy technologies are not market-ready at this time and therefore not relevant to what the United States can do to cut its emissions by 25 percent today.

The zero-carbon and low-carbon technologies that are market-ready are conservation (of course in the widest sense), wind energy, natural gas, and nuclear energy. My position is that the United States should adopt a very stiff carbon tax that would result promptly in economy-wide conservation (including in the auto sector), and rapid replacement of dirty coal by some combination of wind, gas, and nuclear.

I do appreciate the positive things Mr. Pielke said in his review. But I would have been a lot happier if it had begun it more like this:

"In a book addressed squarely at American readers, William Sweet argues for prompt ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the United States, which implies -- and this is the really important point -- adopting a program to immediately cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 25 percent. Sweet proposes adoption of a stiff carbon tax, to induce rapid conversion of the coal industry to some combination of nuclear, natural gas and wind, and to prevent any further growth in U.S. energy demand.
"In building his case for that intrinsically controversial position, Sweet presents some important science in a way that's often interesting and even entertaining. However, he fails to address the question of how his aggressive program of U.S. carbon cuts would lead to long-term global stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations. In my view that is a serious shortcoming, because without that link being made, it's hard to see why the United States should do anything at all."

Having not explicitly addressed that important last point in my book, let me do so now. My view is that when we project future energy demand and greenhouse gas production out to the end of the century, relying on reasonable extrapolations from the situation we’re in today, the prognosis is utterly hopeless. I see any attempt to develop a comprehensive, global, long-term solution as not merely futile but as a recipe for inaction.

Therefore, frankly borrowing a principle from 12-step philosophy, my view is that when confronting a problem that is impossibly big and impossibly tangled, we should simply look at our part of it and address that. Accordingly, the United States, as the world’s main source of greenhouse gas emissions (about 25 percent), the world’s richest country, and the advanced industrial world’s most extravagant user of energy, should step up to the plate and do what it can as fast as it can.

The United States is in a position right now to do much more than any other country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But instead of doing the most, it is doing the least. That is my message.

—Bill Sweet
December 4, 2006

* By a cataclysm I mean a spontaneous reorganization of the world’s climate system, of a scale and magnitude similar to the ice ages, such that life could become unsustainable for a large fraction of the people living on earth. The change in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide associated with the onset and termination of ice ages has been about 100 ppmv; since the industrial revolution began, the concentration has increased by about that same amount, and in the next 50-100 years it could increase by as much as twice that amount again, unless we take radical actions to curtail its growth.

Posted on December 4, 2006 08:59 AM View this article | Comments (19)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Energy Policy

December 03, 2006

The Simplest Solution to Eliminating U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions

"Air capture" refers to the direct removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Leading work on this technology has been done by David Keith at the University of Calgary, his recent Ph.D. student Joshua Stolaroff, and separately by Klaus Lackner at Columbia University. Motivated by recent discussions on this site about the Massachusetts vs. EPA lawsuit, I wondered what the costs would be of neutralizing the carbon dioxide emissions of U.S. autos via air capture, and indeed all of U.S. emissions. Here is what I have come up with.

Air capture is a compelling technology because it requires no government regulation, no change in behavior, no international negotiations, and, most importantly from the standpoint of political action, no changes in energy production or use. Politically, it is therefore as simple and straightforward an approach as can be imagined. It is a top down technology in the sense that it can be used to "tune" the atmosphere to a desired concentration level. The downside is that it is expensive, but still far cheaper than the damages projected, for instance, in the recent Stern Review. Its ease in implementation and political simplicity more than offset its higher costs than other approaches to reducing carbon emissions.

In his recent dissertation (of which I have a copy but I am unaware if it is available online), Dr. Stolaroff suggests (his lower realistic estimate) that air capture technologies can remove carbon dioxide at a cost of $140/ton of carbon dioxide (or about $500/ton of carbon). In an interview with PBS earlier this year, Prof. Lackner suggested that the costs of direct air capture might eventually be as low as $30/ton of carbon dioxide (or about $100/ton of carbon). In the thought experiment below I’ll use both $100/ton and $500/ton.

1. US Auto CO2 Emissions

U.S. auto emissions are responsible for about 6% of total global emissions. The U.S. EIA estimates (XLS) total global carbon emissions in 2006 to be 7.45 GtC. Six percent of this is 0.45 GtC. The total costs of air capture to remove this amount of carbon from the atmosphere is $45 billion (at $100/ton) and $224 billion (at $500/ton). There are approximately 250 million passenger vehicles in the United States. The annual cost of air capture per auto is therefore $179 (at $100/ton) and $895 (at $500/ton). By contrast, this web site suggests that drivers can offset their auto emissions for $30-$80 per year per auto.

2. All U.S. CO2 Emissions

By extension, all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions could be offset by air capture for a per capita cost of $600 (at $100/ton) and $3,000 (at $500 per ton). At current use of gasoline (approximately 150 billion gallons per year) this could be achieved with a gas tax of $1.09 per gallon (at $100/ton) or $5.43 per gallon (at $500/ton). This level of taxation is comparable to gas taxes in European countries. If demand decreases as a result of the tax, as it probably would, then the tax would of course have to increase proportionately.

If the policy goal is to reduce total U.S. emissions by 40% then this could be achieved with a gas tax of $0.43 ($2.17). A gas tax of $1.00 would probably be more than enough to get this process started, including the costs of developing the air capture technology. The tax level could certainly be modified in future years based on experience with the actual costs of air capture technology and U.S. fuel usage.

This solution is so simple and straightforward, I wonder why those concerned with global warming aren't trumpeting it as a solution in the United States? Instead, the focus is on complicated and politically intractable approaches with dubious chances for success. Air capture is easy (compared to other solutions that have been proposed) to implement and politically requires only enough motivation to win a $1.00/gallon gas tax. If global warming is indeed going to cost us 5-20% of global GDP, how can we not pursue air capture?

What have I missed?

Posted on December 3, 2006 05:08 PM View this article | Comments (40)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 30, 2006

WMO Consensus Statement on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has just released two updated statements on the state of science on tropical cyclones and climate change. The statements have been released today through the Instituto Meteorologico Nacional, San Jose, Costa Rica. Anyone referencing this post or the statements, please do acknowledge them as the source.

We are pleased that the WMO statements are 100% consistent with the views on this subject that we have been sharing over the past few years. In particular, it should now be completely unambiguous that those who are representing hurricane impacts as being related to greenhouse gas emissions, without acknowledging that this is not a widely shared perspective among scientists, are either cherry picking the relevant science or misrepresenting the community consensus. As a matter of policy, those interested in addressing the impacts of tropical cyclones on people and economies necessarily should be focued on adaptive responses. We have obviously made this case for a while, now there is no ambiguity.

Read on for details on the content of the statements.

The summary statement (PDF) is one page and reflects a consensus among all particpants (125 people from 34 countries) at the just-concluded International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones in Costa Rica. The statement describes its authorship as follows:

The global community of tropical cyclone researchers and forecasters as represented at the 6th International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones of the World Meteorological Organization has released a statement on the links between anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change and tropical cyclones, including hurricanes and typhoons.

The ten consensus statements are as follows:

Consensus Statements by International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones-VI (IWTC-VI) Participants
1. Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point.

2. No individual tropical cyclone can be directly attributed to climate change.

3. The recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

4. Tropical cyclone wind-speed monitoring has changed dramatically over the last few decades, leading to difficulties in determining accurate trends.

5. There is an observed multi-decadal variability of tropical cyclones in some regions whose causes, whether natural, anthropogenic or a combination, are currently being debated. This variability makes
detecting any long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity difficult.

6. It is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone peak wind-speed and rainfall will occur if the climate continues to warm. Model studies and theory project a 3-5% increase in wind-speed per
degree Celsius increase of tropical sea surface temperatures.

7. There is an inconsistency between the small changes in wind-speed projected by theory and modeling versus large changes reported by some observational studies.

8. Although recent climate model simulations project a decrease or no change in global tropical cyclone numbers in a warmer climate, there is low confidence in this projection. In addition, it is unknown how tropical cyclone tracks or areas of impact will change in the future.

9. Large regional variations exist in methods used to monitor tropical cyclones. Also, most regions have no measurements by instrumented aircraft. These significant limitations will continue to make detection of trends difficult.

10. If the projected rise in sea level due to global warming occurs, then the vulnerability to tropical cyclone storm surge flooding would increase.

In addition the WMO has released a lengthy statement (PDF) co-authored by the WMO Tropical Meteorology Research Programme Committee, with members, John McBride (Australia, Committee Chair); Kerry Emanuel, Thomas Knutson, Chris Landsea, Greg Holland, Hugh Willoughby (USA); Johnny Chan, C-Y Lam (Hong Kong, China); Julian Heming (United Kingdom), Jeff Kepert (Australia).

The Committee's statement describes its purpose as follows:

This statement was developed, discussed and endorsed at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Sixth International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones, San Jose Costa Rica, November 2006. These invitation-only WMO International Tropical Cyclone Workshops are held every four years to bring together researchers and practitioners in the field of tropical cyclone forecasting. The Sixth Workshop was attended by 125 delegates from 34 different countries and regions. The Statement has been requested by WMO leadership and many heads of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services so they can respond to questions from the media, and also to assist in advising their governments on future activities and how to respond to climate change effects.

The statement includes the following conclusions:

On debate surrounding the trends documented in the Emanuel and Webster et al. papers from 2005: "This is still hotly debated area for which we can provide no definitive conclusion."

On what to expect for the future: "Given the consistency between high resolution global models, regional hurricane models and MPI theories, it is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone intensity will occur if the climate continues to warm."

On attribution of recent storms and seasons: "The possibility that greenhouse gas induced global warming may have already caused a substantial increase in some tropical cyclone indices has been raised (e.g. Mann and Emanuel, 2006), but no consensus has been reached on this issue."

On the societal factors driving losses: "Recent decades have seen a continuous increase in economic damage and disruption by tropical cyclones. This has been caused, to a large extent, by increasing coastal populations, by increasing insured values in coastal areas (e.g., Pielke 2005) and, perhaps, a rising sensitivity of modern societies to disruptions of infrastructure. For developing countries large loss of human life will continue as the increasing coastal populations are a result of population growth and social factors that are not easily countered (Zapata-Marti, 2006)."

On the expectations of new knowledge in this area: "Because of the rapid advances being made with this research, the findings in this statement may be soon superceded by new findings. It is recommended that a careful watch on the published literature be maintained."

Bottom line?

The perspective that we have provided here over the past several years and summarized in two BAMS articles has held up extremely well.

Posted on November 30, 2006 01:41 PM View this article | Comments (39)
Posted to Climate Change

Less than A Quarter Inch by 2100

Following up on earlier discussions on the Mass. vs. EPA Supreme Court oral arguments and specifically on the issue of standing and redressibility, here are some numbers on the effects of the emissions reductions being discussed in the oral arguments and their effects on future sea level rise.

Assume the following:

A. Sea level will at an average of 3 mm/year

B. Of this 1 mm/year is already committed to (e.g., due to non-human causes, human caused due to past GHG emissions)

C. Emissions reductions have an instantaneous effect on sea level rise and that effect if proportional to the total emissions (of course this is not true, but makes this exercise easier, and makes my analysis conservative as emission reductions actually have less than this effect)

Under these assumptions what would the effects of EPA regulation as discussed yesterday be on future sea level rise?

Let’s go out to 2100 and assume that regulations are in place and successful by 2010 (not realistic, but again conservative).

90 years of Business as usual (BAU) * 3 mm/year = 270 mm = 10.63 inches

90 years of BAU minus 2.5% = 90 + 175.5 = 265.5 mm = 10.45 inches

Time delay until 270 mm is reached = 18 months

(If you would prefer to apply the effects of emissions reductions to the full 3 mm/year, then the numbers are 263.25 mm = 10.36 inches = 27 months)

What does this mean?

The maximum effect if reducing global emissions by 2.5% (i.e., as suggested in oral arguments yesterday) would be to reduce projected sea level rise by a less than a fifth of an inch in 2100. In other words, the sea level that would have occurred in January, 2100 would be put off until June, 2101. If you’d prefer to apply the effects of future emissions reductions of 2.5% to the total sea level rise (i.e., ignoring the existing commitment) then the numbers are a quarter inch and March, 2102.

Are these meaningful with respect to redressing damages? In my opinion, no they are not. In fact, I would argue that there is in fact no difference in damages that exists at a difference of less than a quarter inch of sea level.

Seems to me that these numbers might have been raised in the arguments at some point.

Posted on November 30, 2006 10:39 AM View this article | Comments (70)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 29, 2006

Quick Reactions to Arguments Today before the Supreme Court on Mass. vs. EPA

The transcript of arguments before the Supreme Court is available here in PDF. A good overview of the hearing from an expert on the Supreme Court can be found here. In what follows I provide some excerpts from the oral arguments and my reactions to them. In my judgment neither side did a particularly effective job on the substantive issues associated with climate impacts, and the issue of redressibility in particular. I do not have any opinions worth considering on the legal aspects of the case, nor do I have any strong views on what will happen. Please read on for my comments on the oral arguments.

People appearing below, in addition to Supreme Court Justices:

JAMES R. MILKEY, ESQ., Assistant Attorney General, Boston, Mass; on behalf of Petitioners [Mass.].

GREGORY C. GARRE, ESQ., Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; on behalf of Respondents [EPA].

JUSTICE SCALIA: I gather that there's something of a consensus on warming, but not a consensus on how much of that is attributable to human activity. [p. 5]

This statement is incorrect. The IPCC stated in 2001 that, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.” (PDF) Not 100% of scientists agree with this statement of course, and it is very imprecise.

MR. MILKEY: And in any event, it is important to point out that because of the scale of the problem, relatively small percentage deductions in global emissions can lead to real world results. [p. 8]

This statement is incorrect. A relatively small percentage reduction in global emissions will not lead to detectable real world outcomes with respect to sea level rise. What is "small"? In the context of this conversation is it 2.5% of total global emissions.

MR. MILKEY: . . . But it's important that given the nature of the harms, even small reductions can be significant. For example, if we're able to save only a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars that Massachusetts parks agencies are projected to lose, that reduction is itself significant.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: That assumes everything else is going to remain constant, though, right? It assumes there isn't going to be a greater contribution of greenhouse gases from economic development in China and other places that's going to displace whatever marginal benefit you get here.

MR. MILKEY: Yes, Your Honor. But reducing domestic emissions will reduce our harm, the harm we would otherwise face regardless of what -

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Not if your harm is the alleged loss of coastline. Not necessarily. It depends upon what happens across the globe with respect to greenhouse emissions.

MR. MILKEY: Your Honor, we would still lose coastline but we would not lose as much because these harms are cumulative, and while reducing U.S. emissions will not eliminate all the harm we face, it can reduce the harm that these emissions are causing.
So it will necessarily reduce our harm and satisfy redressibility.

JUSTICE SCALIA: I mean, do we know that that's a straight line ratio, that a reduction of two-and-a-half percent of carbon dioxide -- well, two and a half overall would save two-and-a-half percent of your coastline? Is that how it works? I'm not a scientist, but I'd be surprised if it was so rigid.

MR. MILKEY: Your Honor, I don't believe it's established it's necessarily a straight line. But I want to emphasize that small vertical rises cause a large loss of horizontal land. For example, where the slope is less than 2 percent, which is true of much of the Massachusetts coastline, every foot rise will create a loss of more than 50 feet of horizontal land. And for example, in the State of New York, the Oppenheimer affidavit projects that New York could well lose thousands of acres of its sovereign territory by the year 2020. So the harm is already occurring. It is ongoing and it will happen well into the future. [pp. 11-13]

Mr. Milkey offers a very misleading and incorrect argument in this instance. Reducing emissions by a small amount will not save parts of the coastline. At best, it will delay the time for which sea level rise will occur, and by only a very small amount of time. At the levels being discussed here, again about 2.5% of global emissions (based on today’s emissions, it will be a smaller percentage in the future), it is unlikely that such a reduction would be discernible in future sea level rise.

This exchange points to an area where the scientific community has been grossly neglectful. There is very little work available that clearly explains the effects of different marginal emissions reductions on future specific climate impacts (e.g., sea level rise, hurricanes, drought, etc. — and not global average temperature as measured in hundredths of degrees). One reason for this oversight is of course that the answer in almost all cases the effects are almost nil on time scales of many decades, if not longer.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Milkey, I had -- my problem is precisely on the impermissible grounds. To be sure, carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and it can be an air pollutant. If we fill this room with carbon dioxide, it could be an air pollutant that endangers health. But I always thought an air pollutant was something different from a stratospheric pollutant, and your claim here is not that the pollution of what we normally call "air" is endangering health. That isn't, that isn't -- your assertion is that after the pollutant leaves the air and goes up into the stratosphere it is contributing to global warming.
MR. MILKEY: Respectfully, Your Honor, it is not the stratosphere. It's the troposphere.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I'm not a scientist.
(Laughter.)

JUSTICE SCALIA: That's why I don't want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth. [pp. 22-23]

Justice Scalia clearly does not understand the science of climate change at a particularly sophisticated level. But that does not make him unique -- Nor apparently does anyone else speaking today.

Note that Justice Scalia does identify carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

JUSTICE STEVENS: I find it interesting that the scientists whose worked on that [2001 NRC] report said [in an amicus brief] there were a good many omissions that would have indicated that there wasn't nearly the uncertainty that the agency described.
MR. GARRE: Your Honor, if you are referring to the amicus brief, Your Honor, there are -- assuming there are amicus briefs on the other side. The Ballunas amicus brief -- I think it is fair for the Court to look at, to look at the document that the agency had before it. That -- that document produced by the National Research -- Research Council, that's the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences. And it's one of the gold standards of research.

JUSTICE STEVENS: But in their selective quotations, they left out parts that indicated there was far less uncertainty than the agency purported to find.

MR. GARRE: Well, Your Honor, I think one thing that we ought to be able to agree on is there is that there is uncertainty surrounding the phenomenon of global climate change. I think the debate is on which areas are more uncertain than the others. But certainly I think the agency was entitled to conclude, particularly if you take into account the deference this Court should give to that kind of determination, that the scientific uncertainty surrounding the issue of global climate change, surrounding issues of the extent of natural variability in climate, surrounding the issues of impact of climate feedbacks like ocean circulation, and low cloud cover, are permissible considerations for the agency to take into --

JUSTICE STEVENS: Is there uncertainty on the basic proposition that these greenhouse gases contribute to global warming?

MR. GARRE: Your Honor, the report says that it is likely that there is a -- a connection, but that it cannot unequivocally be established. I think that -if I could use that to go back to the standing question, Your Honor, which is the fundamental question of whether they've showed not just a connection between greenhouse gas emissions in toto and the phenomenon of global climate change, but the particular class of greenhouse gas emissions at issue in this case. Six percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, at most. That assumes you put all U.S. vehicles off the road or that they are all zero emission cars. So you're talking about emissions – [pp. 29-31]

Mr. Garre does himself no favors with this exchange. A connection between greenhouse gases and climate change has been established. Mr. Garre doesn’t seem to know what he wants to say about uncertainties. This exchange highlights the dangers of cherrypicking. Instead of making his case, Mr. Garre finds himself explaining away the earlier cherrypicking of the NRC report.

JUSTICE SOUTER: Let's assume the rest -let's assume that the rest of the world does nothing. I don't think that's a very reasonable assumption, but let's make that assumption. So that the only thing we're talking is the 6 percent [ie., the total of U.S. auto emissions as a percentage of global emissions]. If the 6 percent can be reduced -- I think the suggestion was over a reasonable period of time, by two and a half percent of the 6, there is, I suppose, reason to expect that there will be, maybe not two and a half percent less coastline lost, but some degree of less coastline lost because there is a correlation between the gas and the loss of the coastline. Why is that an unreasonable assumption to make in order to show causation and redressibility, bearing in mind that redressibility is a question of more or less, not a question of either/or. . .
They don't have to show that it will stop global warming. Their point is that will reduce the degree of global warming and likely reduce the degree of loss, if it is only by two and a half percent. What's wrong with that?

MR. GARRE: Justice Souter, their burden is to show that if the Court grants their requested relief it will redress their injuries. I'm not aware -

JUSTICE SOUTER: Not redress their injury in the sense that it will prevent any global warming or stop global warming and stop coastal erosion; their argument is a different one. It will reduce the degree of global warming and reduce the degree of coastal loss. [pp. 35-36]

Here Mr. Garre faced a hanging curve over the fat part of the plate and fanned. In other words, for our non-baseball literate readers, Mr. Garre had a chance to provide an authoritative answer to Justice Souter’s question which could have addressed Mr. Souter's concern and better made his case, but he did not.

JUSTICE SOUTER: But isn't it intuitively reasonable to suppose that with some reduction of the greenhouse gases, there will be some reduction of the ensuing damage or the ensuing climate change which causes the damage? Isn't that fair? p. 37

Justice Souter, like others, displays his lack of familiarity with the issue of climate change. His statement is logical and reasonable, but wrong. "Some reduction" of greenhouse gases (i.e., of the amounts being discussed in this case) will have no discernible effects on sea level rise. These reductions will not, as Justice Souter suggests, reduce damages. If anyone has a study suggesting the contrary, please share it.

MR. GARRE: That's right, Your Honor. We've got a unique collective action problem, and yet, the reaction experience of the agency in dealing with the issue of stratospheric ozone depletion rate had precisely that situation, where the U.S. initially took steps. The stratospheric ozone depletion worsened, and it was only after international agreement was reached in the Montreal Protocol that a global solution to the problem was reached. [p. 50]

Mr. Garre mischaracterizes the history of the ozone issue and the role of the United States. It was in fact U.S. action that motivated the international response, and the U.S. action was motivated by a lawsuit filed against EPA. However, that precedent is not directly relevant in this case. Why doesn’t he know this? For details, see this post.

Posted on November 29, 2006 01:43 PM View this article | Comments (41)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 28, 2006

Mugging Little Old Ladies and Reasoning by Analogy

[Updated 21:52 28 Nov 06]

Stanford’s Ken Caldeira provides an interesting, and I think unhelpful, analogy for how we might think about climate policy in the 20 November 2006 issue of the New Yorker in an article by Elizabeth Kolbert on carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans:

The term "ocean acidification" was coined in 2003 by two climate scientists, Ken Caldeira and Michael Wickett, who were working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in Northern California. . . ~~Caldeira told me that he had chosen the term "ocean acidification" quite deliberately, for its shock value. . .~~ [According to Calderia, Kolbert has misquoted him. See comments. RP]
Caldeira said that he had recently gone to Washington to brief some members of Congress. "I was asked, 'What is the appropriate stabilization target for atmospheric CO2?' he recalled. "And I said, 'Well, I think it's inappropriate to think in terms of stabilization targets. I think we should think in terms of emissions targets.' And they said, 'O.K., what's the appropriate emissions target?' And I said, 'Zero.'

"If you’re talking about mugging little old ladies, you don’t say, 'What’s our target for the rate of mugging little old ladies?' You say, 'Mugging little old ladies is bad, and we’re going to try to eliminate it.' You recognize you might not be a hundred per cent successful, but your goal is to eliminate the mugging of little old ladies. And I think we need to eventually come around to looking at carbon-dioxide emissions the same way."

Analogies matter in policy debate. For instance, should we think of Iraq like the Vietnam War, the French in Algeria, or is the situation now a "civil war"? Public debate over contested policy issues often involves different interests seeking to define the policy problem in different ways – and hence limit the scope of acceptable alternatives in response. Analogical reasoning is central to battles over the framing of a policy problem.

For several reasons, Prof. Caldeira’s choice of analogies is less-than-helpful for the cause for which he is advocating. (And for the record, I support action on climate policy, as discussed in my summer, 2006 congressional testimony -- PDF.) Most significantly from the standpoint of framing of the climate problem, mugging little old ladies is a criminal activity while emitting greenhouse gases is not a criminal activity. Juxtaposing the two only adds to the perception of extremism among advocates of action on energy policies.

As an example, of these dynamics, it was not long after the phrase "climate change denier" became in vogue (and also adopted by activist scientists) that we heard an analogy -- which easily followed from the parallel construction to "Holocaust deniers" -- suggesting trials and executions for the climate change deniers. Surely this sort of analogical reasoning did not advance the political cause of those advocating rapid reductions in emissions.

~~Prof. Caldeira also explains that he seeks to "shock" with his terminology of "ocean acidification."~~ Seeking to motivate particular policy actions with scientific results – or a dramatic presentation of scientific results – is rarely effective or good for science, as we discussed last week. As Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr have written,

The costs of stirring up fear are high. It sacrifices the otherwise so highly valued principle of sustainability. A scarce resource - public attention and trust in the reliability of science - is used up without being renewed by the practice of positive examples.

The truth is that the uptake of carbon dioxide by the oceans is something that should capture our attention – whether we call it "ocean acidification" or not. But for the vast majority of people and policy makers there are far more immediate and compelling justifications to provide policy makers for beginning the decades-long challenge of reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Some of these reasons include saving money, increasing efficiency, reducing particulate air pollution, and reducing reliance on foreign sources of energy. Framing problems in terms of what actually matters to people is going to make action more likely that offering up scary science or misleading analogies.

Posted on November 28, 2006 07:23 AM View this article | Comments (45)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

November 27, 2006

Why don’t you write about __________?

Over the past week I have received the following two juxtaposed comments about what we focus on here at Prometheus. They are pretty typical of the sort of comments that I have received in the past, hence this response.

What still amazes me is that you can so clearly see [misrepresentations in policy arguments] going on in the area of your expertise and seemingly not recognize the same mischief in other areas of the science, from glaciers to solar variability. If the same people get it so terribly wrong here, why not there?

And also:

Why do you attack [Al Gore] on your site but not climate change deniers Fred Singer or Pat Michaels? Perhaps this tells us something about your own biases. Al Gore may have made a few mistakes but he is far more accurate than the oil industry shills that you seem to conveniently overlook.

Question: Why don’t I write about glaciers, solar variability, Fred Singer, or Pat Michaels?

Answer: I don’t know anything special about glaciers, solar variability, or the issues which are often discussed by Fred Singer or Pat Michaels. By contrast, I do know something about disasters and climate change. In fact, I know a lot, perhaps as much as only a few dozen people.

On disasters and climate change I can speak with authority, because I know the literature deeply and I have conducted a wide range of original studies in this area. When I am asked to comment on other topics my expertise drops off – precipitously. By commenting on these issues I would in effect simply be witnessing to who it is that I trust. So instead of offering inexpert commentary (which can be found in abundance elsewhere on blogs) we often rely on solicited and unsolicited guest weblogs, such as provided by Richard Tol on the Stern Report, and we sometimes invite competing perspectives to share their views here, as we did last year on the policy significance of the "hockey stick" debate. We are also have discussed plans for turning Prometheus into a more consistently multi-authored site with a range of expertise and perspectives on tap.

So lets cut to the chase -- do I trust those wacked alarmists or those nefarious skeptics? By answering this question, some might think, it would be far easier to classify me in a tribal category – "is he with us, or them"?

Truth is, based on my front-row seat view of the science of climate change, I don’t much trust the alarmists or the skeptics and by this I mean both (a) those political advocates couching their arguments in terms of science and (b) those scientists who have taken on the role of political advocates. I have been for many years convinced based on my own academic training and a "dinner table" degree in aspects of climate science that we should indeed be concerned about greenhouse gas emissions and other human influences on climate. But what I have also observed in my years inside the climate community is that it is deeply politicized throughout. This doesn’t mean that we need not be concerned about the human effects on climate. But what it does mean is that we need to take far more care with the relationship of climate science and climate policy, a responsibility that I believe requires the attention of the scientific community.

Question: Who is it then that I do trust?

Answer: Well, many of the non-skeptic heretics. And you should too. When the politics of climate change settles out over coming years and decades, these are the folks whose intellectual policy arguments will be left standing.

Meantime, if you are in fact looking for commentary from me on issues of climate change outside my own expertise, there will undoubtedly continue to be a few such musings that slip through on occasion – such is the nature of blogs. But for the most part (on climate change at least) I plan on generally sticking to what I know. Some of you may wish to see a political signal in this focus (as the two commenters that I opened with did, ironically enough in diffeent directions), which is perhaps unavoidable. As far as those of you interested in my own political leanings, here you go.

Posted on November 27, 2006 06:43 AM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

November 24, 2006

Tol on Nordhaus on Stern

Whatever you might happen to think about Richard Tol's views, he cannot be criticized for being indirect. The statement below I have elevated from our comments. It is one of seveal gems from Richard in the past few weeks, and provides a cogent summary of why it is that solid policy arguments matter in political discourse -- whether the subject is climate change or WMDs or whatever.

I cannot speak for Nordhaus, but I have known him for many years and carefully read all his papers on climate change.
Nordhaus indeed favours climate policy, specifically greenhouse gas emission reduction. The House of Lords report also seems to favour climate policy -- its main author, David Pearce, was a strong advocate for sure. Indeed, any economist I know who seriously studied climate change, has come out in favour of emission reduction.

That does not imply that there is agreement with Stern.

Nordhaus and others have berated Stern for a number of technical errors and wild exageration. Qualitatively, Stern may be correct -- but quantitatively, Stern is very wrong.

There are several problems with that. Firstly, a supposedly eminent economist made a fool of himself in the public eye. This increases the general distrust of the public. Secondly, anyone who dislikes climate policy can quote Stern to demonstrate what fools climate policy advocates are.

Stern did not provide an argument for climate policy, but ammunition for the skeptics.

Besides, he has forced people like Nordhaus to waste precious time on refuting a silly argument. To the general public, the message of people like Nordhaus must be very confusing: Stern is wrong but right nonetheless.

Really, climate policy would have been in a better place without Nick Stern.

Posted on November 24, 2006 09:31 AM View this article | Comments (24)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 22, 2006

William Nordhaus on The Stern Report

Here is a link to Willian Norhaus' review of the The Stern Report (PDF). It is worth reading in full. Prof. Nordhaus provides the following "summary verdict."

How much and how fast should the globe reduce greenhouse-gas emissions? How should nations balance the costs of the reductions against the damages and dangers of climate change? The Stern Review answers these questions clearly and unambiguously: we need urgent, sharp, and immediate reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.
I am reminded here of President Harry Truman’s complaint that his economists would always say, on the one hand this and on the other hand that. He wanted a one-handed economist. The Stern Review is a Prime Minister’s dream come true. It provides decisive and compelling answers instead of the dreaded conjectures, contingencies, and qualifications.

However, a closer look reveals that there is indeed another hand to these answers. The radical revision of the economics of climate change proposed by the Review does not arise from any new economics, science, or modeling. Rather, it depends decisively on the assumption of a near-zero social discount rate. The Review’s unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of discounting assumptions that are consistent with today’s market place. So the central questions about global-warming policy – how much, how fast, and how costly – remain open. The Review informs but does not answer these fundamental questions.

Posted on November 22, 2006 08:45 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 20, 2006

Al Gore at His Best, and Worst

In yesterday’s Telegraph (UK) Al Gore has a lengthy article on climate change science and policy. In the piece Mr. Gore includes an egregious and unquestionable misrepresentation of the science of disasters and climate change. This is unfortunate, because it detracts from a compelling argument for action in the same piece.

Mr. Gore starts out, ironically enough, asserting the importance of peer-reviewed science. I call this ironic because the misrepresentation that follows (a) hasn’t been peer reviewed, and (b) the peer-reviewed literature contradicts the misrepresentation. Here is what Mr. Gore says about the peer reviewed literature:

[T]here is a reason why new scientific research is peer-reviewed and then published in journals such as Science, Nature, and the Geophysical Research Letters, rather than the broadsheets. The process is designed to ensure that trained scientists review the framing of the questions that are asked, the research and methodologies used to pursue the answers offered and even, in some cases, to monitor the funding of the laboratories — all in order to ensure that errors and biases are detected and corrected before reaching the public.

Shouldn’t this also apply to the claims that Mr. Gore makes, and not just his opponents? Here is the misrepresentation:

And with regards to some of the financial implications suggested by the Stern report, one need only look to the insurance industry for validation of the potential costs of global warming. On Wednesday, the reinsurance giant Munich Re reported, "driven by climate change, weather related disasters could cost as much as a trillion dollars in a single year by 2040".

We discussed this particular misrepresentation in depth in a post last week and discussed the Stern report’s misrepresentation the week before in this post. As I have said on many occasions, I am neither surprised nor too concerned that a politician would stretch the facts to advance his political agenda. What concerns me is that many scientists have been complicit in advancing such mischaracterizations and remain selectively mute when they are made. In this manner, a large portion of the mainstream climate science community has taken on the unfortunate characteristics of politicians like Mr. Gore, deciding to uphold scientific standards only when politically convenient. This is one way how science becomes pathologically politicized.

Mr. Gore’s misrepresentation is unfortunate because he makes a compelling argument for why action on climate change makes sense based on short-term benefits, a point a made in congressional testimony (PDF) last summer. Here is Mr. Gore’s argument for the short-term benefits for action on climate change:

Some of the policies detailed in the [Stern] report include: increasing global public energy research and development funding, dramatically reducing waste through energy efficiency measures, expanding and linking emissions trading systems and carbon markets, multiplying programmes to reduce deforestation of natural areas such as Amazonia, and continuing to set aggressive domestic and global targets to reduce the pollution that causes global warming. None of these policy measures should cause alarm.
In fact, not only are they rational, but also they have substantial co-benefits, which include increased air quality, improved access to energy among the rural poor in developed countries, further independence from foreign sources of energy in volatile and unstable regions of the world, and, of course, the obvious opportunities in the new markets developing for low carbon technologies.

We need more good arguments like this and less misrepresentation.

Posted on November 20, 2006 01:37 AM View this article | Comments (45)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

November 16, 2006

What is Wrong with Politically-Motivated Research?

This quote from Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen provides a clear example of seeking political ends through science:

Prominent scientists, among them a Nobel laureate, said a layer of pollution deliberately spewed into the atmosphere could act as a "shade" from the sun's rays and help cool the planet.
Reaction to the proposal here at the annual U.N. conference on climate change is a mix of caution, curiosity and some resignation to such "massive and drastic" operations, as the chief U.N. climatologist describes them.

The Nobel Prize-winning scientist who first made the proposal is himself "not enthusiastic about it."

"It was meant to startle the policymakers," said Paul J. Crutzen, of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. "If they don't take action much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this." [Emphasis added. RP]

In 2004 I characterized (in PDF) the "politicization of science by scientists" as "the use of science by scientists as a means of negotiating for desired political outcomes." Dr. Crutzen's description of his work clearly fits this definition.

I characterized the problem with such a strategy as follws, "many scientists encourage the mapping of established interests from across the political spectrum onto science and then use science as a proxy for political battle over these interests."

Why does this matter? "when politics is played out through science with the acquiescence and even facilitation of scientists, the results can serve to foster political gridlock to the detriment of science and policy alike because science alone is incapable of forcing a political consensus."

Starting with a desired political outcome and then generating the science to support that outcome is not the most effective way for science to support policy, even coming from a Nobel laureate.

Posted on November 16, 2006 12:59 PM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics | The Honest Broker

November 15, 2006

Looking Away from Misrepresentations of Science in Policy Debate Related to Disasters and Climate Change

For me the most amazing aspect of the repeated misrepresentation of science related to disasters and climate change is not that political advocates look to cherry pick science or go beyond the state of the science. What is most amazing is that in the face of incontrovertible and repeated misrepresentation that the overwhelming majority of scientists, the media, and responsible advocacy groups have remained mute (with a few notable exceptions such as Hans von Storch).

More than anything else, even the misrepresentations themselves, the collective willingness to overlook bad policy arguments unsupported (or even contradicted) by the current state of science while at the same time trumpeting the importance of scientific consensus is evidence of the comprehensive and pathological politicization of science in the policy debate over global warming. If climate scientists ever wonder why they are looked upon with suspicion among some people in society, they need look no further in their willingness to compromise their own intellectual standards in policy debate on the issue of disasters and climate change.

Here are just some of the misrepresentations of science in policy discussions related to disasters and climate change from the Prometheus archives:

Misrepresentation by ABI of UK Foresight flood assessment

Misrepresentation by UNEP of disaster loss trends

Misrepresentation by former head of IPCC of disaster loss trends

Misrepresentation by New York Times of trends in disaster losses

Misrepresentation by editor of Science of detection and attribution of trends in extreme events

Misrepresentation by editor of Science of attribution of Katrina to greenhouse gas emissions

Misrepresentation of literature of disaster trends and climate in article in Science

Misrepresentation by lead IPCC author responsible for hurricane chapter of attribution of Katrina to greenhouse gas emissions

Misrepresentation of ABI report on future tropical cyclone losses

Misrepresentation by Al Gore of state of hurricane science and attribution of Katrina

Misrepresentation by Time of science of hurricanes and attribution of Katrina

Misrepresentation by IPCC WG II of storm surge impacts research

Misrepresentation by AGU of science of seasonal hurricane forecast skill

Misrepresentation by Environmental Defense of attribution of Katrina to greenhouse gases and prospects for avoiding future hurricanes

Misrepresentation in the Washington Post of the science of disaster trends and future impacts

Misrepresentation in Stern report of trends in disaster losses and projections of future costs

Misrepresentation by UNEP of trends and projections in disaster losses

Posted on November 15, 2006 10:42 AM View this article | Comments (25)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

November 14, 2006

More Climate and Disaster Nonsense

Debunking nonsense related to disaster losses and climate change is getting to be a full time job. The latest misleading information is uncritically reported by Reuters and comes from a report commissioned by UNEP. Reuters reports:

Losses from extreme weather could top $1 trillion in a single year by 2040, a partnership of the United Nations Environment Programme and private finance institutions (UNEP FI) warned on Tuesday.
Speaking at a major U.N. climate meeting in Kenya, they said the estimated cost of droughts, storm surges, hurricanes and floods reached a record $210 billion in 2005, and such losses linked to global warming were seen doubling every 12 years.

"This is an unequivocal statement by 15 of the largest financial institutions: Climate change is now certain," Paul Clements-Hunt of UNEP FI told a news conference.

The $1 trillion figure comes from a report commissioned by UNEP, released today (PDF). The report states:

The following scenario constructed by Andlug Consulting presents one possible pathway that climatic losses might follow in coming decades, and suggests how the financial sector might be affected. It is NOT a prediction, but like all scenarios, is intended to explore the future so that better plans can be made.
The trend value for economic losses in 2005 is 50 billion USD ( Figure 7). Industry analysts reckon that this is about half the total losses, which therefore are 100 billion USD. The long-term trend of six percent annual growth means the costs double every 12 years, taking them to 800 billion USD by 2041, in 2005 values. However, great disasters always appear in clusters: Figure 7 shows that one year in three, the costs are 50 percent higher than the trend-line. In fact they were more than double the trend value in 1992, 1993 and 2005. Making allowance for such clusters, and for the inclusion of all societal and opportunity costs, it seems very likely that the there will be a “peak” year that will record costs of over 1 trillion USD before 2040. In fact, since so much development is taking place in coastal zones, the figure may arrive considerably before 2040.

The $1 trillion is therefore not linked to global warming but an extension of current loss trends into the future. This is a point that we made at the AGU one year ago and which was reported responsibly by Kenneth Chang of the New York Times 11 December, 2005 (link, registration required). That NYT article said, "With wealth and property values increasing, and more people moving to vulnerable coasts, by the year 2020 a single storm could cause losses of $500 billion -- several times the damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina." It is no stretch to get from $500B in 2020 to $1 trillion by 2040. Of course, the size of the economy grows over that time frame as well.

Further, the UNEP analysis was prepared by Andlug Consulting, which is run by Andrew Dlugolecki, a participant in our Hohenkammer workshop of last May. At the workshop all participants agreed to the following consensus statements (report):

Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions . . . In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.

Hence, the projection of the possibility of a $1 trillion disaster year is independent of projected effects of human-caused changes to the climate system on the intensity or frequency of extreme events.

Bottom line: The UNEP report does not say what the representative of UNEP said it did. Nor does it say what has been reported in the major media, including the Reuters report. This is unfortunate because the UNEP-report has some valuable information on the importance of adaptation in the face of continuing growth in vulnerability to disasters. Effective policy on climate is unlikely to develop if the UN and the media are providing misleading or incorrect analyses. As Richard Tol said here last week, unsound analyses only provide fodder for those skeptical of action on climate change.

Posted on November 14, 2006 05:20 PM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

November 13, 2006

Tom Yulsman: Beyond Balance?

[This entry is by Tom Yulsman, professor of journalism, University of Colorado. -Ed.]

Last Tuesday, the New York Times published a fascinating story by William Broad about paleoclimate reconstructions stretching back as far as half a billion years. (See: Broad stroy) The article noted that some evidence from the very deep past cast doubt on carbon dioxide’s role in global warming.

That day, one environmental reporter I know commented that the story could lead some readers to think that scientists were significantly split on the overall question of whether humans are causing global warming, and whether this should be of concern.

This gets at an issue that has been a topic of intense discussion among journalists as well as scientists — something that has come to be called "false balance." Research shows that at least until a year or so ago, journalists have been biased in their coverage of global warming by giving equal emphasis to scientists who believe humans are significantly altering the climate and those who do not. In their drive to be fair and balanced, journalists have actually misled the public into believing that opinion on this issue is evenly split, which of course it is not. (See article in PDF and this link)

But in the last year, this form of false balance seems to have faded. I don’t have data to back this up, so it is only an anecdotal observation Suffice it to say that I see far fewer articles on global warming that reflexively give equal footing to skeptics. To borrow from Roger’s terminology, journalism has moved on from simplistic "global warming: yes or no?" coverage. Most journalists now accept that on the very broad question of whether human beings are causing global warming, and whether we should be concerned about the future, the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the answer is "yes." Every story on global warming does not now have to rehash the "yes or no?" debate with dueling scientists. And I think that’s a good thing.

But now coverage may be going too far in the other direction. In Time magazine last March, for example, Jeffrey Kluger (a very good friend, and a fabulous reporter, I might add) wrote this: "No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth." Fair enough. But then he referred to Cyclone Larry (a Category 4 storm), and the "sodden wreckage of New Orleans." Natural disasters have long been with us, he acknowledged. "But when they hit this hard and come this fast — when the emergency becomes commonplace — something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming." (See: link)

The story is bolstered by good reporting of solid science. And I happen to believe that even if the story had included all the necessary caveats and uncertainties, the cover headline, "Global Warming: Be Worried. Be Very Worried," would have been justified. We should be worried. But unfortunately, the caveats and uncertainties were given short shrift. For example, the story notes research that finds a link between global warming and a rise in strong hurricanes and average hurricane intensity. But it does not explain that the scientific verdict is still very much out on this question, let alone quote an expert to that effect. The possible link is simply described as a fact.

Now Bill Broad’s N.Y. Times article on deep paleoclimate research has prompted some journalists to wonder whether we should go back to "global warming: yes or no?" coverage, giving more weight to skeptics than we have as of late. To the extent that the science makes us examine how we cover complex stories such as this, it’s probably a good thing. But the science presented in Bill Broad’s article should not prompt us to go back to "yes or no?" coverage.

The story describes research that is said to cast doubt on the link between carbon dioxide and global warming. In particularly, it describes research showing that when CO2 was very high in the deep past, ice ages still managed somehow to take hold.

So if there is doubt about the role of carbon dioxide in causing warming back then, shouldn’t journalists such as myself doubt its role right now, and therefore give global warming skeptics bigger play in our stories?

Of course not. First, this area of research is at the limit of scientists’ ability to discern meaningful information. The scientists employ climate proxy data stretching back half a billion years. If there's some uncertainty about paleoclimate information stretching back just 800,000 years, how much uncertainty is there in proxy data going back half a billion years? Can we really trust that data?

Another question journalists need to ask: What insights, if any, can we draw about our current climate from information about the climate system of hundreds of millions of years ago? Could the climate system then have operated in different ways than it does today? After all, in many ways it was a radically different world. There weren't even any land plants present half a billion years ago. The continents were in different positions. and the output of solar radiation may have been quite a bit different. The position of the planet relative to the Sun may have been different as well. So here’s my biggest question about this research: Is it fair to draw conclusions about current climate processes from those that may have operated then?

A posting on RealClimate (see: link) suggests we need to be very careful about drawing such conclusions:

Most importantly, one must recognize that while CO2. and other greenhouse gases are a major determinant of climate, they are far from the only determinant, and the farther back in time one goes, the more one must contend with confounding influences which muddy the picture of causality. For example, over time scales of hundreds of millions of years, continental drift radically affects climate by altering the amount of polar land on which ice sheets can form, and by altering the configuration of ocean basins and the corresponding ocean circulation patterns. This affects the deep-time climate and can obscure the CO2-climate connection (see Donnadieu, Pierrehumbert, Jacob and Fluteau, EPSL 2006), but continental drift plays no role whatsoever in determining climate changes over the next few centuries.

The RealClimate post also points out that there are huge uncertainties in estimates of carbon dioxide concentrations dating back hundreds of millions of years. Quite accurate CO2 concentrations going back almost a million years can be obtained from ice cores — the concentrations are determined from samples of the atmosphere trapped in bubbles in the ice. Beyond that, researchers must rely on far fainter, subtler and more uncertain evidence. A plot from the RealClimate post of atmospheric CO2 concentrations shows huge error bars from all but the most recent times. (See plot)

In his article, Broad mentions the uncertainties, quoting Michael Oppenheimer as saying that they "are too great to draw any conclusions right now." But earlier in the piece Broad said that "the experts who peer back millions of years . . . agree that the eon known as the Phanerozoic, a lengthy span from the present to 550 million years ago . . . typically bore concentrations of carbon dioxide that were up to 18 times the levels present in the short reign of Homo sapiens." Whenever I see "experts agree" in a story, a big, flapping red flag goes up in my mind’s eye. Which researchers? Did they all agree with that exact statement? How sure are they? Do they disagree on important details? And in this case, how can it possibly be that researchers in this field agree that CO2 was up to 18 times greater than it is today when the error bars for deep paleo CO2 concentrations are so very large? The story should have emphasized these and other uncertainties much more than it did.

When journalists cover science like this, we like to say that we are only going where the science leads us. I would imagine that this is what Bill Broad would say in defense of his fascinating piece. But with issues like climate change, the science inevitably leads to politics. When journalists stopped giving equal time to global warming skeptics — going where the science led them — the result was a political backlash, including Sen. James Inhofe’s speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate lambasting journalists for biased coverage. I can’t help but suspect that Bill Broad saw his story as a way to restore some lost balance and journalistic credibility, by simply following the science. Once again, fair enough. But for me, the story was an unsatisfying throwback to "global warming: yes or no?" Even more important, by failing to answer key questions and fully describe the caveats and uncertainties, the story lacked appropriate balance. At the same time, it strangely took us back to false balance on the bigger issue of global warming.

Posted on November 13, 2006 05:49 AM View this article | Comments (47)
Posted to Author: Yulsman, T. | Climate Change

November 11, 2006

Interview with Richard Tol

The German magazine WirtschaftsWoche has posted online (auf Deutsch) an interview with economist Richard Tol discussing the economics of climate change. Benny Peiser has provided an English translation which we are happy to re-post here in full.

"WE'VE GOT ENOUGH TIME" - AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD TOL

WirtschaftsWoche, 11 November 2006

The eminent climate economist Richard Tol on climate alarmism and the right strategies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

WirtschaftsWoche (WiWo): Mr. Tol, You have called the report on the financial consequences of climate change by economics professor Sir Nicholas Stern "alarmist". How did you arrive at this judgement?

Tol: I speak of alarmism because Stern, in the summary of his report, estimated the damage [from climate change] to cost between 5 to 20 per cent of global GDP, but he is basing this on extremely pessimistic scenarios. He ignored other studies that estimate damages to be far below one per cent. This is how he arrives at the scary numbers. At the same time, the summary also gives the impression that the five per cent [of GDP damage] commences immediately and will continue for eternity if noting is done to counter it immediately. In the unabridged version, however, it is stated that the five per cent will be reached in 2075 at the earliest. This procedure is temerarious and an unacceptable way of political advice-giving.

WiWo: Now that the ice caps of the poles melt faster than even the leading sceptics have feared, isn't it essential to ring the alarm bells?

Tol: First of all, the report does not review these developments at all, and secondly any alarm does not help. It will take 50 to 100 years to lower the emission of greenhouse gases to an agreeable level. In order to achieve this goal, soberness is demanded.

WiWo: Why did Nicholas Stern sound the alarm nevertheless? He was the chief economist at the World Bank and is generally considered to be a sober person.

Tol: At the outset, the study was a purely academic exercise. Then the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who commissioned the Stern Review, discerned that the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, put the Labour Party increasingly under environmental pressure by portraying himself greener than the government. In order to raise its [environmental] profile, the government thus strongly influenced the tenor of the study.

WiWo: The fact that the earth is warming up due to human behaviour is scientifically beyond doubt. Isn't it then sensible to forcefully steer against it, as Nicholas Stern suggests?

Tol: We must do something and should now begin, that's where I agree with Stern. But there is no risk of damage that would force us to act injudiciously. We've got enough time to look for the economically most effective options rather than dash into 'actionism' which then becomes very expensive.

WiWo: Stern calculates that a forceful fight against global warming is today twenty times cheaper than doing nothing.

Tol: That is completely exaggerated. Stern has set the costs of damage much too high and the costs of emission reduction much too low. This employment of incorrect numbers makes it easy for opponents of climatic protection to evade accepting a consensus. They correctly assert: What the Stern Review claims is rubbish. You can only have an effective climate policy if everyone takes part. We need a long-term solution, and it has to be global one. The Stern Review perturbs this agreement process to the extent that it performs a disservice to the goals of climate protection.

WiWo: How seriously, according to your estimates, are the economic consequences of global warming?

Tol: The situation is serious, but definitely not as seriously as Stern claims. According to my computations the greenhouse effect can cause annual damage of around 0,5 per cent of global GDP. In the next century, when the impact of global warming will be felt fully, the damage could amount to two to four per cent, if nothing would be done about it.

WiWo: What do you suggest as counter measure?

Tol: The means of my choice would be to raise world-wide taxes on emissions. But that is politically not feasible. Thus, emission trading remains as the second best solution. The state allocates certificates to businesses which - at the outset - permit them free emissions of carbon dioxide, as they do today, and without setting secondary costs. However, if they want to produce more, they must either produce more [energy] efficiently or buy from other businesses (which have reduced their carbon dioxide output) certificates at a kind stock exchange. Such a free market system helps the environment.

WiWo: In Europe, such a regulatory system has been in place since last year. Nevertheless, it hasn't had much of an effect.

Tol: That is because of the fact that too many certificates were allocated. Consequently, little money can be made from the sales of certificates at the moment. Thus there are no incentives for lowering CO2-emissions. In order to have any lasting effect, the certificate trade would have to incorporate traffic, households and agriculture, additional greenhouse gases and the whole world economy. Europe alone cannot save the climate.

WiWo: Why should China and India, whose industries still produce a great deal with outdated technologies, join in the certificate trade?

Tol: It is exactly this outdated technology that makes it possible for China and India to achieve large CO2 reductions by way of relatively small investments. They could sell the emissions they reduce to Europe or the USA and could thus make a lot of money.

WiWo: The United Nations is currently trying to agree a new international climate treaty. How promising are such agreements?

Tol: They don't accomplish much as the Kyoto Treaty has already revealed. Only few countries committed themselves to concrete goals at all, only few uphold their obligations, and some, like Canada recently, simply pull out again. And why not - there is no threat of sanctions!

WiWo: Does that mean that 6000 UN delegates in Nairobi are gathering for a useless chit-chat?

Tol: They should concentrate on organising an international trade with certificates and close co-operation regarding the introduction of low-carbon technologies. Unfortunately neither issue is on the agenda. In fact, according to our calculations, world-wide greenhouse gas emissions could be halved in one fell swoop if the world would employ the best available technologies.

WiWo: Isn't it rather utopian to believe that all the countries in the world would agree on uniform technical standards?

Tol: It would often be sufficient if few market-dominating countries made advances in this direction. All the cars of this world, for example, are manufactured in just ten countries. If these countries would agree to reduce pollution output per HP by half in say ten years, that would relieve the environment enormously. The rest of the world would have no choice than to join in. Something similar applies to power stations, for which even fewer countries possess the technology. A bulk of problems would be solved if we succeeded to decouple energy consumption and emission output by means of modern technologies.

WiWo: Should the governments subsidise certain technologies financially?

Tol: We should certainly prevent civil servants to determine what is good or bad in this respect. Policy should be limited to determine certain goals, just like California, for instance, did with regards to car emissions. This would accelerate research and development most effectively.

WiWo: The German government reinforces the employment of renewable energies such as wind and sun. Wouldn't a rapid expansion of nuclear energy protect global climate substantially better?

Tol: The huge amount of money that is flowing into wind energy in Germany is an off-putting example of what happens when governments select the technology. The people who are now earning very well on account of wind turbines had most excellent relations to the formerly Green [Party run] Department of the Environment. Much money is flowing although wind energy is very unreliable and will never provide more than ten per cent of the total energy requirement. In addition, wind energy is expensive and technical progress already today seems to be exhausted to a large extent. Nuclear power can be a solution. In any case, it is more reliable and, most likely, also cheaper in the long term.

WiWo: Some experts believe that it costs less to adapt to climate change instead of stopping it. Are they right?

Tol: We should do both. In order to prevent that rising sea levels flood coastal areas, the building of dykes is an inexpensive solution. But we should not let global warming proceed unconstrained, otherwise we risk that one day the water in the oceans evaporates.

WiWo: Next year, the IPCC, the scientific committee of the UN in charge of assessing climate change, will issue its next report. Is there sufficient economic expertise readily available in the IPCC?

Tol: Unfortunately, not at all. Over the years, the IPCC has become ever greener and the few economists, who were previously involved, have been pushed out. Obviously, this casts doubt on the quality of the results.

WiWo: On a personal note, how confident are you that the climate can be still salvaged?

Tol: I do not see any reason to panic. We've got enough time to act in response. And, it would appear that the Americans and Chinese, the two biggest climate sinners, will soon invest much more in modes of climate protection. The results of the American elections will strengthen climate activists in the USA so that I envisage new concrete climate programmes in the next three years. The Chinese will follow suit in the next decade, not least because otherwise they will be threatened by catastrophic environmental damage. That will generate a huge drive.

Posted on November 11, 2006 09:29 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

November 10, 2006

Interview With Chris Landsea

Thomson Scientific has an interesting interview with NOAA's Chris Landsea online here. In the interview Chris discusses our work on normalized hurricane losses as well as the recent debate over hurricanes and global warming. According to Thomson Scientific, Chris is the 2nd most highly cited scientist in the world on tropical cyclones 1996-February 28, 2006, and he also has the 2nd most cites per paper. You can see an interesting map of the most cited papers on tropical cyclones here.

Posted on November 10, 2006 02:24 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Guardian Op-Ed on Adaptation

Last month I wrote an invited op-ed on the importance of adaptation in climate policy for the Guardian Unlimited, the online website of the Guardian newspaper, published in the UK. There won't be much new to frequent readers here. The op-ed can be found here. Comments welcomed!

Posted on November 10, 2006 02:16 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 06, 2006

Sarewitz and Pielke (2000)

We wrote this piece (in PDF) for The Atlantic Monthly in 2000. It seems to have held up pretty well since then, though it is true that in this piece we don't talk much about energy policy. If climate policy is to do any better than it present performance-- both with respect to adaptation and mitigation -- than a reframing of the issue is going to be necessary. Right now the approach is simply to turn up the volume on a framing that is fundamentally flawed. It's a bit like talking louder to someone who doesn't speak your language. Sure, you'll get their attention, but eventually they'll tune you out.

Have a look at our paper, comments welcomed.

Posted on November 6, 2006 07:04 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 04, 2006

Mike Hulme on the Climate Debate

Mike Hulme, Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has written a thoughtful, accurate, and brave op-ed for the BBC on the curent state of the climate debate. Here is how he begins:

Climate change is a reality, and science confirms that human activities are heavily implicated in this change.
But over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country - the phenomenon of "catastrophic" climate change.

It seems that mere "climate change" was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be "catastrophic" to be worthy of attention.

The increasing use of this pejorative term - and its bedfellow qualifiers "chaotic", "irreversible", "rapid" - has altered the public discourse around climate change.

This discourse is now characterised by phrases such as "climate change is worse than we thought", that we are approaching "irreversible tipping in the Earth's climate", and that we are "at the point of no return".

I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.

It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the (catastrophe) sceptics. How the wheel turns.

His comments about being chastised for not going far enough in his pronouncements on climate change strike a chord very familiar to me. Comments by Mike Hulme echo those made by Steve Rayner, Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr, and others. Could it be that we are seeing the emergence of more responsible leadership on climate change among the scientific community? It sure looks that way.

Thanks Mike for speaking out.

Posted on November 4, 2006 08:30 AM View this article | Comments (25)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

November 02, 2006

Update on Hurricanes and Global Warming

This news story about an all-too-predictable spat between Kevin Trenberth and Bill Gray reminds me that we are overdue to provide an update on the issue of hurricanes and global warming.

In December, 2005, five of us attempted to summarize the state of the science on hurricanes and global warming, including the science of impacts and the policy significance of current understandings. At that time we concluded (PDF) :

. . . the state of the peer-reviewed knowledge today is such that there are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term.

In May of this year we had a chance to once again address this issue in the form of a response to an extended comment on our earlier paper. We concluded by quoting a statement prepared by the World Meteorological Organization’s Tropical Meteorology Research Program Panel in February, 2006(PDF) :

The research issues discussed here are in a fluid state and are the subject of much current investigation. Given time the problem of causes and attribution of the events of 2004–2005 will be discussed and argued in the refereed scientific literature. Prior to this happening it is not possible to make any authoritative comment.

The WMO statement was meaningful because it was coauthored by many of the big names involved in research on hurricanes and climate change. Thanks to the WMO there has been another update made available on the community’s perspective as a result of background papers prepared for an upcoming workshop on tropical cyclones to be held in Costa Rica at the beginning of December.

Two background papers are particularly relevant to the community’s views on hurricanes and climate change. One presents a draft statement for discussion at the Costa Rica workshop prepared by Dr. John McBride, Dr Jeff Kepert (Australia), Prof. Johnny Chan (Hong Kong, China). Julian Heming (United Kingdom). Dr. Greg Holland, Professor Kerry Emanuel, Dr. Thomas Knutson, Dr Hugh Willoughby, Dr. Chris Landsea (USA). It says (PDF):

Emanuel (2005) has produced evidence for a substantial increase in the power of tropical cyclones (denoted by the integral of the cube of the maximum winds over time) during the last 50 years. This result is supported by the findings of Webster et al (2005) that there has been a substantial global increase (nearly 100%) in the proportion of the most severe tropical cyclones (category 4 and 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale), from the period from 1970 to 1995, which has been accompanied by a similar decrease in weaker systems.
The research community is deeply divided over whether the results of these studies are due, at least in part, to problems in the tropical cyclone data base. Precisely, the historical record of tropical cyclone tracks and intensities is a byproduct of real-time operations. Thus its accuracy and completeness changes continuously through the record as a result of the continuous changes and improvements in data density and quality, changes in satellite remote sensing retrieval and dissemination, and changes in training. In particular a step-function change in methodologies for determination of satellite intensity occurred with the introduction of geosynchronous satellites in the mid to late 1970’s.

The division in the community on the Webster et al and on the Emanuel papers is not as to whether Global Warming can cause a trend in tropical cyclone intensities. Rather it is on whether such a signal can be detected in the historical data base. Also it can be difficult to isolate the forced response of the climate system in the presence of substantial decadal and multi-decadal natural variability, such as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation.

Whilst the existence of a large multi-decadal oscillation in Atlantic tropical cyclones is still generally accepted, some scientists believe that a trend towards more intense cyclones is emerging. This is a hotly debated area for which we can provide no definitive conclusion. It is agreed that there is no evidence for a decreasing trend in cyclone intensities. [emphasis added]

A second background paper provides a comprehensive literature review, led by Tom Knutson of NOAA, leading an extremely distinguished and diverse working group consisting of K. Emanuel, S. Emori, J. Evans, G. Holland, C. Landsea, K.-b. Liu, R. E. McDonald, D. Nolan, M. Sugi, Y. Wang. It includes the following statement (PDF):

There are substantial roadblocks both in making reliable future projections about TC activity and in determining whether a trend can be detected in historical TC data.

So based on these recent statements prepared by scientists with very different perspectives in the debate over hurricanes and climate change, I am happy to report that our 2005 and 2006 peer-reviewed papers are holding up extremely well. (As an aside, anyone want to offer odds on whether or not our 2005 paper will be cited by IPCC?;-)

As far as hurricane impacts and hurricane policy, the most relevant update is the report of our May, 2006 workshop in partnership with Munich Re, which can be found here. The consensus presented at this workshop was entirely consistent with our papers on hurricanes and climate change published in 2005 and 2006.

Bottom line? If you want a scientifically accurate and comprehensive perspective on the state of the science of hurricanes and global warming, as well as the significance of the science for societal impacts and policy responses, you could do much worse than our 2005 and 2006 papers, which in my view have held up exceedingly well in the context of a rapidly evolving debate.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, 2005. Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 86:1571-1575. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C.W. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver, R. Pasch, 2006. Reply to Hurricanes and Global Warming Potential Linkages and Consequences, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 87, pp. 628-631. (PDF)

Posted on November 2, 2006 01:10 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

November 01, 2006

The World in Black and White

Fred Pearce at the New Scientist apprently thinks that if you are critical of the IPCC, then you must be one of those nasty "sceptics." He writes in a news story:

Some insiders suggest that the IPCC may be more cautious in its upcoming report than it has been in the past, but this is unlikely to placate climate-change sceptics. Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado, Boulder, accuses the IPCC leadership of "seeing their role as political advocates rather than honest brokers".

Of course, as readers here know well, Mr. Pearce is just wrong (I've emailed the New Scientist as well). I accept the results of IPCC Working Group I and have for many years advocated policy action on both adaptation and mitigation. Mr. Pearce's lumping me in with the sceptics is particularly ironic because his entire article is a preemptive defense of IPCC scientists who are "targets of concerted attacks apparently designed to bring down their reputations and careers." If Mr. Pearce wanted to know my views he might have just called, rather than assuming that anyone who puts forth a criticism of the IPCC must be a climate sceptic.

It must be nice to see the world in terms of only good guys and bad guys, with not a shade of grey in sight.

Posted on November 1, 2006 07:35 PM View this article | Comments (19)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 31, 2006

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change: A Comment by Richard Tol

Richard Tol, a prominent economist with appointments at Hamburg, Vrije and Carnegie Mellon Universities, has written a review of The Stern Report, which we are happy to make available for comment and discussion.

Richard's review can be downloaded here as a Word file.

Posted on October 31, 2006 06:32 AM View this article | Comments (80)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

October 30, 2006

Stern’s Cherry Picking on Disasters and Climate Change

The Stern Report has this passage on p. 131:

The costs of extreme weather events are already high and rising, with annual losses of around $60 billion since the 1990s (0.2% of World GDP), and record costs of $200 billion in 2005 (more than 0.5% of World GDP). New analysis based on insurance industry data has shown that weather-related catastrophe losses have increased by 2% each year since the 1970s over and above changes in wealth, inflation and population growth/movement. If this trend continued or intensified with rising global temperatures, losses from extreme weather could reach 0.5 - 1% of world GDP by the middle of the century. If temperatures continued to rise over the second half of the century, costs could reach several percent of GDP each year, particularly because the damages increase disproportionately at higher temperatures.

The source is a paper prepared by Robert Muir-Wood and colleagues as input to our workshop last May on disasters and climate change. Muir-Wood et al. do report the 2% trend since 1970. What Stern Report does not say is that Muir-Wood et al. find no trend 1950-2005 and Muir-Wood et al. acknowledge that their work shows a very strong influence of 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in the United States. Muir-Wood et al. are therefore very cautious and responsible about their analysis. Presumably this is one reason why at the workshop Robert Muir-Wood signed on to our consensus statements, which said the following:

Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions . . . In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.

The Stern Report’s selective fishing out of a convenient statement from one of the background papers prepared for our workshop is a classic example of cherry picking a result from a diversity of perspectives, rather than focusing on the consensus of the entire spectrum of experts that participated in our meeting. The Stern Report even cherry picks from within the Muir-Wood et al. paper.

Why does this matter? The Stern Report uses the cherry-picked information as the basis for one of its important conclusions about the projected costs of climate change(on p. 138),

The costs of climate change for developed countries could reach several percent of GDP as higher temperatures lead to a sharp increase in extreme weather events and large-scale changes.

To support its argument the Stern Report further relies on a significantly flawed report from the Association of British Insurers, which we critiqued here. Its presentation of the future costs of disasters and climate change is highly selective to put it mildly.

I haven’t yet read the whole Stern report, but if its treatment of disaster costs and climate change – an area where I do have some expertise – is indicative of its broader analysis, then Richard Tol’s comment in the open thread would appear to be on target.

Posted on October 30, 2006 11:58 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 29, 2006

Open Thread on UK Stern Report

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, focused on climate policy, is going to be released tomorrow and I'm sure, like everyone else, we'll be discussing it. Until then I thought I'd open a space for anyone who is interested in discussing it or offering relevant pointers. The pre-release media coverage is already pretty interesting. When released, the report will be available here.

Posted on October 29, 2006 10:44 AM View this article | Comments (23)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 27, 2006

Recap: Atlantic SSTs and U.S. Hurricane Damages

We’ve had an interesting discussion this week on the historical relationship of Atlantic sea surface temperatures and U.S. hurricane damage. I began by asking:

What Does the Historical Relationship of Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature and U.S. Hurricane Damage Portend for the Future?

This post provides a recap of the week’s discussion.

I answered the initial question with two perspectives, one that I prepared and one by Munich Re’s Eberhard Faust. The conversation was quickly joined by noted hurricane expert Jim Elsner from Florida State, who claimed that his preferred approach definitively resolved this question. Jim and I have had a lengthy exchange this week in the comments, including an effort on my part to replicate part of his analysis, successful in the end, but with a mistake along the way. Thanks to Jim for helping make this replication successful

Even with the lengthy exchange, I remain confused about what Elsner is arguing. He has claimed that the signal of SST couldn’t be seen using all historical damage data in a simple regression because of the effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Here is how Jim described it:

Sometimes when the Atlantic is warm and hurricanes are strong, the steering flow keeps them from reaching the US and the steering during the season can be predicted to some degree by preseason values of the NAO; thus a simple regression of annual loss on SST is inadequate for understanding the relationship between loss and SST.

This last phrase – "a simple regression of annual loss on SST is inadequate for understanding the relationship between loss and SST." – seems completely consistent with the focus of my original post in which I asserted that a relationship between SSTs and damage "may materialize in the future, but one cannot use the past to project such a relationship, it must be based on some other considerations." Elsner, it would seem, agreed that "other considerations" (e.g., like the NAO) actually matter for the ability to identify a signal. But Jim would have none of this potential agreement. He later made what appears to be the opposite argument, that the future influence of SST on damages would be identifiable independent of the NAO, explaining that "The correlation between tropical SST and NAO is small." Either the NAO masks or does not mask a SST signal, it cannot be both -- hence my confusion.

Lost in these very fine points about very marginal statistical relationships is the fact that Jim and I are pretty close in our views, no matter how aggressively he objects to each point that I make. He writes of his answer to my original question about what the past relationship of SSTs and damage tells us about the future:

If all we know are SST and damages from history, then I would assign a personal probability of 60-70% that over the next 100 years the warm SST years will, on average, have greater annual loss totals compared to the cold SST years.

If I were to modify Jim’s statement to more accurately reflect my own perspective, I’d simply change 60-70% to 50%, which in my view is not a particularly big difference. I therefore don’t see our views as being particularly far off from one another (though I am sure that Jim would strongly disagree;-).

I’ll close by referring the reader back to the first post presented in this discussion, and the two graphs that I presented.

To provide my answer to the question posted in Part 1 that kicked off this discussion. If all you know is SSTs and U.S. damage from the historical record -- that is, the data shown in these graphs – then you have no statistical basis for saying what will happen in the future if SSTs increase. Faust suggests that by looking at a subset of the data a stronger relationship can be seen. Elsner suggests that by introducing other climate variables than those presented here and distinguishing intensity from frequency a stronger relationship can be seen. Both Faust’s and Elnser’s points are fairly made. For reasons that you’ll find in the discussion this past week, I find that accepting their arguments at face value (i.e., setting aside the appropriateness of looking at a limited subset of data or the stability of relationships over time) leads to only marginal relationships (at best) whose existence are dependent upon the data of 2005. Sometimes the simplest analysis tells the whole story.

Future increases in Atlantic SSTs may indeed be accompanied by larger amounts of U.S. hurricane damage. But I find little basis for this conclusion in the overall historical record of SSTs and damage. Others disagree. I respect their views, but remain unconvinced by their analyses. If nothing else this exercise has been a wonderful example of the diversity of the scientific enterprise, and how seemingly simple questions are subject to a range of legitimate perspectives. The good news is that effective hurricane policies need not await consensus on this issue!

[Thanks to those of you who emailed ideas and comments!]

Posted on October 27, 2006 07:57 AM View this article | Comments (12)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

October 26, 2006

Atlantic SSTs and U.S. Hurricane Damages, Part 5

Widely respected hurricane expert Jim Elsner of FSU has posted a lengthy response to these posts over at his blog. I’d encourage interested readers to have a look. This exchange reminds me of a quote attributed to John von Neumann speaking on statistics, "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk." It also serves as a good reminder that Dan Sarewitz’s notion of an "excess of objectivity" is alive and well even when one is dealing with 34 data points. Let me start by acknowledging that Jim and I are going to agree to disagree and interested readers will have to judge the merits of our arguments themselves.

Elsner argues that the statistics of loss data are best fit by using a "random sum" that combines the statistics of frequency of losses with those of intensity of losses. This approach was first applied to hurricane damage data by my former colleague at NCAR Rick Katz in his 2002 paper "Stochastic modeling of hurricane damage" (in PDF). In my critique of Elsner’s work, I accept that the "random sum" methodology is indeed useful for deconvolving components of a statistical relationship (see, e.g., the acknowledgements in Rick’s paper). As Katz writes in his 2002 paper, "By enabling the variations in total damage to be attributed to either variations in event occurrence or in event damage, the present modeling approach has an inherent advantage over previous analyses." But such a methodology, or any sophisticated statistics, cannot create a strong relationship in the real world where one does not exist.

I have focused my critique on the intensity part of Elsner’s analysis. With Jim’s help I have successfully replicated this part of their work (Part 4) and I have found that their results are highly unstable -- that is they do not hold for 1950-2004 or for 1950-2006. What they report on large losses has much more to do with one event in 2005 (Katrina) than statistical properties of the dataset that are stable over time. On his blog Elsner suggests that the period 1950-2005 "is not intended to stand by itself." That is good, because it does not stand by itself. Based on the lack of a relationship between SSTs and damage in the subset of data that Elsner claims that there is a strong relationship, I have concluded that there is little reason to expect that Elsner’s model would allow for an accurate prediction of future damage amounts conditional on SST. A question for Jim -- What, for instance, would it have predicted for 2006 before the season?

Let me reassert that reasonable people can disagree on such subjects, as I had stated in Part One. Elsner would in my view make a much better case for his arguments by focusing his replies on the substantive questions, such as the obvious lack of stability in his intensity model or what physical basis there exists between May-June SSTs and damage that occurs within the hurricane season (points which he does not address). He is representing his work as "sound science that will likely have a major impact in the reinsurance industry" and indeed he is selling services to these companies. Thus, he should probably expect that his methods will attract attention (and in my experience in academia, attention means that one’s views are worth considering, which should be a compliment, even if the attention is critical as is often the case in academic discussions). If Jim is confident in his approach then he should welcome such scrutiny and efforts to clarify his methods and their significance. Bluster and invective are not only weak means of argumentation, but also make for poor marketing tools.

Let me also once again acknowledge that I did make a mistake in an earlier post, which was corrected online immediately when Jim pointed it out. In response to Jim’s complaints about a lack of apology I posted the following on Jim’s blog:

Jim- Let me once again formally apologize for making a mistake. It happens from time-to-time ;-) It has been corrected, as you know. As I wrote immediately after you brought the data issue to my attention in a personal email to you, "Thanks Jim for following up. Thanks for catching the data sort mix up, apologies for that."
I'll follow up on the substance next. Thanks!

In closing it is worth remembering the old adage that if one tortures data sufficiently it will confess. In this case, simple and straightforward analyses of the relationship of SST and hurricane damage without deconvolving intensity or frequency indicates that there is no relationship. Elsner and Faust both show that if you segregate the data in various ways you can use the influence of 2005 to attain, at best, a very marginal relationship. We disagree on whether such a relationship is indeed marginal and also the importance of such a relationship. Fair enough. As 2006 provides an excellent example of, scientists have no ability to predict hurricane landfalls with accuracy, much less frequency or intensity at landfall before the season starts. Until such a capability has been demonstrated, efforts to predict damage with accuracy will in my view amount to little more than statistical data mining.

Posted on October 26, 2006 08:32 AM View this article | Comments (19)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

October 25, 2006

Atlantic SSTs vs, U.S. Hurricane Damage, Part 4

I am happy to report that after follow-up by Jim Elsner, I have been able to come close to replicating his results. However, the replication does not add much support to the hypothesis that Atlantic SSTs are related to normalized U.S. hurricane damage. Here is why.

First, in his paper (properly cited as Jagger et al., here in PDF) Elsner reports that their analysis was "able to explain 13% of the variation in the logarithm of loss values exceeding $100 mn using an ordinary least squares regression model." Their analysis focused on insured losses and ours is on total losses. Their analysis is in 2000 US dollars and ours in 2005 US dollars. Because insured damages are roughly half the total economic losses, and inflation, wealth, population increase by about 5-7% per year, it makes sense to use a cut-off of $250 million for our dataset rather than $100 million - thanks to the reader who made this observation. (This has the effect of eliminating about 70% of the data, an important point which I will return to later, but for now we are simply replicating the earlier results). With the dataset parsed in this fashion we get the following results.

You can see that just as is reported in Jagger et al.’s paper, this result also shows an r^2 of 0.13 and I get a p value of 0.03, so the results are significant. I am satisfied that we have faithfully replicated his analysis! But what happens when one looks at the relationship from 1950-2004? The following graph shows this result.

By removing 2005 the r^2 is cut in half and the p value goes up to 0.14, which is not statistically significant! So the results presented by Elsner are entirely a function of 2005, which was indeed an extreme year for both SSTs and damage. The question of whether 2005 is like seasons to come is a fair question, but I submit that the answer cannot be found in the historical data on SSTs and damage, not matter how one parses the data. Consider that if one adds 2006 to the results (damage = $250M, MJ SSTs = 26.88) the r^2 of the linear regression drops to 0.08, and the p value is 0.08, just outside statistical significance.

In short, there are a lot of ways to analyze data, and Elsner and colleagues approach is interesting. But in my view it does not provide much support for the hypothesis that SSTs are a useful or accurate predictor of damage. Anytime you have to remove 70% of the data to find a marginal (at best) relationship, it tells you that whatever relationship might exist cannot be that strong.

To underscore my perspective – future increases in Atlantic SSTs may indeed be accompanied by increases in normalized damages, but it is very difficult to accept this hypothesis based on the historical record of damage and SSTs, no matter how it is parsed. Thanks again to Jim for his continued involvement in these discussions.

Posted on October 25, 2006 09:45 AM View this article | Comments (14)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

October 24, 2006

Atlantic SSTs vs. US Hurricane Damage, Part 3

Following up a continuing conversation with hurricane expert Jim Elsner, this post presents an analysis of Atlantic May-June SSTs versus normalized damage 1950-2005, but only including storms which had >$100 million in damage and storms of hurricane or greater strength, as recommended by Jim. As the graph below shows [10-25-06 update -- analysis superceded by Part 4 here], the results of this analysis show no relationship.

[10-25-06 graph reposted in part 4 with >$250M threshold]

I'd welcome Jim's response, but for now I remain unambiguous in my conclusion that there is no relationship between SSTs and normalized damages. If Jim provides his data, I'd be happy to reconcile the different results, and perhaps my views will change. Until then, I necessarily must go with what the available data shows, which is quite unambiguous.

Posted on October 24, 2006 10:20 AM View this article | Comments (10)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Atlantic SSTs vs. U.S. Hurricane Damage - Part 2

In the comments of our first post on this subject FSU's Jim Elsner, a widely respected hurricane expert, pointed us to a forthcoming paper (here in PDF) in which he and colleagues looked at the relationship of Atlantic SSTs and U.S. hurricane damage. In the paper Elsner et al. make the following claim:

Using the preseason Atlantic SST, we are able to explain 13% of the variation in the logarithm of loss values exceeding $100 mn using an ordinary least squares regression model. The relationship is positive indicating that warmer Atlantic SSTs are associated with larger losses as expected. The rank correlation between the amount of loss (exceeding $100 mn) and the May-June Atlantic SST is +0.31 (P-value = 0.0086) over all years in the dataset and is +0.37 (P-value = 0.0267) over the shorter 1950–2005 period.

I've looked at our dataset and find nothing remotely close like these numbers. Here is my analysis for 1950-2005:

The following graph [updated 10-25-06] shows the relationship of Atlantic May-June SSTs and U.S. normalized hurricane damage (for years in which damage exceeds $100M).

You can see from this graph there is no relationship; The rank correlation I get is -0.088. So I am curious about the reasons for the different results (leaving aside for the moment other questions). Are we using different data? To facilitate analysis, here is the data that I am using in this analysis (for all years 1950-2005, note that original NATL SST data is available here):

[UPDATED 10-25-06]

Year--MJ SST---Damage----------ln(dmg)
1950 26.11 $5,529,320,501 22.43333077
1951 26.65 $358,069,353 19.69623725
1952 26.66 $114,732,781 18.55811634
1953 26.59 $55,787,059 17.83705248
1954 26.49 $35,671,450,726 24.29761651
1955 26.29 $23,274,260,349 23.87061388
1956 26.18 $577,494,764 20.17420993
1957 26.29 $3,841,822,355 22.06921266
1958 27.30 $509,818,712 20.04956575
1959 26.09 $858,779,107 20.5710223
1960 26.60 $29,970,493,213 24.12347918
1961 26.24 $14,468,733,186 23.39525583
1962 26.79 $92,192,732 18.33939186
1963 26.56 $246,291,959 19.32202822
1964 26.44 $15,693,459,358 23.47650986
1965 26.12 $21,261,254,041 23.78015219
1966 26.65 $336,552,296 19.63426411
1967 26.21 $4,016,468,362 22.11366884
1968 26.21 $657,263,225 20.30359514
1969 26.99 $21,225,180,492 23.77845407
1970 26.75 $5,627,670,656 22.45096146
1971 25.94 $2,083,668,167 21.45739572
1972 26.10 $17,579,304,340 23.58998816
1973 26.32 $145,454,945 18.79537694
1974 25.53 $1,073,783,964 20.79445466
1975 25.75 $2,791,286,883 21.74976857
1976 25.82 $486,444,597 20.00263357
1977 26.43 $53,776,992 17.80035628
1978 26.38 $145,903,706 18.79845741
1979 26.87 $14,096,216,718 23.36917228
1980 27.05 $1,602,040,183 21.19454377
1981 26.77 $171,359,510 18.95927431
1982 26.53 $43,148,911 17.58016773
1983 26.98 $7,469,100,008 22.73404035
1984 26.12 $289,628,417 19.48410934
1985 26.00 $11,068,101,797 23.1273331
1986 25.95 $50,026,988 17.72807318
1987 26.94 $19,011,511 16.76055519
1988 26.73 $172,912,773 18.96829783
1989 25.95 $16,770,856,131 23.54290846
1990 26.62 $126,787,371 18.658022
1991 26.10 $3,044,037,453 21.83645058
1992 26.38 $57,663,865,630 24.77789657
1993 26.48 $126,479,971 18.65559452
1994 25.86 $1,938,752,062 21.38531034
1995 26.91 $7,501,957,030 22.73842976
1996 26.71 $6,537,460,457 22.60081462
1997 26.66 $163,560,186 18.91269159
1998 27.27 $6,021,601,438 22.51861908
1999 26.44 $8,277,977,785 22.83686455
2000 26.26 $36,525,742 17.41352783
2001 26.38 $6,970,450,131 22.66494564
2002 26.31 $1,491,060,293 21.12275331
2003 26.38 $4,212,081,525 22.16122279
2004 26.69 $49,130,243,738 24.61774064
2005 27.62 $107,350,000,000 25.39936036

Posted on October 24, 2006 02:02 AM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

October 22, 2006

What Does the Historical Relationship of Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature and U.S. Hurricane Damage Portend for the Future?

Every four years the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) holds a workshop that brings together forecasters and researchers from around the world who focus on tropical cyclones (which are called "hurricanes" in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific). The sixth such workshop is taking place in Costa Rica at the end of November and in preparation for that workshop experts in a wide range of issues related to tropical cyclones have prepared number of background reports (links found below). Supported by an all-star international team, I was in charge of preparing a background report on "Factors Contributing to Human and Economic Losses." The WMO has now posted these background papers online. In this post I’d like to discuss one aspect of our report – the relationship of Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and U.S. hurricane damage.

In particular, our report presents two different perspectives on the relationship of SSTs and damage. One perspective, mine, is that there is absolutely nothing in the historical record that suggests a relationship between SSTs and damage. Such a relationship may materialize in the future, but one cannot use the past to project such a relationship, it must be based on some other considerations. A second perspective is presented by my friend and colleague Eberhard Faust of Munich Re. He argues that there is “remarkable evidence for global warming effects on losses.” Because we disagree on this issue, in our report we presented our two different perspectives.

Our two perspectives are presented on pp. 548-550 (Pielke) and pp. 551-555 (Faust) of our report (available here in PDF), and are together in a final section titled "Differing views of the role of global warming on losses" which falls at the very end of our 23 page report at pp. 547-555. The brevity of these two analyses is such that it might make for a very good case study for students to examine in a course in statistics or atmospheric sciences. Which analysis is more compelling and why?

My argument is based on the following graphs.

In the paper I argue:

Figures 5.2.7a and 5.2.7b shows the lack of meaningful relationship between normalized U.S. hurricane damages (NHC data, transformed with the natural log) and North Atlantic [August, September, October = ASO] sea surface temperatures 1950-2005 and 1950-2004. The r-squared values are low with or without 2005 included, and the regression results are not statistically significant (p = 0.28 and 0.69 respectively). There is consequently no systematic evidence that higher SSTs are systematically associated with larger losses.

Eberhard’s begins with the following graph:

In the paper he argues:

But if analyzed more closely, the normalized loss data show nonetheless systematic changes over time. Fundamental to these changes is the presence of a correlation between normalized annual losses and June-October annual tropical sea surface temperatures. Munich Re analyzed the respective annual SST anomalies and annual normalized losses since 1900. Figure 5.2.8 simply displays the normalized losses against the SST anomalies. Also, the average loss calculated for a running window of 0.2°C in width is displayed (red line). The running average is shown over a range where the 0.2°C windows are populated densely enough (at least 12 data points, i.e. half the maximum population, see the dashed black line). A remarkable general increase in average annual normalized losses with increasing SST can be observed over the -0.4°C to +0.4°C anomaly range. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, which is independent of the distributions involved, gives 0.26 for the range from -0.4°C to +0.4°C and 0.28 for all of the data.

We both think that our respective analyses will be compelling. If you are interested, please read both analyses in full. Eberhard was a key participant in our workshop held last spring on Climate Change and Disaster Losses, the report of which you can find here. I’d be happy to discuss the two analyses in the WMO report in the comments if there is interest. Do note that neither of our perspectives have yet appeared in the peer-reviewed literature, but stay tuned.

For those of you interested in the other background reports prepared for the WMO workshop, they can be found here. In particular have a look at the Topic 4 "Climate variability and seasonal prediction of tropical cyclone activity/intensity" which includes a comprehensive literature review led by Tom Knutson (Special Topic 4a is also relevant). It is safe to conclude that debate persists on this subject. Topic 5 is relevant to those of you interested in policies related to tropical cyclones. We say it often enough here, but bears repeating -- the debate over human-caused climate change and tropical cyclones is scientifically interesting and has become caught up in the politics of global warming, but there is no evidence that energy policies can ever serve as an effective means of modulating future hurricane damage given that the overwhelming factors responsible for increasing damage have been and will continue to be the ever-increasing vulnerability of people and property.

Posted on October 22, 2006 11:28 AM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

October 18, 2006

What Just Ain't So

I review William Sweet's Kicking the Carbon Habit in this week's Nature. Here is a link to the full review (in PDF).

Posted on October 18, 2006 01:38 PM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Climate Change | Energy Policy

October 17, 2006

Climate Change and Disaster Losses Workshop Report

Last May, Peter Hoeppe of Munich Re and I organized a workshop to bring together a diverse group of international experts in the fields of climatology and disaster research. The general questions to be answered at the workshop were:

* What factors account for increasing costs of weather related disasters in recent decades?

* What are the implications of these understandings, for both research and policy?

We are happy to release our final workshop report. From the workshop home page you can download PDFs of:

*The entire report (8 mb)
*Executive Summary
*Summary Report
*Individual participant white papers from:

* C. Bals
* L. Bouwer
* R. Brázdil
* H. Brooks
* I. Burton
* R. Crompton et al.
* A. Dlugolecki
* P. Epstein
* E. Faust et al.
* I. Goklany
* H. Grenier
* B. R. Gurjar et al.
* J. Helminen
* S. Jun
* C. Kemfert and K. Schumacher
* T. Knutson
* R. Muir-Wood et al.
* R. Pielke, Jr.
* S. Raghavan
* G. Tetzlaff
* E. Tompkins
* H. von Storch and R. Weisse
* Q. Ye
* R. Zapata-Marti

The workshop's major sponsors were Munich Re and the U.S. National Science Foundation, with contributing sponsorship from the GKSS Institute for Coastal Research and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Posted on October 17, 2006 02:12 PM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

October 11, 2006

A Collective Research Project

In an earlier thread this week, I made a plea for people to recognize the symbolic weight carried by the phrase "climate change denial." The conversation has been quite interesting.

As an exercise in research on symbolic politics, I'd like to use this thread to see if we can collectively track the exact origins of the phrases "climate change denial" and "climate change deniers". (Thanks to those of you who got this started on the nearlier thread!) Please use the comment section here for this research challenge. Please use the earlier thread for continued discussions of the broader issue. Let's see what we can learn together.

Posted on October 11, 2006 08:36 AM View this article | Comments (37)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 09, 2006

On Language

Let's be blunt. The phrase "climate change denier" is meant to be evocative of the phrase "holocaust denier". As such the phrase conjurs up a symbolic allusion fully intended to equate questioning of climate change with questioning of the Holocaust.

Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. Let those who would make such an allusion instead be absolutely explicit about their assertion of moral equivalency between Holocaust deniers and those that they criticize.

This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system.

Let's declare a moratorium on the phrases "climate change denier" and "climate change denial." Let's invoke the equivalent of Godwin's Law in discourse on climate policy. Maybe call it the Prometheus Principle.

No more invocation of "climate change deniers."

Posted on October 9, 2006 03:49 PM View this article | Comments (81)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

October 05, 2006

The One Percent Doctrine

This report from the BBC on the latest international climate negotiations:

One delegate told me he thought the pace of political ambition on emissions was so slow that we had a 1,000-1 chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
He later sent me a text message to assert that he had been overly pessimistic. The odds, he said, were only 100-1.

So when is it time to re-open for negotiation FCCC Article 2? For those wanting a bit more background on this cryptic post, please see this paper in PDF.

Posted on October 5, 2006 04:17 PM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

October 04, 2006

Follow Up on NOAA Hurricane Fact Sheet

Thanks very much to those who sent me the "Dear Colleague" letter from NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher discussing the now-released NOAA fact sheet on hurricanes and climate change (here in PDF). The full letter can be seen below.

Message From the Under Secretary
October 3, 2006

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you have probably seen the latest reports concerning a document on Atlantic hurricanes and climate. I do not make it a practice to comment on every mischaracterization and falsehood in media reports.

However, reports that deal with the agency’s scientific integrity strike directly at NOAA’s mission and everything the agency does. Therefore, I believe strongly that we must confront them directly and correct them quickly.

Without the foundation of sound science, every decision, policy, and action at the agency can be called into question. Unfortunately, the mere perception of scientific stifling has the same damaging effect. As someone who believes wholeheartedly in NOAA’s mission, its people and its work, I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure that NOAA stands for scientific integrity. As I’ve stated previously, peer-reviewed science speaks for itself and doesn’t need me or anyone else to interpret or modify the results. For those of you who know me personally, you realize that I encourage and actively pursue vigorous debate on all topics, particularly including science related to NOAA’s mission.

The latest round of news reports focus on an information sheet that was being prepared for this year’s hurricane season rollout. The information sheet detailed the current state of the science on the recent increase in hurricane activity. There is currently a healthy debate in the scientific community inside and outside NOAA about whether recent increases are the result of natural cycles, climate change, or other circumstances. The information sheet was prepared and reviewed in a highly collaborative fashion by nearly 50 scientists across the entire spectrum of the debate and aimed to highlight this debate in an easy-to-understand public document.

Media reports have alleged that the document was blocked because it made a reference to work by NOAA scientists that found climate change may have an impact on increased hurricane activity. This charge is inaccurate. The information sheet summarized existing scientific research and findings and contained no new science. In fact, all the studies cited for the information sheet are publicly available on the NOAA website, making the charge that they would somehow now be suppressed all the more unfounded.

The information sheet in question has been posted on our website (PDF
document:
http://hurricanes.noaa.gov/pdf/hurricanes-and-climate-change-09-2006.pdf).
I urge you to read the document so you can judge for yourself. As I tried to make clear to the media, my hope was that this process would be an exercise in scientists with different views coming together to answer important questions. While I fear an official science policy issued by the agency might have the effect of stifling this important debate, I completely support making the public aware of the state of the science.
We have established a process for encouraging further scientific debate and developing similar information sheets and we look forward to others coming out in the near future.

I reiterate my call to you to let me know personally if you ever feel like NOAA or DOC processes are not supporting the free flow of your or your colleagues’ scientific research. Scientific integrity is critical to NOAA’s credibility.

Sincerely,

Conrad Lautenbacher's Signature
Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr.
Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator

Posted on October 4, 2006 10:32 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science + Politics

Bob Ward Comments on Royal Society Letter

{I am very pleased that Bob Ward, formerly of the Royal Society, has sent in the following comment which we are happy to post. Thanks very much! RP]

I've enjoyed reading this exchange of views, particularly the discussion over the Royal Society's contribution to the debate. I thought it might help to set out some of my views, although rather belatedly. I should explain that my employment at the Royal Society ceased on 22 September - not, as some have suggested, because I was sacked but because I am moving on to a new job and had agreed my departure date about three months ago.

I'd like to give a bit of background about the ExxonMobil sag, but start with an explanation of how the Royal Society sees its role (writing as an ex-employee).

[continued]

As you probably know, the Society was founded in 1660 to promote the 'new experimental philosophy' ie that our understanding of the natural world should be based on experiment and observation rather than merely speculating about the nature of things. The Society's motto 'nullius in verba' has been translated in various ways (eg trust not in words alone, etc), but is today generally regarded as meaning that statements about science should be assessed against evidence. The Society (technically the Council of the Royal Society) has spoken out frequently, on many issues and throughout its history, when the scientific evidence is being ignored or misrepresented. It promotes debate within the scientific community and outside, but it does challenge attempts to misrepresent the evidence, for whatever reasons.

As many have pointed out, the climate change debate is not merely one of science. The question of what to do in light of the scientific evidence is essentially a societal and political one in which scientists might be able to identify the options, but have no special role in deciding which options to pursue. However, the Society has taken the view that the debate about the options should be based on authoritative and reliable assessments of the scientific evidence, as documented in the peer-reviewed literature. It is for this reason that the IPCC has the support of the Royal Society, and indeed of many of the world's other scientific academies, such as the US National Academy of Science.

Our understanding of climate change continues to develop, and this is reflected in the work of the IPCC. The Fourth Assessment Report, due for publication next year, will be able to draw on information not available for the Third Assessment, such as probabilistic assessments of future temperature changes. And of course there are some scientists who don't agree with the IPCC's assessments. But the IPCC does an excellent job of summarising the state of knowledge, taking into account the uncertainties and differences of opinion. I recommend the NAS report published in 2001 as a critical examination of the work of the IPCC.

The saga with ExxonMobil began back in April when I gave 'The Guardian' newspaper a document I had drafted about the way in which the coverage of climate change was being covered by the UK media. 'The Guardian' correctly reported that the document had, among other things, been critical of both ExxonMobil and Greenpeace for releasing information into the public domain, via their websites, that was inconsistent with the scientific evidence, as summarised by the IPCC. Both organsiations complained about being singled out. Greenpeace made changes to their website. ExxonMobil requested a meeting with me.

I met with a couple of members of the Esso UK corporate affairs team in early July. They gave me a presentation about the company's views on energy and climate change. I told them that the Society was concerned about statements in a report published in February that we considered misleading.

I also pointed out that ExxonMobil also appeared to be funding a lot of organisations that were also making misleading public statements about climate change. They then said to me that they were planning to stop such funding.

The meeting ended and nothing further happened until the end of August, when one of the people I had met with in July sent me a copy of a new report from ExxonMobil, containing almost verbatim the statements I had complained about at the meeting. So I wrote a letter pointing out why the statements were inaccurate and misleading.

I also asked about progress towards the pledge they had made about stopping funding for organisations that were providing misleading information about climate change. I went through the list of organisations that ExxonMobil listed in their 2005 contributions report and found, of those organisations with websites that included information about climate change, 25 appeared to provide information that was more or less consistent with the evidence documented in the scientific literature, but 39 did not. I also asked for a list of organsiations that they were funding in the UK and rest of Europe, since they were not listed in the ExxonMobil contributions report.

I hope this account shows that my actions weren't really hectoring or bullying anybody. All I did was challenge the statements that ExxonMobil have been promoting, directly and indirectly through its sponsorship, to the public about the scientific evidence for climate change. Surely that is a legitimate activity for an academy of science?

Posted on October 4, 2006 06:47 AM View this article | Comments (29)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

September 28, 2006

Inconvenient Truth Panel Discussion at the University of Colorado

For locals:

Al Gore's global warming movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", will be shown on Thursday, September 28 at 7 and 9:15 pm in the Muenzinger Auditorium on the CU-Boulder campus. The Energy Initiative is sponsoring a panel titled "An Inconvenient Truth: Assessing the Science and Policy Implications" immediately following the 7 pm showing in Muenzinger Room E0046. Panelists include Roger Pielke, Jr. and Lisa Dilling of CIRES, Brian Toon of LASP, and Jim White of Environmental Studies.

Admission for the movie: $5 general, $4 w/UCB student ID. Call 303-492-1531 for more info.

There is no charge for the panel discussion and you do not need to have seen the movie beforehand to attend.

Posted on September 28, 2006 01:30 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 27, 2006

Caught in a Lie

There is an old political maxim that it is not the event but the cover-up that gets politicians in trouble. The issue of a two-page NOAA fact sheet and the decision by leadership in NOAA and/or its parent agency, Department of Commerce, to prevent its release is yet another lesson in Politics 101.

The figure below shows a recent version of the NOAA "fact sheet." (Note that I have received multiple copies from independent sources, several of whom -- but not all -- who asked me not to post. Several, but not all, of the documents have different dates, but the differences are not substantive. I present a screen shot of a version so as not to inadvertantly reveal where it came from.)

The document is clearly prepared for public dissemination. It includes the following text that I have circled:

The purpose of this document is to respond to frequently asked questions on the topic of Atlantic hurricanes and climate. This document reflects the current state of the science, which is based on official data sets and results presented in peer-reviewed publications. It does not contain any statements of policy or positions of NOAA, the Department of Commerce or the U.S. Government.

This is obviously not a statment one would find on an internal document. The second page includes the statement at the bottom "Visit us on the web at www.noaa.gov." Surely not a request made to employees.

Compare this to how Nature yesterday (here) reported NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher's description of the document.

When asked about the document, NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher told Nature that it was simply an internal exercise designed to get researchers to respect each other's points of view. He said it could not be released because the agency cannot take an official position on a field of science that is changing so rapidly.

An internal exercise? Bush Administration appointees it seems can make plenty of smoke appear even when there is no fire.

Posted on September 27, 2006 04:01 PM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Revealed! NOAA's Mystery Hurricane Report

Here is in its entirety is the NOAA "report" discussed in Nature yesterday. It is in fact titled a "fact sheet" and looks more like a set of talking points than a consensus report. I do not have the figures being referred to in the text. There is absolutely nothing new or surprising in the fact sheet. Why NOAA or DOC officials would not want this released is beyond me. Have a look.

NOAA Fact Sheet: Atlantic Hurricanes and Climate

What has been Atlantic hurricane activity during the 20th Century?
• Atlantic hurricane seasons since 1995 have been significantly more active, e.g. more hurricanes and more intense hurricanes, that the previous two decades (figure 1)
• Earlier periods, such as from 1945 to 1970 (and perhaps earlier), were apparently as active as the most recent decade.
• The past decade has seen increased U.S. landfalls, however periods of even higher landfalls occurred early in the century (figure 2)
• Strong natural decadal variations, as well as changes in data quality, density, sources, and methodologies for estimating hurricane strengths, lie at the heart of arguments whether or not a global warming contribution to a trend in tropical cyclone intensities can be detected.

How have ocean temperatures varied?
• Over the 20th Century, global ocean temperatures and sea surface temperatures in the main development region (MDR) for hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic, (and Gulf of Mexico) have warmed at similar rates, indicating a role for global warming in these regions. (Figure 3)
• Anomalous MDR, tropical Atlantic temperatures were significantly warmer than the global average from about 1930 to 1970 and after 2000 . This warming is attributed to the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO)
What factors influence seasonal to multi-decadal hurricane activity
• Hurricanes respond to a variety of environmental factors besides local ocean temperatures.
• The tropical multi-decadal phenomenon and the El Nino/La Nina cycle are important factors in determining the conditions for seasonal to multi-decadal extremes in hurricane activity.
• Research indicates that global warming can also increase hurricane intensities; there is less evidence for impacts on frequency.

How long will the current active period last?
• Scientists disagree as to whether currently a sound basis exists for making projections on how long the current active period will last. The viewpoints are:
o Limited understanding of natural decadal variability, combined with its irregular temporal behavior, preclude definitive statements about how long the active period will last. (NOAA)
o One might expect ongoing high levels of hurricane activity and U.S. landfalls for the next decade and beyond since the previous active period (1945-1970) lasted at least 25 years. (NOAA)
o Because of global warming the active period could persist
Programs of improvements to data sets, diagnostic studies for improved understanding, and systematic numerical experimentation studies will help to reveal the underlying causes for the recent active period and to predict how long the period of increased activity will last. NOAA is actively engaged in each of these activities.

Key Problems NOAA is working on
• Understanding the dynamics of the AMO, its links to the larger-scale tropical climate variability, and developing an ocean monitoring and decadal prediction capability
• Improving the quality and scope of hurricane relevant data sets
• Numerically simulating and ultimately understanding seasonal to decadal hurricane variability
• Understanding whether or not and to what degree anthropogenic forcing is having an influence on hurricanes
• Developing a predictive understanding of global climate variability and trends and the impacts of these on extreme events
• Making improvements to short range hurricane track and intensity forecasts through improved models and development of additional capabilities for hurricanes.

NOAA Resources for Additional Information

• NWS/NCEP/CPC – intraseasonal to multi-season climate forecasts; seasonal hurricane forecasts; diagnostic studies of major climate anomalies; real time monitoring of climate.

• NWS/NCEP/TPC/NHC – issue daily and seasonal (in conjunction with CPC and HRD) operational hurricane forecasts; maintain and update the official Atlantic and Northeast Pacific hurricane databases from which observational climate studies are conducted

• NESDIS/NCDC – official archive for climate data sets; development of global tropical cyclone databases, analysis of historical frequency and strength of Atlantic Basin hurricanes to support engineering design and levee rebuilding in New Orleans, analyses of climate trends, monitoring and historical perspective on current seasons.

• OAR/AOML/HRD & PHoD – physical understanding of hurricane dynamics through use of research aircraft and field studies; improvements to hurricane track and intensity forecasts; monitoring of Atlantic ocean circulations; studies of Atlantic climate

• OAR/GFDL – studies of climate variability and change; development and use of the required climate models; development of models used for operational hurricane forecasts by NOAA and the NAVY; numerical studies of climate impacts on hurricanes and their decadal variability

• OAR/ESRL – diagnostic studies of climate variability and changes; impacts of climate on extreme events.

• NOAA Climate Office – intramural and extramural support for development of a predictive understanding of the climate system, the required observational capabilities, delivery of climate services.

Posted on September 27, 2006 08:21 AM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

September 26, 2006

NOAA's Mystery Hurricane Report

According to Nature today last spring NOAA convened an internal seven-person team to prepare a consensus report for public release on hurricanes and global warming. According to press reports (e.g., here), the near final report's release was halted in May by (a) Department of Commerce political appointee(s).

I'd like to get the facts straight on this, as they are quite unclear in the media. I'd welcome hearing from anyone with firsthand knowledge of these events. We'd be happy to post a copy of the report as well, anonymity guaranteed.

As far as the science of hurricanes, it is safe to conclude that the mystery report has to be a synthesis of recent work that is publicly available, rather than any new science. What is more troubling to me is how the political ham-handedness (if not worse) of NOAA and its Bush Adminstration handlers works against effective hurricane policy and climate policy. Consider the following statement for the AP news report:

The possibility of global warming affecting hurricanes is politically sensitive because the administration has resisted proposals to restrict release of gases that can cause warming conditions.

The reality, as documented in numerous papers and disucssions here and elsewhere, is that greenhouse gases cannot be an effective tool of hurricane policy. So long as advocates against action on greenhouse gases inside the Administration pretend that there is a linkage between future energy policies and future hurricane impacts by micromanaging information on hurricanes, people unfamiliar with the current state of hurricane science and policy, or those looking for a political bludgeon, will easily conclude something like the following:

"There must be a big connection between changes in energy policies and future hurricane impacts, or else why would the Bush Administration try to supress information? Becuase if there is no evidence of a future connection then NOAA and Bush officials must just be stupid by acting as if there is, right?"

I am quite familiar with recent debates on hurricanes, and frequent readers know that I believe that there is an honest, unsettled debate going on. My own research shows that any action on energy policies cannot have a discernible effect on hurricane impacts as far as the eye can see, so you can guess how I'd answer that last question.

Posted on September 26, 2006 07:23 PM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

September 25, 2006

Thoughts on an Immediate Freeze on Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Last week I discussed Al Gore’s call for an “immediate freeze” on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. I dismissed this as being in the realm of fantasy, but the notion of freezing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions motivated me to investigate the issue a bit further. The following data and analyses report what I’ve learned.

Data on projected carbon dioxide emissions is available from the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) here (xls). It is presented in tons of carbon dioxide so it needs to be converted to tons of carbon (divide by 3.664). In 2006 the U.S. is projected to emit 1.63 gigatons of carbon (GtC). This is projected to increase to 2.21 GtC by 2030. EIA projections go to 2030, so that is what I use below.

What accounts for this increase? There are two important factors. One is the projected increase in U.S. population and the other is the projected increase in per capita emissions. I gathered data on projected population increases from the U.S. Census here (xls) and data on projected per capita carbon dioxide emissions here (pdf). I also gathered data on projected immigration from the Congressional Budget Office here (pdf) (note that in the calculations below I use the Social Security Administration’s Intermediate projections). These various data allow the projections to be disaggregated. Here is what I found.

U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions 2007-2030

Projected population growth accounts for 64% of the increased U.S. carbon emissions.

Of this growth 40.5% comes from births in the U.S. and 23.5% comes from immigration (i.e., 40.5 + 23.5 = 64).

The remaining 36% comes from an increase in the per capita production of carbon dioxide which EIA estimates to increase by 11% by 2030. (Note that the per capita increase is not included in the above estimates of the effects of population growth. If included they raise the values by about 2.9% -- 43.4% -- and 1.1% -- 24.6% -- respectively).

How much carbon emissions are we talking about under an immediate U.S. freeze?

The accumulated U.S. emissions in excess of its 2006 value 2007-2030 equal 7.0 GtC. What would it mean to global carbon emissions if the United States were in fact frozen at their 2006 levels? In 2030 accumulated global emissions would be 228 GtC versus 235 GtC (world data here in xls).

But let’s go further, what if the United States were to become immediately carbon neutral starting in 2007? Through 2030 accumulated global carbon emissions would then be 189.0 GtC. In 2030 global emissions would be 9.72 GtC, or about equivalent to what the world is projected to see with the U.S. under business-as-usual in 2018.

What to conclude from all of this? Here are a few things:

1. The majority of increasing emissions in the United States comes from its population growth. About 37% of this increase (i.e., 23.5/64) is due to emissions from immigration. It is not inaccurate to say that through immigration the United States is "offsetting" the emissions from other parts of the world to some degree, since their net emissions will decrease to to emigration. But it is also true that most (if not all) immigrants are coming to the U.S. from countries with far lower per capita emissions, so there is a net increase in global emissions from immigration to the U.S. Of course, the factors which lead the U.S. to such high emissions in the first place are what drive much of the motivation for immigration. Will policy makers talk of stopping immigration as a climate policy? I doubt it, but it is interesting to consider.

2. Per capita increases in carbon emissions, at 11% by 2030 seem quite small and in principle could be relatively easily addressed through improvements in efficiency. Transfer and adoption of many European practices to the U.S. would I think be more than sufficient to meet an 11% goal.

3. An immediate freeze of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, even if possible, would have exceedingly little effect on the overall challenge of reducing global carbon emissions. It would reduce the accumulated global total by 2030 by about 3% and delay any projected effects of climate change by about 6 months.

4. If we go to the extreme and assume that the U.S. becomes carbon neutral in 2007, this would have a clearly discernible effect on accumulated emissions but really wouldn’t much change the overall challenge of reducing global carbon emissions. If the U.S. were carbon neutral starting in 2007 then it would reduce the accumulated global total by 2030 by about 20% and delay any of the projected effects of climate change by about 12 years. The relative importance of the U.S. as a contributor of to carbon dioxide emissions is projected to decrease from 21.9% of global annual emissions in 2006 to 18.6% in 2030.

All of the projections above from EIA, Census, SSA, and CBO are made in the face of considerable uncertainties. For example, this recent paper (in PDF and peer-reviewed journal version) suggests that, under some scenarios, demographic factors may in fact lead to a decrease in U.S. per capita emissions as the population ages.

Whatever the future holds, it is clear from this data that while the United States is the largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, it nonetheless produces a small share of total global emissions. Given that the majority of its emissions come from its growing population, this places the U.S. at a disadvantage with countries with slower rates of population growth when emissions reductions are accounted on a national basis (discussed here). A continued discussion of climate policy in terms of nations seems to be more divisive than anything else from the standpoint of policy development. Politically, however, the focus on the U.S. does serve a function in both domestic and international politics and in my view goes far beyond the issues related to climate change.

Posted on September 25, 2006 09:58 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 21, 2006

David Whitehouse on Royal Society Efforts to Censor

David Whitehouse is a former online science editor for the BBC. He has sent a letter to Benny Peiser, a prominent climate provocateur from the University of Liverpool who oversees the CCNet mailing list. Benny included Dr. Whitehouse’s correspondence on the Royal Society’s letter to ExxonMobil (PDF) in his compilation yesterday (Guardian story here). There is also apparently a second letter from the Royal Society to journalists, asking them to ignore people with perspectives outside the IPCC consensus.

Let me say in no uncertain terms that in my opinion the actions by the Royal Society are inconsistent with the open and free exchange of ideas, as well as the democratic notion of free speech. Here in the U.S. we have recently won a battle to allow scientists employed by government to speak freely even if their views are inconvenient to the current Administration. Such lessons should work in all directions. The Royal Society is seeking to use the authority of science to limit open debate. This is not, to put it delicately, the most effective use of scientific authority in political debates. Climate scientists and advocates confident of their positions should welcome any and all challengers, and smack them down with the power of their arguments, not the weight of their influence or authority. A strategy based on stifling debate is sure to backfire, not just on the climate issue, but for the scientific enterprise as a whole.

Here is Dr. Whitehouse’s letter, which I endorse 100%:

Dear Benny,
I wonder if I am not alone in finding something rather ugly and unscientific about the letter the Royal Society has sent to EssoUK (part of Exxon). It is reproduced in today's Guardian newspaper.

It demands EssoUK stop giving money to groups and organisations who do not believe that human activities are totally responsible for global warming. It also asks EssoUK to provide details of all the groups it funds so that the Royal Society can track them down and vet them, "so that I can work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public," the letter says.

My disquiet about this is nothing to do with the status of the debate about anthropogenic global warming but about the nature of the debate and the role of the Royal Society in it and the sending of such a hectoring and bullying letter demanding adherence to the scientific consensus.

Theories come and go. Some become fact, others do not. As scientists our ultimate loyalty is not to theory but to reason and to open enquiry even when some think it ill judged. We should value that above all and I am surprised the Royal Society is acting this way. Einstein once said, "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."

However the Royal Society sees its role in debates about science, is it appropriate that it should be using its authority to judge and censor in this way?

Yours sincerely,

Dr David Whitehouse

Posted on September 21, 2006 12:08 AM View this article | Comments (107)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | The Honest Broker

September 19, 2006

Al Gore on Climate Policy

Al Gore gave a major speech on climate policy yesterday at NYU. Here are some excerpts and my reactions:

On the nature of climate policy debates:

Merely engaging in high-minded debates about theoretical future reductions while continuing to steadily increase emissions represents a self-delusional and reckless approach. In some ways, that approach is worse than doing nothing at all, because it lulls the gullible into thinking that something is actually being done when in fact it is not.

I could not agree more.

On what we should do first:

Well, first of all, we should start by immediately freezing CO2 emissions and then beginning sharp reductions. . . An immediate freeze has the virtue of being clear, simple, and easy to understand. It can attract support across partisan lines as a logical starting point for the more difficult work that lies ahead.

This seems to be in the realm of fantasy. Carbon dioxide emissions cannot simply be "frozen." This seems like exactly the sort of "high-minded debate about theoretical future reductions" that he just warned us about.

On international climate policy:

A responsible approach to solving this crisis would also involve joining the rest of the global economy in playing by the rules of the world treaty that reduces global warming pollution by authorizing the trading of emissions within a global cap.
At present, the global system for carbon emissions trading is embodied in the Kyoto Treaty. It drives reductions in CO2 and helps many countries that are a part of the treaty to find the most efficient ways to meet their targets for reductions. It is true that not all countries are yet on track to meet their targets, but the first targets don’t have to be met until 2008 and the largest and most important reductions typically take longer than the near term in any case.

The absence of the United States from the treaty means that 25% of the world economy is now missing. It is like filling a bucket with a large hole in the bottom. When the United States eventually joins the rest of the world community in making this system operate well, the global market for carbon emissions will become a highly efficient closed system and every corporate board of directors on earth will have a fiduciary duty to manage and reduce CO2 emissions in order to protect shareholder value.

This is misleading. The Kyoto "bucket" is full of holes, and not just from those countries that are not participating. Most European countries are failing to meet their targets under the treaty. To suggest that if the United States joins the Kyoto Protocol it will lead to an "efficient closed system" fails to mention that most of expected future emissions are not covered by Kyoto and that there are no plans for them to be.

On the practical actions needed:

Third, a responsible approach to solutions would avoid the mistake of trying to find a single magic "silver bullet" and recognize that the answer will involve what Bill McKibben has called "silver-buckshot" - numerous important solutions, all of which are hard, but no one of which is by itself the full answer for our problem.
One of the most productive approaches to the "multiple solutions" needed is a road-map designed by two Princeton professors, Rob Socolow and Steven Pacala, which breaks down the overall problem into more manageable parts. Socolow and Pacala have identified 15 or 20 building blocks (or "wedges") that can be used to solve our problem effectively - even if we only use 7 or 8 of them. I am among the many who have found this approach useful as a way to structure a discussion of the choices before us.

Gore repeats which has become a common myth – that if we reduce emissions by 7 or 8 of Socolow and Pacala’s "wedges" we will "solve the problem effectively." This is incredibly misleading and grossly oversimplifies the challenge of stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions. We discussed this at length here.

On particularly promising options:

First, dramatic improvements in the efficiency with which we generate, transport and use energy will almost certainly prove to be the single biggest source of sharp reductions in global warming pollution. . .
To take another example, many older factories use obsolete processes that generate prodigious amounts of waste heat that actually has tremendous economic value. By redesigning their processes and capturing all of that waste, they can eliminate huge amounts of global warming pollution while saving billions of dollars at the same time. . .

. . . we should develop a distributed electricity and liquid fuels distribution network that is less dependent on large coal-fired generating plants and vulnerable oil ports and refineries.

Small windmills and photovoltaic solar cells distributed widely throughout the electricity grid would sharply reduce CO2 emissions and at the same time increase our energy security. Likewise, widely dispersed ethanol and biodiesel production facilities would shift our transportation fuel stocks to renewable forms of energy while making us less dependent on and vulnerable to disruptions in the supply of expensive crude oil from the Persian Gulf, Venezuela and Nigeria, all of which are extremely unreliable sources upon which to base our future economic vitality. It would also make us less vulnerable to the impact of a category 5 hurricane hitting coastal refineries or to a terrorist attack on ports or key parts of our current energy infrastructure. . .

. . . A second group of building blocks to solve the climate crisis involves America’s transportation infrastructure. We could further increase the value and efficiency of a distributed energy network by retooling our failing auto giants - GM and Ford - to require and assist them in switching to the manufacture of flex-fuel, plug-in, hybrid vehicles. . .

Shifting to a greater reliance on ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, butanol, and green diesel fuels will not only reduce global warming pollution and enhance our national and economic security, it will also reverse the steady loss of jobs and income in rural America. Several important building blocks for America’s role in solving the climate crisis can be found in new approaches to agriculture. . .

Similarly, we should take bold steps to stop deforestation and extend the harvest cycle on timber to optimize the carbon sequestration that is most powerful and most efficient with older trees. . .

His best line:

It is, in other words, time for a national oil change. That is apparent to anyone who has looked at our national dipstick.

On nuclear power:

Many believe that a responsible approach to sharply reducing global warming pollution would involve a significant increase in the use of nuclear power plants as a substitute for coal-fired generators. While I am not opposed to nuclear power and expect to see some modest increased use of nuclear reactors, I doubt that they will play a significant role in most countries as a new source of electricity. The main reason for my skepticism about nuclear power playing a much larger role in the world’s energy future is not the problem of waste disposal or the danger of reactor operator error, or the vulnerability to terrorist attack. Let’s assume for the moment that all three of these problems can be solved. That still leaves two serious issues that are more difficult constraints. The first is economics; the current generation of reactors is expensive, take a long time to build, and only come in one size - extra large. In a time of great uncertainty over energy prices, utilities must count on great uncertainty in electricity demand - and that uncertainty causes them to strongly prefer smaller incremental additions to their generating capacity that are each less expensive and quicker to build than are large 1000 megawatt light water reactors. Newer, more scalable and affordable reactor designs may eventually become available, but not soon. Secondly, if the world as a whole chose nuclear power as the option of choice to replace coal-fired generating plants, we would face a dramatic increase in the likelihood of nuclear weapons proliferation. During my 8 years in the White House, every nuclear weapons proliferation issue we dealt with was connected to a nuclear reactor program. Today, the dangerous weapons programs in both Iran and North Korea are linked to their civilian reactor programs. Moreover, proposals to separate the ownership of reactors from the ownership of the fuel supply process have met with stiff resistance from developing countries who want reactors. As a result of all these problems, I believe that nuclear reactors will only play a limited role.

Gore’s technological optimism on just about every other area of climate change policy does not square with his technological pessimism about nuclear power. My guess – and it is only an uninformed guess – is that Gore’s views on nuclear power provide the strongest signal that he is positioning himself for a run at the Presidency in 2008. His views on nuclear power seem carefully crafted so as not to offend his base of political support. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he call in grand fashion (as he has in every other area) for solving the problems of nuclear power that accompany its abundant carbon free energy? If we can freeze carbon dioxide levels we can sure keep nuclear material safe.

On coal:

The most important set of problems by that must be solved in charting solutions for the climate crisis have to do with coal, one of the dirtiest sources of energy that produces far more CO2 for each unit of energy output than oil or gas. . . Fortunately, there may be a way to capture the CO2 produced as coal as burned and sequester it safely to prevent it from adding to the climate crisis. It is not easy. This technique, known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is expensive and most users of coal have resisted the investments necessary to use it. However, when the cost of not using it is calculated, it becomes obvious that CCS will play a significant and growing role as one of the major building blocks of a solution to the climate crisis.

Here we see the technological optimism that is absent in his views on nuclear power.

On adaptation:

Absolutely nothing.

Posted on September 19, 2006 08:01 AM View this article | Comments (13)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 18, 2006

Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Stake in the EPA Lawsuit

I put this in the comments of an earlier thread, but I thought worth highlighting as well. What are potential effects of EPA regulation of carbon dioxide from automobiles?

Taking a look at data from the US EIA (here):

It projects out to 2030 that the accumulated global carbon dioxide emissions will be 235 GtC. It also projects that of this total about 15 GtC will come from the use of petroleum in the United States. Let's assume all of this comes from cars. Lets further assume the EPA regulates carbon dioxide such that no emissions are allowed.

This would reduce the global total emissions of carbon dioxide from 235 to 220 GtC by 2030 (assuming regulations start January 1, 2007). (The ratio presumably gets smaller further into the future as global emissions are projected t increase faster than US auto emisssions.) I don't think that current climate models are able to differentate bewteen a world with these two values of carbon dioxide emissions, much less predict how one might be different than another.

In short the effects of EPA regulation would likely be nil. So is the lawsuit about publicity? Compelling U.S. participation in an international agreement? Because it sure does not look like it is about reducing the impacts of carbon dioxide on anything perceptible in the United States.

What have I missed?

Posted on September 18, 2006 05:42 PM View this article | Comments (21)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 15, 2006

Brief of Amicus Curiae by Climate Scientists

A group of climate scientists has submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in support of the petitioners, the State of Massachussetts et al. against the EPA. The lawsuit has to do with the regulation of carbon dioxide by the EPA (details can be found here).

One of the participating climate scientists emailed me and asked that I post their brief and ask for comments here on Prometheus, which we are happy to do. The brief can be found here in PDF.

We'd welcome comments on either the substance of the brief or the advocacy of these scientists. I'll start things off with some comments after the jump.

I am not a lawyer, nor am I in the business of predicting Supreme Court judgments. But I do have a few more-or-less random and perhaps not-well-thought-through thoughts about the case.

1. In my judgment EPA clearly has the authority to regulate CO2, despite what they have said to the contrary. The decision to regulate anything is at its core a political decision. So it seems that the EPA position that they do not have authority should be overturned.

2. As I understand the CAA the decision to propose regulations is at the judgment of the EPA Administrator, and given that the costs and benefit of CO2 regulation are legitimately contested, I do not see the Supreme Court mandating how exactly the EPA administrator should exercise his/her judgment. In such cases over history major policy decisions like this are more appropriately made by the legislature, and I can imagine the SC following this thinking as well. The most relevant legislative precedent would seem to be the provisions included in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 which added a section for the regulation of ozone depleting chemicals. Presumably, if this provision was not needed, then Congress would not have seen fit to add it. I'd suppose that the SC might want to see similar explicit legislative guidance provided for CO2 before supporting its regulation. But maybe not ...

3. Even if the SC does mandate the initiation of a regulatory process I am doubtful that regulations -- or meaningful regulations -- would ever occur, under the Bush Administration or any other. This is because all federal regulations have to pass cost-benefit test under OMB/OIRA. Under the standard approach to C/B analysis the discount rate used will provide a very high bar for any regulation in which costs are borne today and benefits decades in the future. A second factor is the role of adaptation of these long time scales which according to much of the climate impacts literature in many cases (in the US, at least) has great potential to reduce many of the possible impacts. The regulatory system is not well designed for dealing with problems with a large asymmetry in the timing of costs and benefits, particularly in contexts where there are a diverse and legitimate range of perspectives. In this instance the response to ozone depletion is a very poor precedent. Once substitutes were developed the short-term costs dropped to near zero (and maybe even negative) making regulation a relatively simple action. A more appropriate analogy related to ozone may be methyl bromide - an ozone-depleting chemical used on strawberries - which is not currently regulated because the short-term costs are very high due to the fact that there are (as yet) no viable substitutes.

As far as overt political advocacy by scientists, I certainly am not against it, but it does have consequences for both individuals and for the community. The decision to become a political advocate is not unlike the decision of a medical researcher to take funds from a big company. Lots of people do it, it does have positives, but would we want every medical researcher doing it? Indvidual decisions by scientists have collective consequences. I do think it is a bit disingenuous of a few of the scientists who have publicly stated that they are focused not on advocacy but correcting the scientific record. Lets be clear, taking sides and participating in a court case is not about science; it is about politics.

Posted on September 15, 2006 02:03 AM View this article | Comments (31)
Posted to Climate Change

September 14, 2006

What to Make of This?

I'm not sure how to assess this news report:

The Bush administration plans to announce as early as next week a goal of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels in the global atmosphere at 450 parts per million by the year 2106, congressional and non-government sources told Platts Wednesday.
Such an announcement, if true, might lead to the establishment of new regulatory policies -- either voluntary or mandatory -- for the power sector and other sources of CO2 emissions.

But a high-ranking source at the White House Council on Environmental Quality rejected the suggestion, saying the administration has no plans to unveil any new climate-change policies.

Rumors that the White House plans to unveil a new global warming policy have been circulating since August 27, when Time magazine reporter Mike Allen, citing unnamed administration sources, wrote that President Bush's views on the phenomenon "have evolved."

In the news story there is a telling response from a representative of the Sierra Club who apparently has decided that anything the Bush Administration does necessarily is wrong, but in expressing his opposition fails to grasp the fact that the effects of stabilization at a particular level are time invariant -- that is, as far as the effects of carbon dioxide on climate change, the precise path to stabilization is not important, the time-integrated emissions are what matters because of the long atmospheric residence time of carbon dioxide.

Dave Hamilton, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy programs, said that while the 450 ppm number was fine, the timeline is not.
"We've got to make 450 [ppm] by mid-century, not next century," he said, adding that the administration's plan "would not stave off the worst impacts of global warming."

I am doubtful that the Bush Administration will suggest dramatic new policies on climate change. But let's see what happens. Meantime, the strategy of advancing incorrect policy arguments to support apparent predetermined opposition to policies not yet proposed might be rethought.

Posted on September 14, 2006 06:14 AM View this article | Comments (35)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 12, 2006

The Promotion of Scientific Findings with Political Implications

In the Houston Chronicle today, Eric Berger has a thoughtful article about the state of the debate over hurricanes and global warming. One question that it raises is the degree to which scientists should be actively engaged in partnering with advocacy organizations to promote their work. Here is an excerpt from the Chronicle article:

While nearly all scientists agreed Earth has warmed considerably in the last century, there was no consensus on whether that warming world was causing more and stronger hurricanes to form.
Now some of those scientists have changed their minds, saying a consensus has indeed emerged.

Such talk was sparked Monday when 19 respected climate scientists published a research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluding that human burning of fossil fuels has warmed the oceans, providing the fuel for tropical cyclones to become monster hurricanes.

"The work that we've done closes the loop," said Tom Wigley, an author of the new paper and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The message for the public should be clear, added Robert Correll, a senior fellow of the American Meteorological Society: Humans are the "primary driving force behind increased hurricane activity."

In a post-Katrina world, this is a question public policy-makers and the public have sought an answer to, leading to a flurry of research in the last year.

But some researchers who study the complicated interplay between hurricanes and global warming suggest little has changed in the last few months to suggest that scientists have come to a consensus.

"Honestly, I don't think anyone's changed their mind," said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. "To me, this looks like the same people saying the same thing over and over again."

Earlier this year, Klotzbach published a paper suggesting that, despite a rise in ocean temperatures during the last 20 years, hurricane activity worldwide has decreased.

When Klotzbach published his paper, however, he did not issue a press release or organize a teleconference.

This week's PNAS article was accompanied by a teleconference with Correll, Wigley and two other prominent hurricane scientists, Kerry Emanuel and Greg Holland.

"What concerns me," Klotzbach said, "is the politicization of this issue."

The teleconference being referred to was organized by a group called Resource Media which describes itself as "dedicated to making the environment matter. We provide media strategy and services to non-profits, foundations and other partners who are working on the front lines of environmental protection." Resource Media’s "partners" are a long list of environmental advocacy groups. I’ve personally given money to some of these groups, and in most cases I am not opposed to their advocacy. But I am concerned about scientists who align themselves with one political agenda in a politically contentious debate putatively over science. This feeds the pathological politiicization of science.

On this subject last March I wrote about how a different group of hurricane scientists participated in a media briefing organized by the group TechCentralStation, an organization that values "the power of free markets, open societies and individual human ingenuity to raise living standards and improve lives." Here is what I said then about the self-segregation of scientists according to their political predispositions:

Let’s take a look at this behavior from two perspectives. First, from the perspective of the individual scientist deciding to align with an interest group, it should be recognized that such a decision is political. There is of course nothing wrong with politics, it is how we get done the business of society, and organized interest groups are fundamental to modern democracy. Nonetheless, an observer of this dynamic might be forgiven for thinking when they see scientists self-select and organize themselves according to political predispositions that different perspectives on scientific issues are simply a function of political ideologies. We can see how contentious political debates involving science become when filtering science through interest groups is the dominant mechanism for connecting science to policy.

Aligning with powerful interests can certainly help a scientist to amplify their message in the media and elevate their prominence in political debates. This sort of amplification has long been a tactic of the political right, and it seems that the left is rapidly catching up. But the battle over perceptions of science in the media is not the same as scientific debate.

Resource Media’s campaign is disingenuous because it presents the scientific debate over hurricanes-climate change as if it has been settled, and the climate scientists they are promoting have contributed to this misinterpretation. Consider that the PNAS paper being promoted this week focuses on a subject that has never been at issue in the scientific debate:

National Hurricane Center scientist Chris Landsea said warmer water doesn't lead necessarily to stronger hurricanes.
"I agree with the paper's conclusion that the warming trend in the tropical oceans is likely due, at least in part, to greenhouse gases," Landsea said. "But this paper certainly isn't the 'key link' between hurricanes and climate change. Its focus is on something that I thought was settled quite some time ago."

As far as the scientific debate over hurricanes and climate change. It remains exactly where it has been for the past year – a debate.

On the very professional (but password protected) website that Resource Media has set up to promote the latest paper, they provide a long list of publications related to the hurricane-global warming debate, but conspicuously fail to include any work by Landsea, including his comments on Emanuel’s work, Chan, including his comments on Webster et al., or a link to the joint statement led by Kerry Emanuel and colleagues (including several who participated in the Resource Media teleconference) on the policy significance of this debate. Do they take reporters for rubes? Do they think that reporters are not aware of the broader literature? Do they not know that most reporters know a promotional campaign when they see one?

Such tactics have been criticized as cherrypicking and misrepresentation by critics of the use of science by those on the political right, and appropriately so. It seems to me that cherrypicking and misrepresentation is improper no matter who is doing it. Advocacy groups and politicians will always make the best case they can for their agenda, at the known risk of being called out by the other side.

However, when scientists willingly participate in such tactics to promote their research, and presumably a political agenda hitched to that research, they place their long-term credibility at risk. On the climate issue, many of the scientists who have aligned themselves with the political right have seen their credibility evaporate, even as they have received considerable media attention. The hurricane scientists who are now amplifying their message by aligning with the political left should take a close look at this lesson from recent history, as it may foretell their own future.

Posted on September 12, 2006 07:13 AM View this article | Comments (16)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | The Honest Broker

September 10, 2006

The Dismal Prospects for Stabilization

The Economist's survey of climate change describes the challenge of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations as follows:

The concentration of CO2 in the air has risen from 280ppm before the industrial revolution to around 380ppm now, and the IPCC reckons that if emissions continue to grow at their current rate, by 2100 this will have risen to around 800ppm. Depending on population changes, economic growth and political will, this could be adjusted to somewhere between 540ppm and 970ppm. The prospect of anything much above 550ppm makes scientists nervous.

But a close examination of research in this area does appear to lend anything but pessimism to the notion that stabilization at 550 ppm is even possible. Forget about 500 or 450.

By contrast, the Economist suggests some optimism for reaching a 550 ppm target. My reading of the Economist survey on climate change suggests that this optimism may be the result of its confusion between stabilizing emissions reductions with stabilization of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide -- a common error in discussions of climate change. This distinction is important because it can lead one to dramatically underestimate the magnitude of the challenge represented by achieving stabilization at levels such as 450, 500, or 550 ppm carbon dioxide.

Indeed, it seems that this misplaced optimism has led the Economist to conclude, "The technological and economic aspects of the problem are, thus, not quite as challenging as many imagine. The real difficulty is political." This line of thinking is the same as that presented in the IPCC’s Working Group III, but it is not at all reflective of a consensus. For instance, the IPCC’s conclusion that climate change is not a technological but a political challenge was strongly criticized by Hoffert et al. (2002) as reflecting a "misperception of technological readiness" and they conclude that "although regulation can play a role, the fossil fuel greenhouse effect is an energy problem that cannot be simply regulated away."

A closer look at the studies referred to by the Economist in its survey on prospects for stabilization of carbon dioxide concentrations is a somewhat sobering exercise. The Economist writes,

If an answer is to be found, it lies in using a combination of economics and a broad range of technologies. Robert Socolow, an economist at Princeton University, offers an encouraging way of thinking about this. His “stabilisation wedges” show how different ways of cutting emissions can be used incrementally to lower the trajectory from a steep and frightening path towards a horizontal one that stabilises emissions at their current level.

What Socolow has proposed is an approach to getting a start on the challenge of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at a level that might make stabilization still feasible, not an answer to the challenge of stabilization. A closer look at Socolow’s work suggests less reason for optimism than reported by the Economist.

Socolow suggests that under business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions will continue to increase at a rate of 1.5% per year. This growth rate would result in an additional 525 gigatons of carbon (GtC) being added to the atmosphere by 2054, and at that time an annual rate of emissions of 15.0 GtC. Socolow argues that to eventually achieve stabilization at 550 ppm requires that the annual rate of emissions 2004-2054 not exceed an annual average of 7.0 GtC. Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is that under Socolow’s assumptions the emissions of carbon dioxide by 2054 would need to be reduced by about 53%. Socolow’s approach is valuable in that it has proposed a wide range of approaches that in some combination might feasibly make some progress toward a reduction of 53% in emissions by 2054.

But even assuming the tremendous achievement of a 53% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would not be enough to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions at 550 ppm. It is absolutely essential to recognize that constant emissions at the present level will not lead to a stabilization of emissions concentrations in the atmosphere. As Pierre Friedlingstein and Susan Solomon wrote in PNAS last year,

It is worth recalling that constant emissions will lead to a linear increase in atmospheric CO2, not to stabilization. Atmospheric CO2 stabilization can be reached only with an emission scenario that eventually drops to zero.

By "zero" this means net of carbon dioxide "sinks." If the oceans and land serve as "sinks" (i.e., they have a net uptake of carbon dioxide) then in order for the atmosphere concentrations to reach stabilization, then human emissions need not be zero but cannot exceed the net "sink." This is described by Socolow et al. (2004) on pp. 14-15 of this paper in PDF). Socolow et al. suggest that the sink level is about 2.5 GtC per year, although they acknowledge that the figure is highly uncertain. Thus, under Socolow et al.’s sink estimate, in order to achieve stabilization of atmospheric concentrations at below a doubling of pre-industrial levels requires that over the period 2054-2104 annual emissions must be reduced by 4.5 GtC, from the 7 GtC that their scenario has for 2054. This rate of reduction corresponds to about a 2% annual decrease in carbon dioxide emissions.

Based on this scenario, we can then determine the aggregate carbon dioxide emissions implied over 2054-2104, which are about 225 GtC. Thus under Socolow’s assumptions, over the period 2004-2104, to achieve stabilization at 550 ppm requires that total emissions not exceed more than 658 GtC (i.e., 433 + 225, for the figure of 433 GtC allowed 2004-2054 see Table S1 in Pacala and Socolow’s SOM). Under Socolow’s business-as-usual, the total carbon dioxide emissions 2004-2104 are about 1630 GtC. Thus, over this period there needs to be a reduction in total emissions of about 60%.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency’s figures for global carbon dioxide emissions 2004 and 2005 saw about 7.04 and 7.25 GtC of carbon dioxide and 2006 is estimated at about 7.45 GtC. Adding these up results in about 21.7 GtC. Subtracting this from Socolow’s allowable 658 GtC 2004-2104 results in about 636 GtC. One way to think about this is that the world has a carbon dioxide emissions budget of 636 GtC to "spend" by 2104. Under business-as-usual (i.e., EIA estimates to 2030, Socolow’s growth of 1.5% after) this level of aggregate emissions will be exceeded by about 2057. Faster growth rates would of course reach that point faster.

Presumably, those who say that we have no more than ten years to get started on this challenge probably recognize that under business-as-usual by 2015 about an additional 100 GtC will be emitted into the atmosphere, drawing down Socolow’s allowable "budget" to 536 GtC to be "spent" over the following 88 years.

For my part, I fail to see any meaningful difference between 636 GtC to be spent over 98 years (or an average of 6.5 GtC/year) and 536 GtC to be spent over 88 years (6.1 GtC/year). If we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the business-as-usual average level of about 16.2 GtC/year 2004-2104 to an average of 6.5 GtC year over that period, then surely squeezing out an additional 0.4 GtC year would not be a show stopper.

Let me suggest another possibility. Under the assumptions presented here (i.e., from Socolow’s recent work) stabilization at 550 is not in the cards. If indeed it is true that waiting ten years is too late, then one has no choice but to conclude that starting immediately is too late as well. This is likely to be an unwelcomed and unacceptable conclusion to many, I know.

What would this conclusion mean for climate policy? Here are a few thoughts.

1. Serious thought and research needs to be given to the prospect of stabilization levels much higher that currently being discussed. What are their policy implications for mitigation and adaptation?

2. The EU, for instance, needs to move discussion beyond its fantasy of stabilization at 450 ppm (see Richard Tol on this here).

3. If stabilization at higher than 550 ppm is determined to be "dangerous interference" in the climate system, then the Framework Convention on climate change needs to be renegotiated from the bottom up. Specifically, its Article 2 needs to be recognized as no longer relevant, and no longer an effective guide to action.

4. Much, much more attention needs to be given to adaptation and its role in climate policy.

5. To continue prospects for successful mitigation policy in the face of the reality that mitigation cannot achieve the goals once set for it will require renewed attention to no-regrets policies.

6. Those who say that abandoning a 550 ppm (or lower) target represents "giving up" or "throwing in the towel" will be setting the stage for a backlash when it inevitably becomes inescapable that those targets are not going to be achieved. At some point policy must be grounded in reality.

7. The longer advocates of mitigation continue to hold unrealistic goals for mitigation policies, the longer it will be before realistic policies are being discussed with a greater chance for policy success.

There are of course a lot of assumptions in the above discussion of Socolow’s work, though I have tried to select those most favorable to stabilization. And there are of course many studies of stabilization paths and scenarios (e.g., as cited by IPCC WGIII). Perhaps this broader literature leads to different conclusions than those presented here. I would be interested in hearing from anyone with a substaintive case to be made for why prospects for stabilization at 550 ppm are more optimistic than the gloomy picture painted here.

Posted on September 10, 2006 07:03 PM View this article | Comments (38)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 08, 2006

Follow-up on Ceres Report

On August 23 here we took the group Ceres to task for misrepresenting our work in a report on insurance and climate change. I am happy to report that Evan Mills and Ceres have graciously followed up with me seeking to correct the presentation of our work in the report (PDF). Here is what the report now says:

Thanks to a workshop held by Munich Re and the University of Colorado at Boulder, a previous debate has evolved into a consensus that climate change and variability are playing a role in the observed increase in the costs of weather-related damages, although participants agreed that it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions.

Thanks very much to Evan and Ceres for following up!

Posted on September 8, 2006 12:08 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

September 07, 2006

Substance Thread - IPCC and Assessments

For those who would like to discuss the finer points of my blog writing skills, and the deeper perhaps even sinister implications of my particular word choices, please use this earlier thread;-)

For everyone else, Kenneth Blumenfled has graciously gotten us back on track in a comment reproduced below. For those wanting to discuss the substantive issues associated with my earlier post, the key elements of which I reproduce below, please use this one! Thanks!

Here are some questions worth asking about the hockey stick experience that are not receiving enough attention:

1. The Chronicle article notes that the author(s) of the hockey stick article were responsible for its inclusion in the IPCC report. What are the issues associated with having people (not just limited to the HS, of course) involved with assessing their own work? This would never fly for, say, journal peer review or the drug approval process. Other experience suggests that science can be misrepresented when people review their own work in assesments for policy makers. What are the alternatives? What are the general lessons for the emapnelment of science assessment bodies?

2. The Chronicle article noted of the IPCC's presentation of the HS, "caveats faded from view when leaders of the IPCC boiled down the 994-page scientific report into a 20-page synopsis." Representing complex science in a sound bite necessarily requires simplification, and arguably in this case, and many others, over-simplification of the science. Such over-simplifcations are amplified by the media and used in politically convenient ways by policy advocates on all sides of an issue (as described by the Chronicle, e.g., in the use of the HS by the U.S. National Asssessment and the WSJ). Does it make sense to "boil down" science in a manner that inevitably leads to a mischaracterization of that science? What are the alternatives? This isn't the only example where communication has suffered in the IPCC due to oversimplification of the relevant science.

In my view, both questions raised above might be addressed, at least in part, if the IPCC (or any assessment) were to ask and aswer "So what for action?" of science findings when bringing them to policy makers. The inclusion of any information in a "summary for policy makers" or a "policy relevant" document is based on an assumption that such information is in fact relevant to those policy makers. Scientists should be explcit about why, exactly, they are including some information and not others and what the criteria of relevance actually is. In the case of the IPCC, criteria of relevance are out of sight, and as far as I know completely arbitrary.

Kenneth Blumenfeld offers a reply:

Okay, I'll take a crack at point 1. It seems that IPCC authors may have been selected based on their expertise in a given area, and the intentions were probably better than the outcome suggests, at least in terms of the conflict-of-interest messiness. I would imagine that there was some recognition that the process was going to be a long and arduous one, so the thinking was, "why not have those who have written do the writing?"
I can't think of too many good alternatives. If you have non-experts doing the writing, don't you run the risk of misunderstanding and then misrepresenting the actual science (to at least the same degree as in the conflict-of-interest case)? And if you merely have *different* experts, then you just get the same problem, in a new flavor.

One radical idea would be to have the IPCC funnel money into graduate programs to fund doctoral-level literature reviews on each of the relevant topics. It would be win-win. Everyone knows that graduate students get way too in-depth with literature reviews, and so the chance of them missing something would be small. Students would be happy to compete for something as prestigious as IPCC authorship, and, being so early in their careers, they are all but guaranteed to have no prior investment in whichever topics they end up reviewing and writing about. The IPCC reviewers could be drawn from a pool of largely reading-but-not-writing climate scientists; for example, the sorts of folks who show great promise but then get sidetracked by 15 years of administrative appointments just after getting tenure.

Just a thought. :)

Posted on September 7, 2006 01:08 AM View this article | Comments (29)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 05, 2006

A Colossal Mistake

"A colossal mistake" is how Jerry Mahlman describes in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education the IPCC's decision to feature the so-called "hockey stick" in its Summary for Policy Makers.

I am somewhat surprised that discussion of the hockey stick continues to be about the he said-he said conflcit between the camps in Real Climate and Climate Audit, as described by the Chronicle. As much fun as the personalities and politics are, at some point it is probably worth discussing the broader significance of the hockey stick debate for how we think about scientific assessments and their contributions to the needs of decision makers.

Along these lines, here are some questions worth asking about the hockey stick experience that are not receiving enough attention:

Posted on September 5, 2006 07:55 PM View this article | Comments (17)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 04, 2006

BA on Adaptation

Here is an interesting news story from the BBC on a forthcoming speech today by Frances Cairncross, head of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which will emphasize the need for increased attention to adaptation to climate change.

Posted on September 4, 2006 05:46 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 01, 2006

1 Degree

Can this be a correct reporting of the IPCC's forthcoming report?

THE world's top climate scientists have cut their worst-case forecast for global warming over the next 100 years.
A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian, offers a more certain projection of climate change than the body's forecasts five years ago.

For the first time, scientists are confident enough to project a 3C rise on the average global daily temperature by the end of this century if no action is taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Draft Fourth Assessment Report says the temperature increase could be contained to 2C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are held at current levels.

Is the climate policy debate really about the difference between a global average temperature change of 2+ and 3 degrees C over the next 93 years?

Posted on September 1, 2006 10:50 PM View this article | Comments (25)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Back to Square One?

The BBC quotes AAAS president John Holdren as saying that the work has already reached the threshold of dangerous climate change. Why does this matter? If scientists actually believe that this is the case then it would mean that the overriding objective of the Framework Convention on Climate Change is obsolete and needs to be revisited. Here is what the BBC reports:

One of America's top scientists has said that the world has already entered a state of dangerous climate change.
In his first broadcast interview as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren told the BBC that the climate was changing much faster than predicted.

"We are not talking anymore about what climate models say might happen in the future.

"We are experiencing dangerous human disruption of the global climate and we're going to experience more," Professor Holdren said.

The central objective of the FCCC is described in its Article 2 as:

stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

But if dangerous anthropogenic interference has already occurred or is inevitably on its way, then "prevention" is not in the cards and Article 2 becomes meaningless as a guide to action. Re-opening up Article 2 for revision and updating would be extremely contentious. But view it is needed. If the science advances, so to should the policy response.

I earlier commented that the political issue of “dangerous” climate change will create incentives for scientists to claim that we are on the brink, but not there yet. Hence we often here claims of "ten years to act" and so on. I’d expect that the politically-savvy IPCC will split this baby by placing us on the brink of dangerous climate change, but not there yet. But the more scientists who speak out as Holdren have, the less tenable Article 2 is as a guide to action. In my view it is just a matter of time before Article 2 needs to be revisited. And the sooner the better.

Posted on September 1, 2006 08:48 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

August 31, 2006

Climate Mitigation and Adaptation in India

SciDev.net has an excellent article online about climate adaptation and mitigation in India. Here in an excerpt relevant to recent discussions here on Prometheus:

Finance is another problem for government and development agencies. The Global Environment Facility supports adaptation projects with global environmental benefits. But "how do you prove the global benefit of a storm forecasting or cyclone warning system along a specific coastline?" asks Anand Patwardhan, professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai and executive director of the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council.
And even the issue of adaptation itself is contentious. "By shifting the focus to adaptation, major industrialised polluting countries are side-stepping their responsibility towards mitigation" says Sunita Narain, director of the Delhi-based non governmental organisation, Centre for Science and Environment.

Climate change or no climate change, pockets of India face frequent droughts while monsoon floods ravage others. National programmes to improve watershed and ground water management may qualify as adaptation strategies, but they have not been put in place with adaptation in mind.

"It is difficult to distinguish adaptation to climate change from the process of development itself," says Patwardhan.

"In practice, we do not experience climate change—we experience changes in weather patterns," he observes. Local communities find it difficult to visualise life in 2050, or to understand what a half degree rise in temperature will mean. And disadvantaged groups already face pressures from population growth, natural resource depletion and socio-economic inequalities. To these communities in particular, climate change will become an added stress of daily life.

"What we need to do" suggests Patwardhan, "is to link day-to-day choices and activities to the long-term response to climate change"

Amen.

Posted on August 31, 2006 06:59 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 23, 2006

Ceres is Misrepresenting Our Work

A while back we documented in some detail how a publication in Science by Evan Mills grossly misrepresented existing research to make the claim that human-caused climate change was observable in the economic record of disasters. In a just-released report by the group Ceres, an advocacy group focused on the insurance industry, Mr. Mills is again misrepresenting existing research, and this time it is mine.

In the report just out, co-authored by Mr. Mills (here in PDF), they write of the scientific debate over the role of climate change and disaster losses:

Thanks to a workshop held by Munich Re, a previous debate has evolved into a consensus that climate change is playing a role in the observed increase in the costs of weather-related damages.

Well, no. I co-organized the workshop with Peter Hoeppe of Munich Re (to which Mr. Mills was invited to attend but turned down). Here is what the workshop report executive summary (PDF) actually says:

Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions. . .
In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.

The use of our work in the Ceres report represents either complete incompetence or a deliberate misrepresentation our work. In either case, if they are so cavalier with how they report my work, how can I trust that they are accurately reporting the work of others? Advocacy groups that base their arguments on flawed or erroneous representations of existing research have absolutely no credibility in my book. Science is diverse enough to be able to cherrypick and shade arguments in one’s preferred direction without misrepresentation. Ceres has in fact misrepresented my work. And that is unfortunate, because some of what Ceres has to say looks like it might make sense.

Posted on August 23, 2006 06:16 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

August 21, 2006

Judy Curry in the Comments

[The below is an excerpt from a comment provided by Judy Curry, which I thought worth highlighting as our conversation has spanned several threads. RP]

100 years from now, if global warming proceeds as expected, there is a risk for whopper hurricanes with sea level rise making the risk even worse for our coastal cities. The elevated risk in terms of hurricane activity may already be upon us. No one wants to see coastal cities disappear. You are right that actions like limiting greenhouse gas emissions cannot help the hurricane situation in the short term (20 years or maybe even 50 years), but on the century time scales there should be some impact at least on the rate of sea surface temperature increase (it is the century time scales that the washington post editorial addresses). Hurricane Katrina, even tho there was no direct causal link with global warming, has served as a huge wakeup call to the American public that global warming might actually have some seriously adverse impacts if we were to see such storms more frequently in the future (this issue seems to have a much greater impact on the public than melting of polar ice gaps). The risk is there, science is important to the public and decision makers, and people are starting to talk about policy options both for the short term and the long term (e.g. the washington post editorial). Surely this is a good thing. Step back for a minute and reflect on why your position on this is so often misrepresented, misunderstood or ignored. There would be more traffic on prometheus on this issue if you would be more reflective about what the other people are trying to say, rather than trying to fit everything into something that supports your thesis (not sure how our BAMS article fell into that category) or makes no sense because it doesn't support your thesis (e.g. the washington post editorial).

Posted on August 21, 2006 09:27 AM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Disasters

August 20, 2006

Bunk on the Potomac

The Washington Post has published one of the worst op-eds I have ever seen. Arguments such as this one might make one think that the environmental community is hell bent on its own self-destruction (compare). Here is an excerpt:

Barring a rapid change in our nation's relationship to fossil fuels, every American within shouting distance of an ocean -- including all of us in the nation's capital -- will become de facto New Orleanians. Imagine a giant floodgate spanning the Potomac River just north of Mount Vernon, there to hold back the tsunami-like surge tide of the next great storm. Imagine the Mall, Reagan National Airport and much of Alexandria well below sea level, at the mercy of "trust-us-they'll-hold" levees maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. Imagine the rest of Washington vulnerable to the winds of major hurricanes that churn across a hot and swollen Chesapeake Bay, its surface free of the once vast and buffering wetland grasses and "speed bump" islands that slow down storms.
Because of global warming, this is our future. Oceans worldwide are projected to rise as much as three feet this century, and much higher if the Greenland ice sheet melts away. And intense storms are already becoming much more common. These two factors together will in essence export the plight of New Orleans, bringing the Big Easy "bowl" effect here to the Washington area, as well as to Charleston, S.C., Miami, New York and other coastal cities. Assuming we want to keep living in these cities, we'll have to build dikes and learn to exist beneath the surface of surrounding tidal bays, rivers and open seas -- just like New Orleans.

Weekly World News? Nope. The Washington Post. Here is more:

In the face of this sobering data suggesting we're bringing New Orleans to the Potomac, what should we do? Realistically, there are three major options: 1) abandon our coastal cities and retreat inland, a response too staggering to imagine, 2) stay put and try to adapt to the menacing new conditions, or 3) switch to clean energy as fast as possible.
Adapting, of course, means committing fully to the New Orleans model. It means potentially thousands of miles of levees and floodwalls across much of the region. And that's just to handle the rising sea. For hurricane surge tides, Stevenson thinks the only solution might be to build a floodgate across the Potomac near Mount Vernon. It could be closed during periods of maximum danger, then reopened as the surge ebbs. He envisions another on the Patapsco River to protect Baltimore. The New York Academy of Sciences, meanwhile, has examined the idea of three such floodgates for New York City.

But are we truly ready to become New Orleanians, casting our lot behind ever-higher, unsustainable walls? Once we commit to fortified levees and massive floodgates, there's no turning back. It's an all-or-nothing proposition, as New Orleans has graphically demonstrated.

Alternatively, we can go with the third option. It's less expensive, less risky and overall much better for us: clean energy. It's the option that treats the disease of global warming, not just the symptoms. Only by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas pollution -- by switching to hybrid cars and wind- and solar-powered electricity and high-efficiency appliances -- can we slow the sea-level rise and potentially calm the growth in hurricane intensity.

We must join the rest of the world in this effort because, while the effects are local, the solution can only be global. Some adaptation to global warming will still be necessary, given the momentum built into the warming process. And a national clean-energy overhaul will represent a huge challenge to our society, especially given how little time scientists say we have left -- maybe just 10 years -- before runaway climate effects become a reality.

But switching to clean, efficient energy is a challenge compared to what? Compared to life below sea level with a constant eye on the Weather Channel, waiting for the next Category 5 storm to replicate the horrifying events of last Aug. 29?

There are numerous scientific errors and misstatements in the piece (e.g., confusion of wind speed and power dissipation), but these factual problems pale in the face of its absurd policy arguments. I fully support switching to clean, efficient energy. But to suggest that such a switch can play a perceptible role in modulating the impacts of future hurricanes is simply bunk. It is absolute, utter nonsense.

Leading scientists would do well to recognize that their coy flirting with environmental activists bent on emissions reductions, while at the same time trying to hide their actions behind a fig leaf of policy agnisticism, only serves to feed such absurdities. Anyone wanting to help the environmental community achieve the goal of decarbonizing the global energy system should instead try to stop such poor policy arguments in their tracks.

Posted on August 20, 2006 09:09 PM View this article | Comments (9)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

August 19, 2006

Hurricanes and Global Warming: All You Need to Know

The current issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) has a lengthy commentary (PDF) by Judy Curry, Peter Webster, and Greg Holland offering their opinions on a wide range of subjects related to the recent debate over hurricanes and global warming. Beyond lengthy criticism of (see also Curry's extended comments at Real Climate) the media, meteorologists, engineers, NOAA, NWS, Bill Gray, the AMS, the tropical storms list-serv, and the private sector (Did I miss anyone? How did I escape mention? ;-)), Curry et al. do tell those interested in an appropriate representation of the current debate all we need to know.

In the article, Curry et al. state clearly that the science of hurricanes-climate change is contested and differing expectations for what the future holds based on competing hypotheses won't be resolved for at least a decade:

In summary, the central hypothesis and subhypotheses cannot be invalidated by the available evidence. We anticipate that it may take a decade for the observations to clarify the situation as to whether the hypothesis has predictive ability. In short, time will tell.

This echoes what we wrote in 2005 in BAMS (PDF):

. . .the state of the peer-reviewed knowledge today is such that there are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term.

At last year's AMS meeting Webster and Curry presented an earlier version of this paper and cited Bertrand Russell on skepticism (also cited by RealClimate here):

There are matters about which those who have investigated them are agreed. There are other matters about which experts are not agreed. Even when experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. . . Nevertheless, the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

The issue of hurricanes and global warming is clearly is in Russell's category (2), and according to Curry et al. will remain there for at least a decade. What this means is that (a) those who claim that science has demonstrated no linkage between hurricanes and global warming and (b) those who claim that science has demonstrated a linkage are both misrepresenting the available science. We should expect scientists in competing camps to argue strenuously for their own perspective. This is what Curry et al. have done as well as those scientists holding a different view. But for those of us not participating in the science, picking sides reflects factors that go well beyond the science. As we wrote in BAMS in 2006 (PDF), "we should not make the mistake of confusing interesting hypotheses with conclusive research results." And as Rick Anthes has written, "it will be a number of years—perhaps many—before we know the relationships between climate change and the various characteristics of tropical cyclones."

The good news is that policy related to hurricanes is in no way dependent upon resolving this ongoing debate, as Curry, Webster, Holland, and seven of their colleagues from various camps in the debate have wisely recognized.

As we have said all along, (1) the debate is contested, and will remain so for the the indefinite future, and (2) the debate is not relevant to policy actions related to hurricanes. And that is all you need to know.

Posted on August 19, 2006 10:21 AM View this article | Comments (20)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

August 17, 2006

Is IPCC AR4 an Advocacy Document?

The IPCC claims that it is "policy relevant, but policy neutral." What this phrase actually means is clear as mud. According to various statements by its chairman Rajendra Pachauri over the past few years (e.g., link), one might be excused for thinking that the IPCC is really an advocacy document clothed in the language of science. Mr. Pachauri’s most recent comments about the report in a Reuters news report today do nothing to dispel that view:

The IPCC review, grouping over 2,000 scientists who advise the United Nations, is published in February and is expected to show stronger evidence for climate change and man's part in it.
"I think the conditions are just right for this report to make a perceptible impact," said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. "I think there's enough observed evidence now that certainly will influence the policymakers."

"I've just come back from one of the small mountain states of India, and they regard the melting of the glaciers as the most important problem they're facing. Their entire water supply gets completely distorted."

Talks this year on extending the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol on curbing emissions beyond 2012 could also focus action.

"There is a bit of shadow boxing going on, each group of countries is waiting for what the others are going to do," said Pachauri. "My feeling is that in the next year and a half things will accelerate and perhaps you will see some action."

If the IPCC is being prepared with a goal of making a "perceptible impact" and "influencing policymakers" then no matter what the IPCC says, it is certainly not "policy neutral." Its leadership clearly has a political agenda and it would be appropriate to include that agenda in the report, rather than hiding it behind science. Using science to advance a political agenda, but not openly acknowledging that agenda, is a form of stealth issue advocacy and a recipe for the pathological politicization of climate science. Stealth issue advocacy will severely limit the contributions of the IPCC to debate over climate policy. As an alternative approach, the IPCC should openly discuss a wide range of policy options, rather than perpetuating the continuing, fairly obvious fiction that it is "policy neutral."

Posted on August 17, 2006 07:54 AM View this article | Comments (21)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 09, 2006

How to Make Your Opponent's Work Considerably Easier

Can someone reading this blog who is plugged in to advising environmental organizations let them know that invoking hurricane impacts generally and Katrina specifically as reasons for greenhouse gas mitigation is not really helping their cause?

Comments like this from Environmental Defense, an organization with an impressive track record of environmental advocacy, often make me wonder if environmental groups are actually looking to give their opponents a justified basis for criticism:

Katrina tragically illustrated how vulnerable we all remain, even in the United States, to nature's devastation. Moreover, given that New Orleans' vulnerability to hurricanes had long been appreciated but never adequately addressed, it seriously calls into question the notion that we can simply adapt to the changes wrought by global warming. The costs from Katrina, still being tallied, are staggering, and the storm's full cost—humanitarian, social, environmental and economic—will be felt for many years to come.
Katrina-like events will become more common and more widespread unless the emissions of global warming pollutants are capped. The link between global warming and hurricanes is yet another reason for Americans to insist on meaningful legislation to cap our greenhouse gas emissions.

To support this statement they cite papers from Emanuel, Webster, Holland, and Curry and disparage work of Klotzbach and Landsea. Here is what these six plus Anthes, Elsner, Knutson, and Mayfield had to say about policies related to hurricanes:

As the Atlantic hurricane season gets underway, the possible influence of climate change on hurricane activity is receiving renewed attention. While the debate on this issue is of considerable scientific and societal interest and concern, it should in no event detract from the main hurricane problem facing the United States: the ever-growing concentration of population and wealth in vulnerable coastal regions. These demographic trends are setting us up for rapidly increasing human and economic losses from hurricane disasters, especially in this era of heightened activity. Scores of scientists and engineers had warned of the threat to New Orleans long before climate change was seriously considered, and a Katrina-like storm or worse was (and is) inevitable even in a stable climate.
Rapidly escalating hurricane damage in recent decades owes much to government policies that serve to subsidize risk. State regulation of insurance is captive to political pressures that hold down premiums in risky coastal areas at the expense of higher premiums in less risky places. Federal flood insurance programs likewise undercharge property owners in vulnerable areas. Federal disaster policies, while providing obvious humanitarian benefits, also serve to promote risky behavior in the long run.

We are optimistic that continued research will eventually resolve much of the current controversy over the effect of climate change on hurricanes. But the more urgent problem of our lemming-like march to the sea requires immediate and sustained attention. We call upon leaders of government and industry to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of building practices, and insurance, land use, and disaster relief policies that currently serve to promote an ever-increasing vulnerability to hurricanes.

Question for Environmental Defense:

OK, I’ll bite. With the "meaningful legislation that caps greenhouse gas emissions" that you are calling for, what effect will this have on hurricane intensities and hurricane impacts over the next 100 years? Here is a hint (PDF) in formulating your answer. Readers feel free to answer as well.

Posted on August 9, 2006 10:22 PM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 08, 2006

A Pielke and Pielke Special

Over at my father's blog we have collaborated on a post titled, "Big Time Gambling With Multi-Decadal Global Climate Model Predictions." The whole thing is posted below. Feel free to comment here or there, we'll both read comments on each other's blog.

Big Time Gambling With Multi-Decadal Global Climate Model Predictions
Roger A. Pielke Sr. and Roger A. Pielke Jr.

Many advocates for action on climate change, including the IPCC assessments and recent documentaries have promoted a view that global warming will continue through the 21st century, with global warming defined as a steady increase in global average temperatures. This prediction of warming is based on the output of multi-decadal general circulation models and is primarily due to the radiative forcing effect of anthropogenic emissions of CO2. In such models only relatively minor year-to-year variations in global average temperatures are forecast in the upward trend, except when major volcanic eruptions cause short-term (up to a few years) of global cooling. For example, see these projections of the most recent IPCC — none of the models has an obvious multi-year (i.e., >2) decrease in global average temperatures over the next century.

Such predictions represent a huge gamble with public and policymaker opinion. If more-or-less steady global warming does not occur as forecast by these models, not only will professional reputations be at risk, but the need to reduce threats to the wide spectrum of serious and legitimate environmental concerns (including the human release of greenhouse gases) will be questioned by some as having been oversold. For better or worse, a failure to accurately predict the changes in the global average surface temperature, global average tropospheric temperature, ocean average heat content change, or Arctic sea ice coverage would raise questions on the reliance of global climate models for accurate prediction on multi-decadal time scales. Surprises or experience that evolve outside the bounds of model output would likely raise questions even among some of those who have so far accepted the IPCC reports as a balanced presentation of climate science. (for a perspective different than the IPCC on applications of climate models see this).

The National Research Council published a report in 2002 entitled "Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises" (of which RP2 was a committee member). The report raised the issues of surprises in the climate system. One of the surprises (to many) may be that the global climate models are simply unable to accurately predict the variability and trends in the climate metrics that have been adopted to communicate human-caused climate change to policymakers. Among the climate metrics with the most public visibility are the long term trends in global average surface temperature, global average tropospheric temperature, summer arctic sea ice areal coverage, and ocean heat content.

There is some emerging empirical evidence to suggest, however, that the concerns expressed here are worth consideration. The recent dramatic cooling of the average heat content of the upper oceans, and thus a significant negative radiative imbalance of the climate system for at least a two year period, that was mentioned in the Climate Science weblog posting of July 27, 2006, should be a wake-up call to the climate community that the focus on predictive modeling as the framework to communicate to policymakers on climate policy has serious issues as to its ability to accurately predict the behavior of the climate system. No climate model that we are aware of has anticipated such a significant cooling, nor is able to reproduce such a significant negative radiative imbalance. Meaningless distinctions between “projections” and “predictions” will be unlikely to convince consumers of climate models to overlook experience that does not jibe with modeled output.

There is no greater danger to support for action on important issues of human impacts on the environment than an overselling of what climate science can provide. If the climate behaves in ways that are unexpected or surprising it will be more than just credibility that is lost. Advocates for action should think carefully when gambling with the unknown predictive abilities of climate models. The human influence on the climate system is real, but the climate may not always cooperate.

Posted on August 8, 2006 11:03 AM View this article | Comments (29)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 07, 2006

Hurricanes, Catastrophe Models, and Global Warming

Yesterday’s Boston Globe had an interesting article about catastrophe models in the insurance industry in the context of uncertainties about hurricanes and global warming. The article raises a number of unanswered questions. Here are a few excerpts and a few of my reactions:

An influential but little known segment of the insurance industry is considering whether climate change might be partly to blame for more intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic. The result of this examination, which comes as scientists debate the same question, could be skyrocketing insurance rates in coastal regions from Maine to Texas.
Already, one leading company that forecasts the risk of natural disasters for the insurance industry has revamped the computer model it uses to simulate future weather trends. The model, which looks five years out, now captures the possibility that global warming might be contributing to hurricane activity.

Risk Management Solutions released the new model in May, predicting that average annual insurance losses will increase 25 to 30 percent in the coastal Northeast because of increased hurricane activity.

Florida state officials are researching whether they should add a climate change component to an insurance hurricane risk model they have developed. And Boston-based AIR Worldwide Corp., another top risk modeler, is launching a study with Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Kerry Emanuel to understand global warming's impact on hurricanes and whether insurance risk will rise as a result.

"It behooves us to research this in a scientific way," said Karen Clark, president and chief executive officer of AIR Worldwide. "We want to quantify the effect of global warming on hurricane activity."

The confidential risk models that private companies like AIR and Risk Management Solutions develop are key factors in the price of homeowners insurance bought by many coastal residents. The modelers calculate the risk from hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural hazards to homes and businesses in a region that takes into account everything from construction material to wind speeds. Insurance providers often use the predictions as an important piece in a complicated formula to set rates.

If global warming is driving more intense hurricanes -- and more of those hurricanes hit land -- it could drastically increase the risk of property loss along crowded coasts.

If catastrophe models are an important factor in insurance rates, and insurance rates are an important factor in insurers bottom line (not to mention a hot-button political issue in U.S. coastal states), then it seems obvious that there is potential for financial conflicts of interest in this area. With respect to pharmaceuticals generally there has been much concern, appropriate in my view, about the role of financial ties to industry among researchers and advisors. And on the climate issue industry funding from the energy sector is tantamount to a scarlet letter. How should we think about insurance industry funding of research related to global warming and insurance risk? [Disclaimer- A few years ago I had a graduate student funded by an insurance company to study uncertainties in catastrophe models.]

Howard Kunreuther, an expert on risk and insurance at the Wharton School, hits the nail on the head when he in quoted in the article:

Ultimately, the problem modelers face is figuring out a short-term prediction from a long-term trend. "The problem is that scientists talk about climate change in terms of 25, 50, or more years; they are not willing to make predictions about five years," said Howard Kunreuther, co-director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "The insurance industry is most interested in knowing what is likely to happen in the next few years as they determine what premiums to set on their coverage against hurricanes and other natural disasters."

Predictions about the long-term future are of course safe, because they cannot be evaluated in the short term. And there will always be this or that event that is "consistent with" the long term predictions, and absolutely nothing is inconsistent with them. According to the article, some scientists are apparently willing in private to make short-term predictions for the insurance industry (also discussed at length here):

In part to deal with this problem, Risk Management Solutions convened a panel of four specialists, including Emanuel, in Bermuda last October to discuss, among other things, what was causing recent hurricane activity and how many storms might hit land.
Aided by the scientists, RMS came to the conclusion that the current period of hurricane activity is so different from the long-term record it didn't make sense anymore to base its models on only the past. In May, the company announced a new model that incorporated the specialists' opinions and the more recent spate of hurricanes, among other changes.

Telling the rest of us what they told the insurance industry, in the form of peer-reviewed, scientific, short-term predictions, would be good in a number of ways. It would allow for empirical evaluation of the predictive skill of short-term (5 years or less) hurricane/climate science, based on actual events. And importantly, it would provide some transparency and accountability for the insurance industry as it ventures into the complicated, conflicted, and political world of climate science, with implications for their bottom line and their customer's insurance rates.

Posted on August 7, 2006 07:07 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Risk & Uncertainty

August 04, 2006

Nisbet and Mooney on Media Coverage of Hurricanes and Global Warming

Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney have a thoughtful article on media coverage of hurricanes and global warming here.

They have some interesting analysis and quotes, such as this one from Andy Revkin:

"The great strength of the global warming argument lies in the balance of the evidence. The closer you bore into specific impacts like hurricanes, however, the more equivocal the science gets."

They also cite those who would use the issue of hurricanes to argue for and against emissions reductions (see original for links):

On the one hand, a who's who of Democratic leaders including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Jimmy Carter cited the recent scientific findings to warn that global warming had contributed to the hurricane problem, and to push for action on greenhouse gas emissions.
Variations on this message appeared in two September columns by Nicholas Kristof and two editorials at The New York Times, but also in work by columnists at the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. Skeptics responded by disputing the scientific evidence and insisting that no serious cuts in emissions were required. "There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period," Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote, rather incautiously, in early September. Others suggested the real focus should be on adapting coastal areas to the likelihood of future disasters. Later would come reports of personal fights between scientists, and allegations of suppression of dissent at government agencies.

They cite some of our work, but I think they fall a bit into the on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand sort of reporting that they criticize when they write:

On the one hand, University of Colorado political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. and his colleagues argue that by far the most important factors influencing our susceptibility to hurricanes are "growing population and wealth in exposed coastal locations." When viewed in comparison with the urgent need to address this societally-induced vulnerability, they maintain that the question of whether or not hurricanes might themselves be growing stronger is quickly overshadowed in significance. On the other hand, in an article in the May issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, a group of leading climate scientists and hurricane experts claim that the balance of the evidence already suggests a human impact on hurricanes, and urge a more precautionary approach to policy.

In reality there is no apparent difference of views on policy options between the two perspectives cited by Nisbet and Mooney. There is in fact overlap in authorship between the Anthes et al. paper that they cite and the recent Emanuel et al. statement, whcih I strongly support. Nisbet and Mooney could have been a bit more clear on this.

Their article is strong in calling for science reporters, as well as scientists, to establish the policy context of contested issues:

n sum, science writers continue to worry about how the issue of hurricanes and global warming is being used politically, and many also assert that caution demands the publication of more research before they can move ahead on the story. These are all legitimate concerns, and the pressure exerted by both editors and media watchdogs to not "take sides" is real. Yet given their specialization and experience, science writers are perhaps uniquely qualified to shield themselves from allegations of bias, and to interpret the policy implications of the subjects they're covering for readers. As long as they ground their stories in thorough, fair-minded reporting and do not stray into unsupported speculation or unnecessary argumentation, these journalists could provide a true public service. Such changes in how journalists and scientists negotiate what counts as news could mean that, when the next big storm hits, we have a chance to bring the policy questions into sharper focus. Otherwise, the public will be left with an all-too-familiar repeating narrative of conflict and doubt/

Overall, this is a really nice article, but it leaves me wondering, what is the role of a science journalist in a democracy anyway?

Posted on August 4, 2006 01:53 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 03, 2006

Who Believes that GHG Mitigation Can Affect Tomorrow’s Climate?

The almost daily use of current weather and climate events to argue for action on greenhouse gases by the media and political advocates is among the most egregious misuses of science in the climate debate. Not only does it redirect attention away from those actions most likely to have an effect on the impacts of weather and climate, but it creates disincentives for action on the longer-term problem of human-caused climate change.

The use of current weather and climate events as a promotional symbol in the climate debate exploits a cognitive heuristic called pattern matching. One reason why there is so little mention of the long time lag between action on energy policies and a perceptible influence on climate is that it would work against exploitation of this cognitive heuristic.

These dynamics are well explained in research conducted by John Sterman of MIT and Linda Booth Sweeny at Harvard (PDF) which concludes that just about everyone – including management, math, and science graduate students at MIT (no slouches there) - believes that changes in energy policies can have an immediate and discernible influence on the climate system. Here is an excerpt from their paper:

We carried out experiments to assess public understanding of basic processes affecting the climate, specifically, whether adults understand the relationships between atmospheric GHG concentrations and flows of greenhouse gases into and out of the atmosphere. Though the subjects, graduate students at MIT, were highly educated, particularly in mathematics and the sciences, results showed widespread misunderstanding of mass balance principles and the concept of accumulation. Instead, most subjects relied on pattern matching to judge climate dynamics. The belief that emissions, atmospheric CO2, and temperature are correlated leads to the erroneous conclusion that a drop in emissions would soon cause a drop in CO2 concentrations and mean global temperature.

Sterman and Booth Sweeney explain why it is that many people think this way:

Why do people underestimate the time delays in the response of climate to GHG emissions? Obviously the average person is not trained in climatology. We hypothesize, however, that widespread underestimation of climate inertia arises from a more fundamental limitation of people’s mental models: weak intuitive understanding of stocks and flows—the concept of accumulation in general, including principles of mass and energy balance. Prior work shows people have difficulty relating the flows into and out of a stock to the trajectory of the stock (Booth Sweeney and Sterman, 2000). Instead, people often assess system dynamics using a pattern matching heuristic (Sterman and Booth Sweeney, 2002), concluding that system outputs (e.g., global mean temperature) are positively correlated with inputs (e.g., emissions). Pattern matching can work well in simple systems but fails in systems with significant stock and flow structures: a stock can rise even as its net inflow falls, as long as the net inflow is positive. For example, a nation’s debt rises as long as its fiscal deficit is positive, even as the deficit falls; debt falls only when the government runs a surplus. Since anthropogenic GHG emissions are now roughly double net removal, atmospheric GHGs would continue to accumulate, increasing net radiative forcing, even if emissions drop, until emissions fall to net removal (of course, removal is not constant; we consider the dynamics of removal below). In contrast, pattern matching incorrectly predicts mean temperature and atmospheric GHGs closely track emissions; hence stabilizing emissions would rapidly stabilize climate, and emissions cuts would quickly reverse warming and limit damage from climate change. People who assess the dynamics of the climate using a pattern matching heuristic will significantly underestimate the lags in the response of the climate to changes in emissions and the magnitude of emissions reductions needed to stabilize atmospheric GHG concentrations.

Stocks and flows may be stunningly obvious to a climate scientist, but it is difficult to comprehend for most people, and it made even more difficult to understand when the point is willfully ignored ot obfuscated by many advocates for energy policy action on climate change. Those who use current climate events like hurricanes or heat waves to justify action on mitigation are thus exploiting pattern matching for a short-term political gain. But my sense is that such exploitation will backfire.

People of good faith can debate the costs and benefits of policies to mitigate climate change, but policy should not be based on mental models that violate the most fundamental physical principles.

Sterman and Booth Sweeney argue that pattern matching is to be expected in how people think,

The difficulties people experience in our experiments should perhaps be expected. It is not necessary to understand stocks and flows to fill a bathtub. It is far more efficient to watch the water in the tub and shut off the tap when it reaches the desired level—a simple, effectively first-order negative feedback process. For a wide range of everyday tasks, people have no need to infer how the flows relate to the stocks—it is better to simply wait and see how the state of the system changes, and then take corrective action.

Sterman and Booth Sweeney suggest that this heuristic lends support to "wait-and-see" policies. This may be the case, but I think it also creates a sense of control over the climate system that simply doesn’t exist. If we can control the climate system, and correspondingly climate impacts, simply by changing our energy policies, then it would be logical to think - "Hey! Drive a Prius and no more heat waves or hurricanes!" The explotation of pattern matching also creates incentives for small, meaningless actions. The poverty of the current policy debate on climate change would be far more apparent if advocates more openly described the time lag between action on energy policies and perceptible influences of the climate system. This also would help to make advocacy for action on energy policies more honest and properly justified.

The hard reality is that the only justifiable use of current weather and climate events as a tool of promotion for action on climate change is in support of improving adaptive responses and reducing vulnerability.

Posted on August 3, 2006 10:20 AM View this article | Comments (16)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Climate Porn

The BBC has an article today about a new report from the U.K. based Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which the BBC characterizes as a "Labour-leaning" think tank.

The alarmist language used to discuss climate change is tantamount to "climate porn", offering a thrilling spectacle but ultimately distancing the public from the problem . . .

Simon Retallick, IPPR’s head of climate change, has this to say:

If the public is to be persuaded of the need to act we must understand how climate change is being communicated in the UK. Currently, climate communications too often terrify or thrill the reader or viewer while failing to make them feel that they can make a difference, which engenders inaction.
Government and green groups should avoid giving the impression that 'we are all doomed' and spend less time convincing people that climate change is real. . .

I very much agree with these views, but I do have two quibbles with the overview of the report. First, missing here is a discussion of the role of the climate science community, within which many have taken on as a personal mission the task of convincing people not only that climate change is real, but that anyone who deviates from the "consensus" should be vilified or silenced. Yes, there is a scientific consensus on climate change as described by the IPCC, but it offers little prospect of compelling a political consensus. Consequently, efforts to use science to force political action are in my view one of the driving factors behind "climate porn."

Second, Retallick suggests a focus on "large actions" like hybrid cars or insulation instead of "small actions" like turning down the thermostat. From where I sit hybrid cars and wall insulation are "small actions" when compared to the challenge of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The report does not go far enough in discussing the complete transformation of the global energy infrastructure needed to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at anything close to today’s levels. Where is the discussion of nuclear energy, vast investments in energy R&D, or even air capture? The report does not apparently acknowledge that solutions will unlikely to be motivated by climate concerns alone (as I discussed in my recent testimony before the U.S. Congress, PDF), which further underscores the pathological role played by climate porn.

Here is a longer excerpt from the IPPR website which describes the report:

The research analysed more than 600 articles from the UK press, as well as over 90 TV, radio and press ads, news clips and websites to find out how the media, government and green groups are communicating climate change.
The report argues that the discussion on climate change in the UK is confusing, contradictory and chaotic, and with the likely result that the public feels disempowered and uncompelled to act.

The report says that climate change communications should avoid using inflated or extreme language and placing the focus on small actions to solve the problem.

The report identifies ten different ways of talking about climate change, of which the first two are dominant:

*Alarmism ("we’re all going to die"): this pessimistic approach refers to climate change as awesome, terrible, immense and beyond human control. It excludes the possibility of real action – "The problem is just too big for us to take on". Alarmism might even become secretly thrilling – effectively a form of "climate porn". It is seen in almost every form of discussion on the issue.

"A world of climate chaos spiralling out of control"

* Small actions ("I’m doing my bit for the planet – and maybe my pocket"): the "small actions" approach is the dominant one in campaign communications from government and green groups. It asks a large number of people to do a few small things to counter climate change. The language is one of ease and domesticity with references to kettles and cars, ovens and light switches. It is often placed alongside alarmism. It is likely to beg the question: how can this really make a difference?

"20 things you can do to save the planet from destruction"

Posted on August 3, 2006 07:46 AM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

July 31, 2006

von Storch and Zorita on U.S. Climate Politics

Hans von Storch and Eduardo Zorita have prepared a report of their perceptions of the climate debate in the U.S. Congress following their visit and testimony a few weeks ago. Here is the report from von Storch and Zorita:

Thinking about climate change and climate change research on Capitol Hill.

A two day visit of Hans von Storch and Eduardo Zorita,
19 and 20 July 2006

During two days of listening to House members and talking with staffers of House and Senate and lobbyists, mainly from the GOP (Republican) side, we perceived the situation as such:

1) The democrats consider the "scientific evidence" sufficient for political action. They hockey-stick does not play a particular relevant role in the argument, since other independent evidence would sufficiently support the assessment that we are presently, and will continue to do so in the future, changing climate. They presented the usual cocktail of alarmist/real impacts as reason why regulation is urgently needed.

No urgent need for further research was voiced; not critique of the scientific process. Instead scientific claims were used in a populist manner.

2) Most Republicans did not deny the existence of emerging man-made climate change, but likely considered the intensity and the impacts less severe than the Democrats. In fact, the consequences of anthropogenic climate change could be insignificant and could be dealt with the normal adaptation process. Some few Republicans were not convinced that the present warming was not natural at all, and referred to the cooling debate in the 1970s.

The Republicans were very interested in the hockey-stick, not as a scientific result but in the process of arriving at, and quality controlling, the result. They considered the NRC (North) report as well as the Wegmann-report, commissioned by the US Representatives Houses Committee on Energy and Commerce, as strong evidence that the statistical procedure adopted in the MBH study was questionable or outright false, and therefore the prominent usage of the hockey-stick would not be warranted. Based on this unfavourable example, knowledge claims from climate change studies are questioned in general, because in the case of the hockey-stick the dominant science (IPCC-related?) groups failed to guarantee a sufficient level of quality control in the scientific process and did not allow replication by independent groups (i.e., McIntyre and McKitrick and Wegmann).

We consider it probable that after having now seen the questioning of the replicability (and thus, validity) of paleo-climatic reconstructions, similar doubts concerning other key arguments in the climate change debate, in particular climate models, will be voiced in some future.

An interesting detail was that one staffer spoke about a "discounting" of scientific results conditional upon in which journal the result was published. Science is associated with a low level of credibility whereas GRL is considered a generally "good" source. The same staffer explained that the political system would be able to deal with uncertainties. Thus, it would be best for science to present the full range of uncertainties to policymakers, so that they can come up with their choice of best action. The alternative, namely to present a "consensus"-science would not be that well received.

Our major conclusion of the situation is that we are facing a crisis of credibility of climate change studies in the US political arena. In the US, one group, favouring action, is manly interested in evidence not necessarily bound by good quality but which supports their political agenda of regulation, whereas the other group, reluctant to regulatory action, is voicing concern about the ongoing ability of science to be an "impartial, objective" advisor (to the extent possible).

We expect that a similar attitude towards environmental sciences will also arise in Germany with a certain time lag.

Hans von Storch and Eduardo Zorita
31. July 2006

Posted on July 31, 2006 06:25 AM View this article | Comments (22)
Posted to Climate Change

Patty Limerick on Wildfire and Global Warming

Patty Limerick, a renowned historian of the American West and valued colleague here at the University of Colorado, has written a thoughtful perspective in the Los Angeles Times on western wildfires, human responsibility, and climate change. In many ways her views on fire in the context of climate change are quite similar to those I express on hurricanes. Here is an excerpt:

The new responsibility had many forms. Homeowners cleared trees and brush around their houses. Local governments adopted tougher rules on development in high fire-risk zones. Insurance companies revised their policies to reward owners who exercised foresight and took action to prevent fire.
But a recent scientific study could easily be misinterpreted as an invitation to go back to sleep. It is also an indicator of how politicized some environmental science has become and the problem that poses for taking responsibility in a region prone to fire.

The authors of "Warming and Early Spring Increases Western U.S. Forest Wildlife Activity," published this month in the journal Science, reach a thought-provoking conclusion: Climate change has been the "primary driver" of the increase in big wildfires in the West, even more than recent changes in land use or the unnecessary suppression of natural fires. Warmer temperatures have melted the snowpack earlier in the spring, producing a longer dry season and more combustible materials. Thus the opportunities for big fires to start have multiplied.

Should we now blame a changing climate for the West's wildfire problem? Or should we continue to change land use and management practices to reduce the fire danger? And how should our answer shape our conduct?

The battle over global warming has far reaching consequences for how we think and act. And for some people, the battle over climate change trumps everything else. Patty expresses some concern that by being sucked in to the maw that is the global warming debate, discussion of climate change might work to derail a fragile consensus of effective practical strategies for dealing with vulnerabilities to forest fires.

After Colorado's 2002 fire season, representatives from environmental groups, federal and state agencies, utilities, insurance companies, universities and county governments convened in the state to find a solution to a problem caused by decades of fire suppression. It was a very mixed group, and I imagine many of them would cancel each other out at the polls. The group's name was a bureaucratic mouthful: the Front Range Fuels Treatment Partnership Roundtable.
The key word in this undertaking was responsibility, and in the judgment of many who participated, myself included, we accomplished something. The "fuel" in forests along the Front Range had reached worrisome levels. In the absence of fire, the density of flammable trees and underbrush had greatly increased. We surmounted mutual distrust and reached a consensus for which fuel areas to target and which strategies would best reduce the danger of future fires.

But now, if we declare climate change the primary driver of increases in wildfires, as the study in Science suggests, what could a plucky group of Coloradans possibly do to find a remedy for this problem?

Of course, if climate change explains the greater frequency and intensity of the West's wildfires, the question of responsibility shifts levels, and we are immersed in one of the most contentious issues of science and public policy. Is human behavior — the use of fossil fuels as the main energy source — warming the planet, or is the rise in temperature part of a natural cycle that has occurred in Earth's past?

She concludes by asserting, correctly in my view, that whatever role climate change has in forest fires does not let anyone off the hook as far as needed on-the-ground actions. Yet the climate scientists who reported the possible connection of fires and climate change abandoned ship when it came time to address questions of policy. In my view, the authors of the recent study set the stage for having their research results to be caught up in the debate over global warming, when they might have diffused such controversy from the start by clearly describing the policy terrain, as did a group of hurricane/climate scientists in recent weeks.

The study's authors skirt this question. "Whether the changes observed in Western hydro-climate and wildfire are the result of greenhouse gas-induced global warming or only a usual natural fluctuation is presently unclear," they write.
But is it possible for a group of scientists in 2006 to study an issue — wildfire — immersed in contention, put forward an explanation based on climate change and then sidestep the question of whether humans bear any responsibility for that climate change?

The question of human culpability is a big roadblock to resolving many environmental dilemmas. Thanks to it, the findings of environmental scientists are often the spark for contention and misinterpretation rather than understanding and discussion. It's not easy to think of a scientific study on the natural world that doesn't have some connection to contested public policy. Biologists who simply want to study wildlife may find themselves enmeshed in political battles over the status of threatened or endangered species. Geologists and hydrologists may be drawn into disputes over the safety and permanence of waste disposal sites.

In such circumstances, these scientists have reason to feel like zookeepers feeding hungry animals: Their study findings barely hit the ground before advocates and rivals pounce on them, snarl and tug at each other over them, then tear the whole into pieces to secure the choicest parts.

This rowdiness is called "data dispute," and it's becoming a popular sport in environmental circles in the West. It doesn't show us at our best. Nor does it make the most of the enormous resources of the natural scientists studying the West's environment.
So let's not dispute data this time.

In too many environmental disputes, we squabble over the management of materials — sewage, spent nuclear fuel, carbon emissions, outdated computer parts. Meanwhile, the question of who will take custody of that unpopular substance called responsibility remains the most contentious and consequential matter of all.

The current condition of the West's forests has multiple causes. Climate, fire suppression, government regulation (or its absence) and the construction of buildings in forested areas all play a part in creating it. Regardless of which factor we accent in our explanations, we still have a big problem before us. And we still must take responsibility for it and find a remedy. The findings of climate scientists do not diminish that responsibility.

Well said!

Posted on July 31, 2006 01:49 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Andrew Dessler Has a Blog

Frequent Prometheus contributor and Texas A&M professor Andrew Dessler has been bitten by the blog bug. Check out his new site here. We wish Andrew the best as he sets up what will no doubt be a thoughful voice on climate science and politics.

Posted on July 31, 2006 01:36 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 28, 2006

Steve McIntyre Responds

In fairness to Steve I want to highlight his response to my somewhat critical comments:

Roger, what's the "marriage of convenience"? I was invited to present at the House Energy and Commerce Committee and appeared. I was invited by my squash club to give a presentation and did so. I was invited by George Marshall to give a speech and did so. I've received no honoraria for these and only a fraction of my expenses. If I was invited to present by UCAR, I'd be happy to do that too.
I think that climate scientists should welcome the interest of the House Energy and Commerce committee as an opportunity to make their case. I don't know much about Barton and I've only seen him in the E&C hearings, but he's obviously a smart guy and I think that you have to take his comments about a serious interest in the issues at face value. He's exactly the sort of guy that you have to engage. You should be thankful for the engagement.

It is irresponsible for people who are worried about climate policy to get into ridiculous controversies over withholding data and code. If you think that climate policy is serious, this argument is unwinnable. People like yourself should be telling Mann, Briffa, Jones, Jacoby, Lonnie Thompson, the whole crowd, to clean up their act pronto. Archive their code and data right now. They are dragging your community through the mud. It's you that should be protesting about it, not me.

People who are worried about AGW should be anxious to get rid of bad and irrelevant arguments. Get rid of all the self-indulgent stuff in IPCC 4 AR - a history of climate science??? OK in an academic book, but not in an assessment report. Why should a nickel of policy money go to this sort of puffery?

If the hockey stick doesn't matter, than IPCC 4AR should get rid of the corresponding paleoclimate section in IPCC 4AR, rather than trying to buttress it with equally vulnerable articles.

Posted on July 28, 2006 10:31 PM View this article | Comments (16)
Posted to Climate Change

Holier Than Thou

The RealClimate folks are all excited about an internal memo from the Inter-Mountain Rural Electric Association (link here in PDF) that details, among other things, that the IREA have donated $100,000 to support the activities of Patrick Michaels, a long-time political advocate on the climate issue. I’m all for disclosure of financial support. But the response to this memo, at RealClimate and elsewhere, suggest to me that many involved in the climate debate would much rather bash their opponents than work with them to find common ground. In a democracy, action occurs most often through compromise rather than complete annihilation of one’s opponents. Until this point is realized by those calling for “action” expect gridlock to continue.

Here are some questions that I have about this episode:

1. So what? In a democracy interests mobilize and support fellow travelers. Where science and politics overlap care must be taken to be aware for the possibility of conflicts of interest, which includes but are not limited to the financial. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association has recently clarified a policy for disclosing potential conflicts of interest in research papers. The climate community would do well to adopt this practice. That people involved in the political battle over climate change see benefits in supporting people who share their interests is not a surprise, it is democracy at work.

2. Is only some money unclean? Those who are criticized for accepting industry money often observe that Jim Hansen was awarded an unrestricted cash prize of $250,000 from the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Stanford University’s Global Climate & Energy Project has accepted $100 million in support from ExxonMobil and other industry sponsors. Does this mean that we should discount Hansen’s work and that coming from Stanford? Or is it only certain combinations of people and funders that we should be concerned about?

3. Are vows of poverty signs of moral superiority? There does seem to be more than a hint of holier-than-thouness about all of this. One of the RealClimate contributors said in the Washington Post, "We don't get any money; we do this in our free time." He fails to recognize that his "free time" is made possible by an employer and research funders who allow (or look the other way) when RealClimate pursues its political agenda and aggressively attacks those who do not share it. I have no doubts that Pat Michaels holds his values every bit as strongly as the RealClimate folks do. Groups interested in political action usually begin by recognizing the legitimacy of differing value commitments. RealClimate seems to acknowledge this when they write, "It might actually help people engage on the substance of their concerns rather than simply arguing about the science - which, as we are by now well aware, - is simply a path to gridlock." Have they followed this useful guidance when engaging the concerns of the IREA?

4. Do opinions chase dollars, or do dollars chase opinions? I am convinced that it is the latter, a consequence of what Dan Sarewitz has called the "excess of objectivity" which allows political interests to simply survey the landscape and align with convenient experts. With nod to their own apparent moral superiority, RealClimate suggests that the causality goes the other way, writing, "any quote from Michaels should probably be followed with 'So spake the industry's P.R.O, A man who really ought to know, For he is paid for saying so'." In the Washington Post, Donald Kennedy has a more realistic and fair-minded perspective about Michael’s funders, ""I don't think it's unethical any more than most lobbying is unethical," he said. He said donations to skeptics amounts to "trying to get a political message across.""

Finally, what I think is most interesting about the IREA letter, and not discussed by anyone, is their description of how they view different policy options. They view a carbon tax and cap-and-trade system as the least desirable options. They support voluntary programs and investments in technology. They also view the participation of India and China as essential to any international agreement. They want all industries involved in any political action on greenhouse gases, and they don’t want the economy to be harmed. Seems to me that there are real opportunities for a discussion on climate change policies and the possibility that the IREA might be amenable to a course other than business-as-usual. Looking for common ground is consistent with the perspective that I presented in may congressional testimony last week (PDF). I doubt anyone is going to change IREA’s views of science and certainly not their values commitments. If they are to be "brought on board" in a coalition supporting action on climate change, it will be done through compromise – Politics 101.

But rather than seize upon the possibilities for compromise, advocacy groups like RealClimate have decided to use the memo as an opportunity to foster divisiveness and continued gridlock. It really does make me wonder if some actually want action on climate change or simply to score meaningless political points by bashing those who do not share their values. It will get commentators in the blogoshpere nicely agitated, but it won’t in my view contribute positively to progress on climate policy.

Posted on July 28, 2006 08:37 AM View this article | Comments (20)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 27, 2006

Hockey Stick Hearing Number Two

Today, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce is hosting its second hearing on the so-called "hockey stick" in the past two weeks.

From last week's marathon hearing TechCentralStation provides an interesting set of quotes. A statement by Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) to Professor Edward Wegman is particularly telling:

I want you to make sure you understand the reality of this situation. I've given you all the sincerity that I could give to you. But the reason you are here is not why you think you are here, OK? The reason you are here is to try to win a debate with some industries in this country who are afraid to look forward to a new energy future for this nation. And the reason you are here is to try to create doubt about whether this country should move forward with the new technological, clean-energy future, or whether we should remain addicted to fossil fuels. That's the reason you are here. Now that's not the reason individually why you came, but that's the reason you're here. Thank you very much.

Not long ago, we discussed here how scientists are recruited -- sometimes willingly, sometimes not -- in such a manner to serve as pawns in political battles. Rep. Inslee clearly recognizes that science is simply a symbol in ongoing debates about energy policies. Presumably the witnesses that the minority invited to testify were brought in to serve a similar purpuse as those that he described to Dr. Wegman.

Ironically, from all accounts Dr. Wegman's report initiated by the majority staff of the committee and the report led by Dr. North for the NRC apparently agree on all of the statistical and technical aspects of the hockey stick issue. The difference was that the North Committee went to great lengths to minimize the practical significance of their findings and the Wegman report did not. In both cases their characterizations of their findings reflect extra-scientific considerations.

Showing no shame, Representative Inslee asked Dr. Wegman if he could recite the three laws of therodynamics (you can't win, can't break even, and can't get out of the game, courtesy of C.P. Snow). Dr. Wegman, a statistician, replied that he probably could not. Presumably the fact that Dr. Wegman could not recite these laws means that the nation should adopt Rep. Inslee's preferred energy policies, whatever those might be. Of course, Mr. Inslee did not apparently recognize that since Wegman and North agree on the substance of the issues, discrediting one would seem to imply discrediting the other. But Rep. Inslee has already told us that the substance does not matter (See also the question posed by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Han von Storch's quite appropriate response).

On the other side Rep. Barton (R-TX) asked Dr. Wegman who he voted for in 2000, to which he replied Al Gore. Presumably this bit of Texas political trivia means that in fact Dr. Wegman's statistical analysis has credibility, and we should thus favor Rep. Barton's favored energy policies, whatever those are.

All in all last week's hearing was a pretty sad day for science in politics, or more accurately - science as politics. Both parties came off looking pretty bad. And the scientists involved all looked helpless or unwilling to break out of the fix they were in -- with the exception of Hans von Storch whose comments in my view were thoughtful and on target- PDF.) A lot of the blogosphere commentators on this issue have taken political sides just like the members of Congress and seem more than happy to wage their political battles through the science. Exceedingly few people seem concerned about the pathological politicization of science itself, and seem perfectly have to join the fray. I'd expect that we'll see more of the same today. But maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Here is my two cents on the whole affair:

On the hockey stick in politics, I wrote here last summer: "Resolving the technical dispute will do little to address the larger issues of climate science policy or the symbolic and real political implications of the hockey stick debate." See the rest of that post for a more detailed description of my views, which I see no reason to change.

On the hockey stick in climate policy, in this post from last fall we came pretty close to a consensus among participants in the debate that it does not matter for climate policy. of course, the policy and politics are interwoven, and my view is that the politics of the issue are an obstacle to policy (see my testimony from last week - PDF).

On the hockey stick in science policy and politics -- here is where I think the most important issues are. The hockey stick debate reflects in microcosm just about everything that is wrong about the climate debate. Scientists who are advocates of action on energy policies, or simply are burdened by outsized egos, could have defused the hockey stick debate a long time ago by taking a conciliatory stance with respect to the critics of the hockey stick and its prominant role in the IPCC. The IPCC deserves a lot of the blame for the issue, first for elevating the hockey stick to an icon and then by circling the wagons when criticized. Hindsight is 20/20, but even the recent NRC report was a missed opportunity to defuse the issue.

The critics of the hockey stick, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, have proven how difficult it is for scientific truths to be kept under wraps, according at least to Drs. North and Wegman. This of course cuts both ways in the climate debate. They also have provided a case study in the power of blogs in today's worlds of science and politics. But they have done themselves no favors by cozying up with conservatives. Perhaps this is a marriage of convenience, but it has served to further politicize the issue.

Finally, the big loser in all of this seems to be the IPCC, which appears to have viewed the hockey stick debate as something to win and survive, rather than learn from and evolve.

Bottom line - after all of the sound and fury over the hockey stick climate policy remains a mess and the politics as intractable as ever. Today's hearing, I'll guess, will continue this trend. Any comments from people watching the hearing would be welcomed.

Posted on July 27, 2006 07:56 AM View this article | Comments (9)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 25, 2006

Scientific Leadership on Hurricanes and Global Warming

I have often made the case that one of the best ways for scientists to depoliticze science is to clearly discuss the significance of scientific disputes for policy action. Today's New York Times reports that 10 scientists involved in the sometimes acrimonious debate over hurricanes and global warming have prepared a statement that places their debate into policy context. Here is an excerpt from the NYT story:

The scientists, several of whom had publicly debated the hurricane-climate connection in recent months, said they were concerned that the lack of consensus on the climate link could stall actions that could cut vulnerability — no matter what is influencing hurricane trends.
Philip J. Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University who disputes the idea that global warming is linked to stronger storms, said the social and economic trends were completely clear.

"There is likely to be an increase in destructiveness from tropical cyclones regardless of whether they are getting more intense or not," he said yesterday. “"his is largely due to the increase in coastal population and wealth per capita in hurricane-prone areas."

Kerry A. Emanuel, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, drafted the statement and conducted one of several recent studies asserting that the building energy of hurricanes in recent decades was probably related to human-driven warming of the seas.

"We as a community have said for a long time that this is a big social problem right now," Dr. Emanuel said in an interview. "A lot of us are tired of the climate question being set up as a bigger conflict than it is."

The full statement can be found here.

Congrats to the authors Kerry Emanuel, Richard Anthes, Judith Curry, James Elsner, Greg Holland, Phil Klotzbach, Tom Knutson, Chris Landsea, Max Mayfield, and Peter Webster. This is scientific leadership at its best.

Posted on July 25, 2006 12:55 AM View this article | Comments (17)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

July 21, 2006

Jim Hansen's Refusal to Testify

According to E&E Daily, James Hansen who was invited to appear at yesterday's House Government Reform Committee, but did not appear, would have attended had John Christy not attended. According to E&E Daily (link, but a subscription site):

In the message Hansen sent to reporters to explain his absence from yesterday’s hearing, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies said he had a conflicting doctor appointment to deal with a cold that interacts with his asthma to create a drip in his lungs. But he also indicated he would have adjusted his schedule if the witness list did not also include skeptical points of view.

The only person on the witness list who's views could be characterized as skeptical was John Christy. John is widely acknowledged by his peers as a highly qualified and accomplished climate scientist. He was, for example, on the CCSP Temperature Trends Committtee as well as the recent NRC Hockey Stick Committee, and particpates in the IPCC. So I am baffled why Jim Hansen would only appear if other legitimate perspectives are excluded. He might disagree with Christy's views, but they are certainly appropriate to include on a Congressional panel.

Coming from someone who complained about being censored, it sounds like he'd like to do a bit censoring of his own. It also seems a bit odd for a high ranking government employee to refuse to offer testimony when called upon by Congress to do so. This helps to explain Chairman's Davis' obvious pique when mentioning Hansen in his opening comments yesterday.

Posted on July 21, 2006 02:33 PM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Follow up on Criticism of AGU Hurricane Assessment

Not long ago I criticized an AGU assessment of hurricane science for its demonstrably inaccurate treatment of seasonal climate forecasts. I hypothesized that the issue of seasonal hurricane forecasts had been caught up in the "hurricane-climate wars" between Bill Gray and Greg Holland. Holland and Peter Webster (who were both involved with preparing the AGU report) took serious issue with my even raising this hypothesis (how dare I!!), flatly denying any such relationship between the AGU report's criticism of Gray's seasonal forecasts and the global warming debate. However, In today's hearing (that I participated in) Judy Curry's testimony completely vindicates my raising this issue (Curry is a collaborator with Holland and Webster). Here is the relevant excerpt from her testimony (PDF):

It may take up to a decade for the observations to clarify the situation as to which explanation, natural variability or global warming, has better predictive ability. In the short term, evaluation of seasonal forecasts for the North Atlantic can provide some insights into the predictive capability of natural variability. Holland (2006) has conducted an assessment of statistical forecasts of North Atlantic tropical storm activity. Seasonal forecasts are based upon the statistics of North Atlantic tropical storms for the period since 1950. W. Gray commenced making seasonal forecasts in 1984. For the first decade (until 1994), Grays forecasts performed well (Figure 10), with a bias error of -0.2 storms per season for the June forecasts and a root mean square error of 1.8. In the period since 1998, Grays forecasts have performed much worse, with a notable low bias averaging -3.1 storms per season and a root mean square error of 5.2. NOAAs seasonal forecasts for the same period show little variation from Grays forecasts. It is argued here that the persistent low bias in the seasonal forecasts since 1995 indicates that the elevated activity in this period cannot be explained solely by natural variability seen in the historical data record since 1950.

Posted on July 21, 2006 02:07 AM View this article | Comments (21)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

July 20, 2006

Congressional Testimony

Here is a PDF of my Congressional testimony today before the House Government Reform Committee. We'll link to the other testmony when available online.

Posted on July 20, 2006 08:53 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 19, 2006

Hans von Storch's Hockey Stick Testimony

Here is Hans von Storch's testimony given today at the House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing on Questions Surrounding the "Hockey Stick" Temperature Studies: Implications for Climate Change Assessments.

Summary (pdf)

Prepared comments (pdf)

Posted on July 19, 2006 08:00 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Climate Change

July 15, 2006

Upcoming Congressional Testimony

I'll be testifying before the House Government Reform Committee on Thursday, July 20. Details TBA here. The hearing is titled, "Climate Change: Understanding the Degree of the Problem."

I'll post my prepared testimony here on Thursday.

Posted on July 15, 2006 08:44 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 07, 2006

Letter to Editor, AZ Daily Star

Yesterday I was asked by a reporter at the Arizona Daily Star to read and offer my thoughts on a just-out paper in Science by Westerling et al. on trends in forest fires and the possible role of climate change. The resulting news story was interesting, not least because it grossly mischaracterizes my views on climate change, despite having been asked directly by the reporter what my views are on the subject. So I just sent in the following letter to the editor of that paper.

Dear Editor-
AZ Star reporter Tony Davis grossly mischaracterizes my views on climate change in a story published July 7, 2006. He writes that I have "been critical of the view that human-caused global warming represents a major environmental threat." To the contrary, much of my research for the past 15 years has been focused on options for dealing with global warming, and in particular, the role of science in policy. In an email to Mr. Davis reponding to his question about my views on the subject I wrote that I seek to "openly confront some of the real but uncomfortable practical challenges involved with reducing emissions and adapting to climate." Instead of sharing what I actually wrote, Mr. Davis came up with something completely different, and incorrect.

Sincerely,

Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
Professor, Environmental Studies
Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research
University of Colorado

And here is what I had to say to the reporter about the Westerling et al. paper. Readers can compare what points the reporter chose to include and which ones were left out:

Tony-
I just read the paper. I have a few reactions:

1. They are asking the right questions -- we do need to know the role of climate in the context of the many other factors that lead to climate-related impacts.

2. That being said, I did not see any attention to the role of fire fighting policies. Since 1970 the notion of "let it burn" in some locations has been followed to some degree. I am left wondering what role such policies might have had on fire magnitude and trends over time. Given this apparent oversight, I am not sure that this paper captures all of the important factors shaping fire history.

3. It would be easy to over-interpret this paper. The IPCC notes that 35 years is a pretty short time frame for attribution of any trend to human-caused climate change, and I would think that is especially the case for a complex issue like forest fires.

Bottom line - a useful paper that adds to our knowledge and hopefully will stimulate further research on the integrated effects of climate-society-policy. At the same time I can envisage the paper being used simply as a charicature in the global warming debate -- Global Warming Causes Forest Fires! -- but that would be a shame because fire policy is more complex than that.

Thanks for the chance to respond ...

Best regards, Roger

Posted on July 7, 2006 07:43 AM View this article | Comments (22)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 05, 2006

Straight Talk on Climate Policy

In a column in today's Washington Post, Robert Samuelson provides a dose of political realism on climate policy:

From 2003 to 2050, the world's population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, carbon dioxide) will be 42 percent higher in 2050. But that's too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. Unless we condemn the world's poor to their present poverty -- and freeze everyone else's living standards -- we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050.
Just keeping annual greenhouse gas emissions constant means that the world must somehow offset these huge increases. There are two ways: Improve energy efficiency, or shift to energy sources with lower (or no) greenhouse emissions. Intuitively, you sense this is tough. China, for example, builds about one coal-fired power plant a week. Now a new report from the International Energy Agency in Paris shows all the difficulties (the population, economic growth and energy projections cited above come from the report).

The IEA report assumes that existing technologies are rapidly improved and deployed. Vehicle fuel efficiency increases by 40 percent. In electricity generation, the share for coal (the fuel with the most greenhouse gases) shrinks from about 40 percent to about 25 percent -- and much carbon dioxide is captured before going into the atmosphere. Little is captured today. Nuclear energy increases. So do "renewables" (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal); their share of global electricity output rises from 2 percent now to about 15 percent.

Some of these changes seem heroic. They would require tough government regulation, continued technological gains and public acceptance of higher fuel prices. Never mind. Having postulated a crash energy diet, the IEA simulates five scenarios with differing rates of technological change. In each, greenhouse emissions in 2050 are higher than today. The increases vary from 6 percent to 27 percent. . .

No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. Still, politicians want to show they're "doing something." The result is grandstanding. Consider the Kyoto Protocol. It allowed countries that joined to castigate those that didn't. But it hasn't reduced carbon dioxide emissions (up about 25 percent since 1990), and many signatories didn't adopt tough enough policies to hit their 2008-2012 targets. By some estimates, Europe may overshoot by 15 percent and Japan by 25 percent. . .

The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless.

Posted on July 5, 2006 05:27 AM View this article | Comments (39)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 28, 2006

Westword on Bill Gray

Here is a pretty thoughtful article on Bill Gray and a number of familiar folks in the hurricane debate.

Posted on June 28, 2006 04:02 PM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

June 27, 2006

The Is-Ought Problem

Al Gore obviously hasn't read Andrew Dessler's book:

. . . if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70 million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is putting into the atmosphere every day.

This is a fine example of the is-ought problem described by philospoher David Hume. ASU's Brad Allenby has explained why we should care about the is-ought problem in science:

. . . the elite that has been created by practice of the scientific method uses the concomitant power not just to express the results of particular research initiatives, but to create, support, and implement policy responses affecting many non-scientific communities and intellectual domains in myriad ways. In doing so, they are not exercising expertise in these non-scientific domains, but rather transforming their privilege in the scientific domains into authority in non-scientific domains.

Posted on June 27, 2006 03:55 PM View this article | Comments (11)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

June 26, 2006

A New Paper

The text that accompanied my public lecture last spring for the NAS Ocean Studies Board has now been published in the magazine Oceanography. Here is a citation and link:

Pielke, Jr., R. A. 2006. Seventh Annual Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture: Disasters, Death, and Destruction: Making Sense of Recent Calamities, Oceanography, 19:138-147. (PDF)

Comments welcomed.

Posted on June 26, 2006 03:24 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

June 23, 2006

A(nother) Problem with Scientific Assessments

The American Geophysical Union released an assessment report last week titled "Hurricanes and the US Gulf Coast" which was the result of a "Conference of Experts" held in January, 2006. One aspect of the report illustrates why it is so important to have such assessments carefully balanced with participants holding a diversity of legitimate scientific perspectives. When such diversity is not present, it increases the risks of misleading or false science being presented as definitive or settled, which can be particularly problematic for an effort intended to be "a coordinated effort to integrate science into the decision-making processes." In this particular case the AGU has given assessments a black eye. Here are the details:

The AGU Report includes the following bold claim:

There currently is insufficient skill in empirical predictions of the number and intensity of storms in the forthcoming hurricane season. Predictions by statistical methods that are widely distributed also show little skill, being more often wrong than right.

Such seasonal predictions are issued by a number of groups around the world, and are also an official product of the U.S. government’s Climate Prediction Center. If these groups were indeed publishing forecasts with no (or negative) skill, then there would be good reason to ask them to cease immediately and get back to research, lest they mislead the public and decision makers.

As it turns out the claim by the AGU is incorrect, or at a minimum, is a minority view among the relevant expert community. According to groups responsible for providing seasonal forecasts of hurricane activity, their products do indeed have skill. [Note: Skill refers to the relative improvement of a forecast over some naïve baseline. For example, if your actively managed mutual fund makes money this year, but does not perform better than an unmanaged index fund, then your fund’s manager has showed no skill – no added value beyond what could be done naively.] Consider the following:

1. Tropical Storm Risk, led by Mark Saunders finds that their (and other) forecasts of 2004 and 2005 demonstrated excellent skill according to a number of metrics:

Lea, A. S. and M. A. Saunders, How well forecast were the 2004 and 2005 Atlantic and U.S. hurricane Seasons? in Proceedings of the 27th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, Monterey, USA, April 24-28 2006. (PDF)
For further details see this paper:

Saunders, M. A. and A. S. Lea, Seasonal prediction of hurricane activity reaching the coast of the United States, Nature, 434, 1005-1008, 2005. (PDF)

2. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, now responsible for issuing the forecasts of the William Gray research team, provides a number of spreadsheets with data showing that their forecasts demonstrate skill:

Seasonal skill excel file
August monthly forecast skill excel file

September monthly forecast skill excel file

October monthly forecast skill excel file

Klotzbach writes in an email: "All three of our monthly forecasts have shown skill with respect to the previous five-year monthly mean of NTC using MSE (mean-squared error as our skill metric). Here are our skills (% value is the % improvement over the previous five-year mean):

August Monthly Forecast: 38%
September Monthly Forecast: 2%
October Monthly Forecast: 33%"

3. NOAA’s Chris Landsea provides the following two figures which show NOAA’s seasonal forecast performance.

He writes in an email: "You can see that we do okay in May (4 out of 7 seasons correctly forecasting number of hurricanes for example), but better in August (6 of 8 seasons correct)."

He also provides a link to this peer-reviewed paper:

Owens, B. F., and C. W. Landsea, 2003: Assessing the skill of operational Atlantic seasonal tropical cyclone forecasts, Weather and Forecasting, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp.45-54. (PDF)

From this information, it seems clear that there are strong claims in support of the skill of seasonal hurricane forecasts and relevant peer-reviewed literature. The AGU statement is therefore misleading and more likely just plain wrong. It certainly is not a community consensus perspective that one might expect to find in an assessment report.

What is going on here? Perhaps the AGU's committee was unaware of this information, which if so would make one wonder about their "expert" committee. Given the distinguished people on their committee, I find this an unlikely explanation. Instead, it may be that the issue of seasonal hurricane forecasting has gotten caught up in the "climate wars." William Gray is the originator of seasonal climate forecasts and has rudely dismissed the notion of human-caused global warming, much less a connection to hurricanes. One of the lead authors of the AGU assessment has been in a public feud with Bill Gray and is a strong advocate of a human role in recent hurricane activity. It is not unreasonable to think that the AGU assessment was being used as a vehicle to advance this battle under the guise of community "consensus." It may be the perception among some that if Bill Gray’s or NOAA’s work on seasonal forecasts, which is based on various natural climatic factors, can be shown to be fundamentally flawed, then this would elevate the importance of alternative explanations.

If this hypothesis explaining what is going on is indeed the case, then it would be a serious misuse of the AGU for the advancement of personal views, unrepresentative of the actual community perspective. It would also represent a complete failure of the AGU’s assessment process. Given that there is peer-reviewed literature indicating the skill of seasonal forecasts, and none that I am aware of making the case for no skill, the AGU has given consensus assessments a black eye, and in the process provided incorrect or misleading information to decision makers.

The AGU case may be isolated, but it does beg the question raised by my father and others, how can we know whether scientific assessments faithfully represent the relevant community of experts versus a subset with an agenda posing under the guise of consensus? I am aware of no systematic approaches to answering this question. It is a question that needs discussion, because as political, personal, and other issues infuse the scientific enterprise, blind trust in disinterested science and science institutions no longer seems to be enough.

Posted on June 23, 2006 06:37 AM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Scientific Assessments

June 22, 2006

Quick Reaction to the NRC Hockey Stick Report

My reading of the summary of the report and parts of the text is that the NAS has rendered a near-complete vindication for the work of Mann et al. They report does acknowledge that there are perhaps greater uncertainties in temperature reconstructions, reducing Mann et al.'s claim of warmest decade/year in 1,000 years down to 400. Nonetheless, I see nothing in the report that suggests that Mann's research is significantly flawed, nor any calls for release of his data or algorithms, though the report does say in very general terms that such release is a good idea. I am not a climate scientist, but my reading of the section that deals with criticisms of Mann et al.'s work (starting at p. 105) is that while these critiques raise some interesting points, they are minor issues, and the committee find's Mann et al.’s original conclusion to be "plausible." I’d bet that the word "plausible" will be oft invoked as one of the take home messages of the report.

So what to make of this? The NRC has come to the conclusion that the hockey stick debate is much ado about nothing, and make the further point that this particular area of science is not particularly relevant to detection and attribution of human caused climate change. I am certain that research on this subject will continue, but hopefully this NAS report will allow the rest of us to focus on the policy debate rather than this particular issue of science.

I would have liked to see the report get into far more detail on science policy questions, such as release of data, methods, code, etc. and mechanisms of peer review, and IPCC authors reviewing their own work. However, I recognize that these issues may have been interpreted as outside their charge and the committee was not empanelled for this purpose.

Is this the final word on the "hockey stick"? My guess is that for most people, yes, especially if Representative Boehlert, who requested the report, is satisfied with the answers to his questions.

Posted on June 22, 2006 09:07 AM View this article | Comments (45)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 21, 2006

Eve of the NAS Hockey Stick Report Release

Tomorrow the National Research Council is going to release its report on the so-called “hockey stick” of global temperature trends that was emphasized in the most recent IPCC report. Not long ago we asked the principles involved in the debate to explain to those of us not involved why this debate matters. On the eve of the NRC report, we thought it might be worth revisiting some comments made by the principles in the debate.

According to Steve McIntyre:

So even if the Hockey Stick did not “matter” to the scientific case, it mattered to the promotion of the scientific case. Scientists may want to “move on”, but institutions cannot, if they want to maintain any credibility. If the Hockey Stick was wrong, it would be as embarrassing as the failure to find WMD in Iraq. In both cases, the policy might well be justified on alternative grounds, but the existence of the alternative grounds does not mean that responsible agencies should not try to isolate the causes of intelligence failure and try to avoid similar failures in the future.

Today, McIntyre provides some pre-release comments on the report.

According to Ross McKitrick:

It matters because it concerns the validity of an influential scientific paper. . .
It matters because it exposes the uncomfortable reality about journal peer review. . .

It matters because it exposes the uncomfortable reality about the IPCC. The IPCC’s use of the hockey stick was not incidental: it is prominent throughout the 2001 report. Yet they did not subject it to any independent checking: revealing an astonishingly cavalier attitude to the quality of their case. This raises the question of whether anything in the report was subject to serious, independent checking. . .

It matters because it exposes the uncomfortable reality about how governments use scientific information Canada (and many other countries) used the hockey stick heavily in their promotion of the Kyoto Accord. . .

It matters because it exposes an uncomfortable reality about the culture of climate science. . .

From Stefan Rahmsdorf and William Connolley of RealClimate:

SR: "The discussions about the past millennium are not discussions about whether humans are changing climate; neither do they affect our projections for the future."
WC: "Why is this fight important to the rest of us? the answer is: you shouldn't. It isn't.."

And finally, here was my two cents of thoughts on the various “so what?” reactions.

Posted on June 21, 2006 12:08 PM View this article | Comments (6)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 20, 2006

Please Critique this Sentence

I am working on a new essay on climate policy. I would like your help by critiquing the following sentence, with a particular focus on providing any counter-references from the peer-reviewed literature.

No emissions reduction policy currently under discussion – from changes in personal behavior to those proposed under the Framework Convention on Climate Change – even if successfully implemented will have a discernible effect on the global climate system for at least 50 years.

Now, let me say that this statement, which I believe is scientifically accurate (e.g., see NCAR’s Jim Hurrell testimony) does not mean that we should throw up our hands or stick our heads on the sand about greenhouse gas emissions. But this sentence does have profound implications for thinking about climate policies, their public justifications, and the significance of adaptation. Such implications are typically not front and center in the climate debate, but they should be.

Posted on June 20, 2006 06:27 AM View this article | Comments (47)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 14, 2006

The Climate Policy Equivalent of Graham-Rudman-Hollings

Graham-Rudman-Hollings refers to U.S. legislation in the 1980s that sought to bring the federal budget deficit under control. It didn’t work because it based its "budget cuts" on projected spending, and thus required cuts from some imaginary baseline of what would have happened absent the "budget cuts." As former Bush Administration spokesman Ari Fleisher explained in 2001:

Graham-Rudman-Hollings was, in essence, an approach based on deficit projections of what government had to do to bring deficits into certain lines. And it lead to a lot of gimmickry, and to other issues that were complicating the process of government.

Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are currently in their "Graham-Rudman-Hollings" phase, and this is a condition, ironically enough, shared by both the current U.S. approach as well as that under the Kyoto Protocol.

Under the Kyoto Protocol there is a complex policy called the "Clean Development Mechanism" that – simplified – provides emissions reductions credits to countries that invest in developing countries to generate clean technologies. According to a recent press release (PDF) from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change:

According to the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM) is as of today estimated to generate more than one billion tonnes of emission reductions by the end of 2012. In addition to the implementation of climate-friendly policies at home, the 1997 landmark treaty allows industrialized countries to meet their emission targets through the treaty’s flexible mechanisms. "We have crossed an important threshold with these emission reductions", said Richard Kinley, acting head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat. "It is now evident that the Kyoto Protocol is making a significant contribution towards sustainable development in developing countries".

Emissions reductions are calculated off of a baseline of what would have occurred absent the CDM investment. So it would be more accurate to say that the CDM represents a smaller increase in emissions than otherwise estimated would have occurred. Nonetheless, CDM projects each represent an additive increase in total global GHG emissions.

Now contrast this with the Bush Administration’s stated goal of reducing "greenhouse gas intensity" which is a measure of how much GHGs are produced per unit of economic activity. From an official U.S. government "fact sheet":

In February 2002, President Bush committed the United States to a comprehensive strategy to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the American economy (how much we emit per unit of economic activity) by 18 percent by 2012. Meeting this commitment will prevent the release of more than 500 million metric tons of carbon-equivalent emissions to the atmosphere.

The Bush plan has been widely criticized for basically following a business-as-usual approach, as reductions in greenhouse gas intensity are occurring throughout many global economies. According to the White House lead on climate change, James Connaughton, last month:

But when it comes to carbon, what we found is by focusing on intensity we can find the lowest hanging fruit for outcomes. It does not diminish the importance of counting absolute reductions.

One formal difference between the Bush plan (a critique is here) and that of the CDM (a critique is here) is that the CDM is part of a framework that seeks to reduce overall emissions. But the practical reality is that both programs, whatever their positive merits, cannot be honestly be justified as "reducing emissions" as they in fact make very small contributions to reducing the increase in GHG emissions. Consider that most countries participating in Kyoto will all but certainly fail to meet their modest emissions reductions targets.

For advocates of immediate action emissions reductions, under all current and proposed policies (that I am aware of) the future looks like an extended period of uninterrupted growth in greenhouse gas emissions, accounting games notwithstanding. All of the debate about action on emissions will be of little practical effect unless there are policy options on the table that can actually achieve real emissions reductions, not just a reduction in the rate of increase. Right now, there does not seem to be evidence of such options, and so long as the climate debate remains in its Graham-Rudman-Hillings phase, don’t expect to see such options, or much more importantly, significant efforts to create them. The conclusions of one scholarly article on Graham-Rudman-Hollings is worth thinking about:

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation has failed to control the budget deficit. However, the yearly ritual of preparing budgets that conform to the legislated requirements of this Act creates the illusion of deficit control and removes the incentive for developing real deficit controls.

It is great to argue that something should be done, but at some point the discussion has to be moved to what actions are worth doing and with what effects.

Posted on June 14, 2006 07:23 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 10, 2006

The Curious Case of Storm Surge and Sea Level Rise in the IPCC TAR

Earlier this year while I was involved in preparing our contribution to an exchange with colleagues for the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society on hurricanes, a particular sentence in the response (PDF) to our paper piqued my interest. The sentence read in full:

As summarized in the Working Group II assessment of McCarthy et al. (2001), model projections of the mean annual number of people who would be flooded by coastal storm surges increase several-fold (75–200 million, depending on the adaptive response) for midrange scenarios of a 0.4-m sea level rise by the 2080s relative to scenarios with no sea level rise.

The sentence caught my attention because it was stunningly ambiguous and unclear. What could it mean? So I set out to learn more about it. What I found and my experiences trying to publish what I have found provides some insights into the increasingly curious world of climate science.

The sentence is actually a direct quote from the IPCC Working Group II Third Assessment Report’s Summary for Policymakers, p. 13 (here in PDF). As such it has been widely quoted in the years since the Third Assessment. But a review of how it has been interpreted shows considerable confusion about what it actually means. For example:

A peer-reviewed article in the British Medical Journal came to one conclusion:
"The number of people at risk from flooding by coastal storm surges is projected to increase from the current 75 million to 200 million in a scenario of mid-range climate changes, in which a rise in the sea level of 40 cm is envisaged by the 2080s."

A report by an oil industry group came to a second interpretation (PDF):

"Even a somewhat conservative scenario of a 40-cm [15.8-in.] sea-level rise by the 2080s would add 75 to 200 million people to the number currently at risk of being flooded by coastal storm surges."

The Red Cross offers still another interpretation,

"The average annual number of people whose houses are flooded by storm surges along coastlines is expected to increase from a few million each year to between 75 and 200 million by the year 2080, estimates the IPCC."

Such differing perspectives are chracteristic of this particular bit of the IPCC consensus. No one, it seems, knows what this sentence means. Now this might not be surprising; after all, the IPCC is written by committee and it would not be surprising to see a confusing sentence come out of such a process. However, this is where it gets considerably more interesting. It appears that the IPCC did not explain what the sentence means, and going back to the original scientific source for the statement does not allow one to arrive at a clear interpretation of what it means.

Given that the IPCC is frequently touted as the most highly peer-reviewed document in climate science I found this quite interesting, and somewhat troubling. So I wrote up what I had learned, only to find after months of trying that publishing such a story can be quite challenging.

But before discussing my attempts to publish, let me describe the source of the sentence and the challenges in interpreting what, exactly, it means.

The IPCC WGII SPM points to Section 4.5 of the full assessment report as the source for the sentence. So going to that section, one finds absolutely nothing related to the sentence. However, thanks to Google and the online availability of the IPCC the trail does not end there. Searching on various combinations of "sea level rise" and "storm surge" leads to Chapter 7 of the IPCC which has this passage:

Worldwide, depending on the degree of adaptive response, the number of people at risk from annual flooding as a result of a 40-cm sea-level rise and population increase in the coastal zone is expected to increase from today’s level of 10 million to 22-29 million by the 2020s, 50-80 million by 2050s, and 88-241 million by the 2080s (Nicholls et al., 1999). Without sea-level rise, the numbers were projected at 22-23 million in the 2020s, 2732 million in the 2050s, and 13-36 million in the 2080s. The 40 cm sea-level rise is consistent with the middle of the range currently being projected for 2100 by Working Group I. In 2050, more than 70% (90% by the 2080s) of people in settlements that potentially would be flooded by sea-level rise are likely to be located in a few regions: west Africa, east Africa, the southern Mediterranean, south Asia, and southeast Asia. In terms of relative increase, however, some of the biggest impacts are in the small island states (Nicholls et al., 1999).

Nowhere in this passage is it clear however where the SPM got the 75-200 million number, or what it might mean.

Nicholls et al. 1999 is this paper:

Nicholls J.N., F.M.J. Hoozemans and M. Marchand, 1999. Increasing flood risk and wetland losses due to global sea-level rise: regional and global analyses, Global Environmental Change, 9:S69-S87. (PDF)

And after several careful readings it turns out that all of the questions lead to Table 7 in that paper which I reproduce below.

My first reaction was that the IPCC confused the cumulative people affected by a 1 in 1000 year storm surge event (People to Respond or PTR in the Table 7) with the "mean annual number of people who would be flooded by coastal storm" (AAPF in the Table 7) because these numbers -- 70-205 million -- look pretty close to those in the SPM (75-200 million) and it would perhaps be easy to confuse the last digits. If so then this would be a huge error, conflating a cumulative number with a cumulative number.

So I emailed Robert Nicholls who graciously responded suggesting that there was another possible interpretation that got one reasonably close to the IPCC numbers. That would be taking the Average Annual People flooded under "Evolving Protection" for the 2080s – 88 million – and subtracting the 13 million for the 2080s under evolving protection with no sea level rise, leaving one with 75 million. Very promising.

However, there is no similar calculation that leads to 200 million. The analogous calculation under the "Constant Protection" column is 228-36 = 192 million. One could confuse the different models to arrive at 237(+4)-36 = 205, but this would be an obvious methodological error (comparing across different models) compounded with a typo. And if not a typo why alter the value from 205 to 200? I can't figure it out.

So where exactly the numbers came from remains a mystery. No one I’ve asked knows the answer. It makes no sense to me that the numbers would be generated through some procedure outside the peer-reviewed literature, as this is outside the scope of the IPCC’s mandate. And there appears to be no logical or intuitive combination of values that result in the values that appear in the SPM from Nicholls et al. Of course, the IPCC is a sprawling document, and the derivation of these numbers may yet be hidden somewhere inside, but I haven’t found them. Maybe there is an obvious or straightforward explanation, but I have not heard it.

OK, so what? The IPCC has a sentence that is confusing at best, and more likely is just nonsense. Nonsense happens, right?

Well, no. When I first searched for information about it last February, I found that the sentence in question has been used in official documents related to climate policy by the Japanese (PDF), Canadian, and British governments. From a follow up search that I just conducted it seems that the UK citation has been superceded, but I am sure that it remains in cyberspace somewhere.

The IPCC SPM is used to justify policy actions on climate change, and thus it would seem pretty important that its information be accurate and understandable. In this case, it appears that neither criterion was met.

So I thought – naively -- that this was a pretty interesting story, particularly given that the IPCC is presently in the midst of preparing its fourth assessment, and wrote a short essay describing what I had found – and more importantly had not found -- about the SPM sentence and the main report, when compared to the original literature. I have tried to publish at two outlets that one would think might have an interest in the accuracy of IPCC assessments, only to be turned down, quickly in one case because it didn’t fit a category, and after an extremely long delay in the second case with the chief editor explaining to me, essentially, that the emperor’s clothes are really quite beautiful. The case of storm surge and sea level rise in the IPCC WGII SPM seems to be so obviously an open and shut case – the facts are readily available for anyone to examine for themselves – that I admit some considerable surprise at the difficultly in getting it published. But I suppose that is what blogs are for.

Here is how I opened my essay that I wrote last February:

In the children’s game of "telephone" a group of children sit in a circle and someone starts the game by whispering a phrase to the person seated neat to them and so on all around the circle. After enough transmissions a phrase that begins as "five stories" might come out the end as "jive turkey" to everyone’s delight. The game of telephone provides a cautionary tale for producers and users of scientific assessments. The case of mistaken and misinterpreted information about storm surge impacts illustrates the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that the IPCC may have its own "jive turkey" problem minus the delight.

I justified why this issue is important as follows:

The IPCC has great potential to inform policy makers, however its credibility rest on being accurate and faithful to the literature. Errors will inevitably occur, but in this case an error in the IPCC’s most important summaries has been used uncritically in policy documents and academic studies, apparently not having been noticed until now. This problem may be more systemic, e.g., I have elsewhere written about the IPCC’s erroneous treatment of non-peer reviewed studies of the attribution of climate disasters to greenhouse gases (e.g., Pielke, 2005). However broad the problem is, as the IPCC gears up for its fourth assessment report it seems critical to carefully evaluate its procedures for accuracy, and for users of the IPCC to understand the strengths and limits of assessments. There is a more fundamental problem and that is the distilling of complex, nuanced research into one-sentence sound bites that perhaps inevitably cannot accurately capture what is to be found in a lengthy scientific article.

I sought to provide a more accurate summary of Nicholls et al. 1999 than one can find in the IPCC TAR, which in fact leads to conclusions at odds with that distilled by those who have misinterpreted the IPCC sentence. In fact, Nicholls et al. proivide considerable support for the argument tha increasing coasal habitation is a far greater issue than sea level rise when it comes to storm surge (surprise, surprise):

A more accurate summary of Nicholls et al. (1999) would start by observing that the paper used a scenario that had that number of people subjected to 1 in 1000 or greater risk of coastal storm surges increasing from 197 million in 1990 to 575 million in the 2080s without any rise in sea level, due only to population growth and demographic changes. Under this scenarios, with sea level rise (and no societal reaction) the 2085 population-at-risk would be 630 to 640 million. With no sea level rise Nicholls et al. (1999) calculate an increase in the average annual number of people flooded rising from 10 million (1990) to 36 million (2085) with 1990 levels of protection. With protection that evolves as a function of GDP (but not otherwise changed due to sea level rise) the number of people flooded increases only by 3 million, from 10 million (1990) to 13 million (2085), even though population-at-risk increased by 378 million people. This suggests that only 0.8% of the additional people who inhabit the coastal zone by 2085 with a 1 in 1000 or greater risk would on average experience an annual flood. This compares with 5.1% of inhabitants who experience a flood in 1990 based on the assumptions of Nicholls et al.
Putting this together, according to Nicholls et al. (1999) population-at-risk increases by 438 million by 2085 while the average annual number of people flooded increases by 78 million people, from 10 million in 1990 to 88 million in 2085 (and by 3 million, from 10 million to 13 million under the no sea level rise scenario). So the IPCC should have reported that:

Nicholls et al. estimate that of the 438 million additional people expected to inhabit the coastal zone by 2085 with a 1 in 1000 or greater rise of storm surge, about 0.7% - 18% of them, or on average between 3 million and 78 million additional people annually would experience the effects of coast flooding under the assumptions of the sensitivity analysis.

The difference between assuming that only 0.8% of the additional people who inhabit the coastal zone at risk to flooding under a scenario of no sea level rise versus 18% under a scenario of sea level rise results from the fact that the methods assumes an appropriate adaptive response in the first case but not the latter. For instance, to reach the 18% portion requires than many people would move to locations far riskier than they choose to inhabit today. Using the same ratio of people who experience floods to those at risk (i.e., assuming that people adapt where they live according to the contemporaneous risk) as Nicholls et al. use for 1990 (i.e., 5.1%) would suggest an additional 22.3 million people would be exposed to floods with a population increase of 438 million. Using the ratio suggested for 2085 under no sea level rise results in an additional 3.5 million people who experience floods. Nicholls et al. provide no reason to expect that society will be significantly more risk averse in 2085 than today, nor why the presence of sea level rise would change the acceptable risk from a scenario of no sea level rise.

I concluded with some words of caution:

These details for just this one study of storm surge are very complicated and to understand them requires a careful examination of the primary literature. Clearly, what appears in the 2001 IPCC bears only a distant relation to what the original study actually said. For this reason, scientific assessments cannot replace the primary literature, and some thought should be given by scholars to how best to deal with knowledge that is highly simplified through assessment and then recirculated into academic inquiry. Like the children’s game of telephone, this is a recipe for miscommunication, mischaracterization of scientific research, and a foundation of knowledge that rests a few feet above the ground. A more appropriate role for assessments would be to focus more explicitly on the information needs of policy makers and focus attention on a wide range policy options and their possible consequences. Efforts to summarize complex science may not ultimately prove useful to policymakers if they result in oversimplifications and mischaracterizations.

Climate science is a curious business, that’s for sure.

Posted on June 10, 2006 02:04 PM View this article | Comments (34)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 07, 2006

Comments on Nature Article on Disaster Trends Workshop

Quirin Schiermeier has an article in the current issue of Nature on our recent workshop on disaster loss trends and climate change. The workshop executive summary can be found here and a PDF here. The article, unfortunately, has a few mistakes and is subject to misinterpretation.

1. The Nature article does not recognize that the workshop participants used the IPCC definition of "climate change" to mean a change irrespective of causes. At several points the author of the Nature article conflates "climate change" and "global warming" which is something we at the workshop were careful not to do. Here is the opening paragraph of the Nature story:

Insurance companies, acutely aware of the dramatic increase in losses caused by natural disasters in recent decades, have been convinced that global warming is partly to blame. Now their data seem to be persuading scientists, too. At a recent meeting of climate and insurance experts, delegates reached a cautious consensus: climate change is helping to drive the upward trend in catastrophes. . .
Delegates seem to have found the record persuasive. Their consensus statement, to be released on 8 June, says there is "evidence that changing patterns of extreme events are drivers for recent increases in global losses".

Clearly climate change has played a role in driving recent increases in losses. On attribution to human causes see below.

2. The article does not distinguish my collaborator’s personal views from those of the workshop consensus, thereby creating room for confusion. Here is the relevant passage:

There was no agreement on how big a role global warming has played, however. "Because of issues related to data quality, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change," the workshop concluded.
"Dissent over the issue is clearly waning," says Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re's Geo Risks department, who co-chaired the workshop with Roger Pielke Jr, director of the University of Colorado's Center of Science and Technology Policy Research. "Climate change may not be the dominant factor, but it has become clear that a relevant portion of damages can be attributed to global warming."

The workshop consensus is worth repeating:

11. Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions

and

13. In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.

3. Nature unfortunately trots out the worn “skeptic” label to describe my views:

Previously sceptical, Pielke says that he is now convinced that at least some of the increased losses can be blamed on climate: "Clearly, since 1970 climate change has shaped the disaster loss record."
He adds a note of caution, however: "Disaster damage is not the place to look for early indications of climate change," he says. "Policy advocates should exercise caution in using disaster losses to justify climate mitigation, lest they go beyond what science can support."

~~I was accurately quoted, but my use of the term "climate change" was as we used it at the workshop.~~ [Update- Upon checking I was misquoted! See comments. RP] I am increasingly convinced that since 1970 a portion of the increase in disaster losses is due to changes in climate, clearly, and largely due to US hurricanes. But it is less clear that such trends exist if the record dates to 1950 or 1920.

4. Nature cites GermanWatch as a group who has used attributed disaster losses to human-caused climate change, but does not mention that a representative of the group participated in the workshop and signed on to the workshop consensus.

Overall, I am disappointed with this story.

Posted on June 7, 2006 12:13 PM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Workshop Executive Summary

Report of the Workshop on
“Climate Change and Disaster Losses - Understanding
and Attributing Trends and Projections”
25-26 May 2006, Hohenkammer, Germany

Introduction

In summer 2005 both Roger Pielke, Jr. of the Center of Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado and Peter Hoeppe of the Geo Risks Research Department of Munich Re learned from each other that each planned to organize a workshop on the assessment of factors leading to increasing loss trends due to natural disasters. Both agreed that such a workshop was timely, especially given the apparent lack of consensus on the role of climate change in disaster loss trends. Roger Pielke, Jr. and Peter Hoeppe decided to have a common workshop in 2006 in Germany to bring together a diverse group of international experts in the fields of climatology and disaster research. The general questions to be answered at this workshop were:

What factors account for increasing costs of weather related disasters in recent decades?

What are the implications of these understandings, for both research and policy?

[click through to read the rest]

The participants were selected by a workshop organizing team that met in December, 2005. Participants were selected for their high level of competence and to represent a wide range of different attitudes to the subject. All participants came into the workshop agreeing that anthropogenic climate change is a concern.

In total 32 participants from 13 countries attended the two day workshop (list of participants attached). “White papers” from 25 participants were submitted in advance and formed the basis of the discussions. The workshop was organized in 4 sessions:

1. Trends in extreme weather events
2. Trends in Damages
3. Data issues – extreme weather events and damages
4. Syntheses discussion

In the syntheses session the discussion was focused on finding consensus positions among the participants on statements about the attribution of disaster losses and the policy implications. These 20 statements are listed in the executive summary and are described in more detail in the full workshop summary report. Specific views of individual participants can be found in their white papers, which each was given the opportunity to revise following the workshop.

The workshop was sponsored by Munich Re, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, and the GKSS Research Center.

Workshop on
“Climate Change and Disaster Losses - Understanding
and Attributing Trends and Projections”
25-26 May 2006, Hohenkammer, Germany

Executive Summary

The focus of the workshop was on two questions:

What factors account for increasing costs of weather related disasters in recent decades?

What are the implications of these understandings, for both research and policy?

Consensus (unanimous) statements of the workshop participants:

1. Climate change is real, and has a significant human component related to greenhouse gases.

2. Direct economic losses of global disasters have increased in recent decades with particularly large increases since the 1980s.

3. The increases in disaster losses primarily result from weather related events, in particular storms and floods.

4. Climate change and variability are factors which influence trends in disasters.

5. Although there are peer reviewed papers indicating trends in storms and floods there is still scientific debate over the attribution to anthropogenic climate change or natural climate variability. There is also concern over geophysical data quality.

6. IPCC (2001) did not achieve detection and attribution of trends in extreme events at the global level.

7. High quality long-term disaster loss records exist, some of which are suitable for research purposes, such as to identify the effects of climate and/or climate change on the loss records.

8. Analyses of long-term records of disaster losses indicate that societal change and economic development are the principal factors responsible for the documented increasing losses to date.

9. The vulnerability of communities to natural disasters is determined by their economic development and other social characteristics.

10. There is evidence that changing patterns of extreme events are drivers for recent increases in global losses.

11. Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions

12. For future decades the IPCC (2001) expects increases in the occurrence and/or intensity of some extreme events as a result of anthropogenic climate change. Such increases will further increase losses in the absence of disaster reduction measures.

13. In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.

Policy implications identified by the workshop participants

14. Adaptation to extreme weather events should play a central role in reducing societal vulnerabilities to climate and climate change.

15. Mitigation of GHG emissions should also play a central role in response to anthropogenic climate change, though it does not have an effect for several decades on the hazard risk.

16. We recommend further research on different combinations of adaptation and mitigation policies.

17. We recommend the creation of an open-source disaster database according to agreed upon standards.

18. In addition to fundamental research on climate, research priorities should consider needs of decision makers in areas related to both adaptation and mitigation.

19. For improved understanding of loss trends, there is a need to continue to collect and improve long-term and homogenous datasets related to both climate parameters and disaster losses.

20. The community needs to agree upon peer reviewed procedures for normalizing economic loss data.

Posted on June 7, 2006 11:50 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

June 06, 2006

Lloyd's on Climate Adaptation

Lloyd's of London has an interesting new report out on the need for the insurance industry to improve their adaptive capacity in the face of climate change (here in PDF). The report is titled "Climate Change: Adapt or Bust." Here is the executive summary:

1. TOO LITTLE BUT NOT yet TOO LATE. The insurance industry must do more now to understand and actively manage climate change risk.
An increasing wealth of scientific evidence is available to predict the impact of changing weather patterns and future climate change on the insurance industry. So far, efforts to do so have been patchy and there is little evidence of industry behaviour changing as a result. Much of the latest science suggests that climate change will take place faster than we thought. Urgent and active management of climate change – starting with investment in research – is now imperative. It is not too late to change, but change is long overdue.

2. Recent events have shown capital and pricing models to be wanting. We must regularly update and recalibrate our models to keep pace with REALITY.

Catastrophe modellers have now reacted to criticisms following the recent record US hurricane seasons. However, much of this work could and should have been done prior to these events. Going forward, the industry must take a new approach to underwriting, looking ahead and not simply basing decisions on historical patterns. Insurer pricing and capital allocation models must be updated regularly – and not just in extremis – to reflect the latest scientific evidence. Our responsibilities in this regard will be increasingly widely drawn: regulators will require the industry to maintain a level of capital adequate for changing levels of climate change risk.

3. Windstorm trends will put particular pressure on businesses and their insurers.

Based on natural cycles alone, we can expect the current trend towards extreme windstorm events to continue and increase over the next decade. Climate change can only exacerbate this, and insurers must plan for a higher frequency of extreme events, over a longer storm season and over a wider geographical area. Insurers must also take advantage of scientific advances to factor forecasts for the season ahead into their planning, instead of relying only on long-term trends.

4. Climate change means Exposures are changing and new ones emerging.
insurers must regularly review and communicate conditions of coverage.

We foresee an increasing possibility of attributing weather losses to man made factors, with courts seeking to assign liability and compensation for claims of damage. Exposures can also be expected to increase in respect of property, business interruption and political risks, demanding the same response. That means the insurance industry will want to regularly review conditions of coverage against risk appetite, and do more to educate the public about changing exposures. The industry can help by creating incentives for policyholders to reduce risk. Opportunities for those insurance markets which are flexible and innovative will emerge too: as society adapts to the impact of climate change, new technologies will be required and insurance of these developments will be needed.

5. Insurers must prepare for the impact of climate change on asset values. Underwriting for profit will be key,

As major corporate investors, insurers rely on returns from assets to boost their own financial performance. We expect climate change not only to produce extreme capital damaging events, but also to increase uncertainty around corporate business plans and potentially reduce asset values. This makes it even more important for the industry to price risk according to exposure and to underwrite for profit. We also see industry players having increased opportunity to use their influence as investors, in order to encourage responsible and climate proof behaviour from the boards of corporations in which they invest, and with which they do business.

6. Effective partnership with business and government will be key to
managing risk. The insurance industry must engage now.

Based on long experience, Lloyd’s believes that insurance markets operate most efficiently when left to free market forces, and the vast majority of natural perils are insurable – as long as the market is free to price risk adequately. However, if this freedom is removed, or if the pace of climate change grows faster than expected, this could change our view. Industry strategists will want to consider the long-term insurability of weather-related risk. We believe that a meaningful partnership with government and business, supported by a series of practical actions, has the best chance of providing solutions. In particular, this should address the issue of increasing concentrations of population and economic wealth in high risk areas, for example on coasts. This report focuses on adaptation but we recognise that mitigation of the risk itself (ie the reduction of CO2 emissions) is crucial.

Posted on June 6, 2006 08:24 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

June 05, 2006

Climate Change is a Moral Issue

Quite unintentionally, Dave Roberts of Grist Magazine provides an incredibly clear statement of the insanity of the climate debate:

Advocating that adaptation play a larger role in U.S. policy, in the current political context, does not increase the odds of sensible, balanced climate policy. It simply, if inadvertently, helps the corporatist right cloud the debate and avoid the difficult steps required to cut GHG emissions.
And whatever else we do, that task is paramount.

In an ideal, abstract policy debate, sure, I'd say we should boost our attention to adaptation. But in the current political situation, I don't want to provide any ammunition for the moral cretins who are squirming frantically to avoid policies that might impact their corporate donors. Until they're gone from the scene -- until we have an administration serious about addressing this problem -- I'm going to focus on cutting emissions.

Dave’s honesty is to be applauded, as his view on this subject is widely shared among those in the climate debate but rarely explained so clearly. However, his focus on sticking it to the “moral cretins” he so despises has the side effect of preventing greater help to people like those pictured below waiting for help in the aftermath of hurricane Mitch. There are hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, who sure could use a little help in improving their adaptive capacity irrespective of emissions reductions.

Climate change is indeed a moral issue. But hey, why advocate policies that can directly help suffering people around the world when you can instead stick to your ideological opponents?

Posted on June 5, 2006 12:26 PM View this article | Comments (24)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

June 02, 2006

Comment from Judy Curry

[Ed.- I want to make sure that Judy's response to my post earlier today is not missed. I will respond in the comments. RP]

Roger,

I make it a practice not to blog, but i want to clarify your misreading of our meeting with Governor Bush. We went to extreme pains NOT to talk about policies or politics. We talked about the science and the risks to Florida. Governor Bush made the important point in our discussion that this whole issue has become very politicized, and said that we needed to take the politics out of this and get to the bottom of the scientific issue of hurricanes and global warming. I wholeheartedly agree.

The most important issue from Florida's point of view is to understand whether the hurricane situation is likely to get worse. We said that there is a considerably risk that it will.
Florida and other coastal cities need to urgently reassess their risk to hurricanes to allow for the risk of increased hurricane activity. No matter what we decide to do about the greenhouse warming issue, the most vulnerable coastal cities need to reconsider their coastal engineering, land use practices, emergency procedures, etc. in view of the risk of increasing hurricane activity and the longer range prospect of sea level rise.

The prospect of increasing hurricane activity has overall raised people's awareness of the global warming issue, but I don't think that many people believe that anything we do re greenhouse gases in the short term will influence the problems that our coastal cities are facing particularly in the next few decades.

The media has often misrepresented my remarks, that is unfortunate but not unexpected I guess. The particular article you refer to was an accurate portrayal of our meeting with Governor Bush. Yes, there are a variety of advocacy groups in Florida that are trying to influence Governor Bush and others to adopt a variety of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yes those groups believe that hurricanes can help raise awareness of the global warming issue. But no one that I know of is pushing greenhouse gas reductions as a policy to deal with increasing hurricane activity.

Judy

Posted on June 2, 2006 08:59 PM View this article | Comments (15)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Like a Broken Record

We have made the case many times here that reducing greenhouse gases makes good sense for a wide range of reasons, not just climate change, but that it is a poor policy argument to suggest that greenhouse gas reduction can have any effect on hurricane losses in the near term, and only a small effect in the long term due to the inexorable pace societal development along the coast. Just yesterday I was asked in the comments why it is I that on hurricanes and global warming I always “change the subject” from climate science to hurricane policy. Below are some good reasons why we should always ask “so what?” in the context of scientific debates.

In comments made earlier this month Georgia Tech scientist Judy Curry was quoted as advocating emissions reductions as a means to respond to hurricanes (when I contacted Judy about this she said that the media put together two disconnected thoughts to make it sound like she was advocating emissions reductions as hurricane policy, but that she was not):

"We’re seeing an increase in the sea surface temperatures, and increase in the number of storms and in the intensity of those storms," said Dr. Judy Curry.
The question is why? Dr. Judy Curry says part of the reason is us.

Curry is one of the researchers in the forefront of the contentious global warming debate. She says data clearly shows that greenhouse gases we create with our cars, our industrial plants, our very lifestyles are helping to dissolve the polar ice caps and worse, melt the Greenland ice sheet.

"We have the technologies, we still have some time to reduce our greenhouse gases there is no reason we shouldn’t be doing this," said Curry.

And just yesterday another news story cited how greenhouse gas emissions reductions were being advocated in Florida as a response to hurricanes.

Florida's governor cautiously entered the debate Wednesday over whether rising global temperatures are to blame for an increase in the number of strong hurricanes, meeting with two researchers who say global warming is threatening Florida with a long-term future of more bad storms.
Bush met with Peter Webster and Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who published research last year showing an increase in global hurricane intensity, with a doubling of the number of Category 4 or 5 hurricanes since 1970. That increase coincides with a rise of nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit in ocean surface temperatures, they say. . .

The debate is something of a storm itself, and Bush joined it cautiously.

"He said they presented some pretty compelling information," said Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss, declining to say whether Bush agrees that global warming is increasing the number of strong hurricanes. "He encouraged them to continue with their research."

Webster and Curry's meeting came as environmentalists seek to push to the state level efforts to curb the emission of so-called greenhouse gasses that are blamed for causing global temperature increases.

They say President Bush's administration in Washington hasn't done enough to combat greenhouse gas emissions _ and note that Florida could help by cutting emissions since it's the fifth largest producer of such gasses in the United States.

Besides, in hurricane alley, Florida has more to gain from lower emissions than the country as a whole if Webster and Curry's findings are right , said Jerry Karnas of the Florida Wildlife Federation, which set up the meeting.

Bush didn't commit to any policy changes in the meeting.

But Attorney General Charlie Crist, with whom the scientists also met, said he was impressed. Crist is one of several men running to be the next governor.

"It's fairly apparent that (global warming) has increased (hurricane) activity," Crist said after meeting the scientists.

So long as there are bad arguments for good causes valid criticisms of the justifications for those good causes will be enabled from friend and foe alike, and much more importantly, policies might be enacted that cannot do what they are sold on. For some perhaps the ends justifies the means – that is, securing emissions reductions is worth selling them on poor policy arguments. However the irony is that bad arguments are in the end unlikely to be a winning strategy of salesmanship, as you risk being identified as not having a good case to make in the first place. And on greenhouse gas emissions there is a solid policy argument to make, it just doesn’t involve hurricane policy.

Hat tip: Dad

Posted on June 2, 2006 05:39 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

June 01, 2006

NOAA Protest

Kevin Vranes has the scoop on the protest by some environmental groups calling for the NOAA administrator and NHC director to resign because they haven’t said the politically correct things about hurricanes and global warming. I don’t have much to add to Kevin’s post which is right on target. However, it is worth adding that NHC Director Max Mayfield has co-authored (with me and 3 others) two peer-reviewed papers on the hurricane-global warming issue over the past year. Here is the conclusion from the first paper, which clearly shows the rantings of madmen unfit for public service (PDF):

. . . looking to the future, until scientists conclude a) that there will be changes to storms that are significantly larger than observed in the past, b) that such changes are correlated to measures of societal impact, and c) that the effects of such changes are significant in the context of inexorable growth in population and property at risk, then it is reasonable to conclude that the significance of any connection of human-caused climate change to hurricane impacts necessarily has been and will continue to be exceedingly small.

Posted on June 1, 2006 04:32 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 31, 2006

Cherrypicking at the New York Times

You won’t find more blantantly obvious example of cherrypicked science than in today’s New York Times, which has an article on two new peer-reviewed studies on hurricanes and climate change. Given the debate over climate change and hurricanes the new studies are certainly newsworthy. However, it is what is left out of the Times story that makes the cherrypicking stand out undeniably.

The New York Times makes (and has made) no mention of two other just-published peer-reviewed studies (links here and here) providing somewhat different perspectives on the hurricane-climate issue and its policy significance (I am a co-author on one of the studies. It does not deny a global warming-hurricane link, but instead characterizes the literature in the context of an exchange with others with a different view). These studies, which are two among a larger family of research, are not necessarily "the other side" but they do add important context selectively ignored by the Times. In today's article, for balance the New York Times interviewed NOAA’s Stanley Goldenberg, who is a respected scientist, but who hadn’t seen either of the papers referred to in the article or published a peer-reviewed study this month. Interviewing one of the authors of recent peer-reviewed work would have necessarily required referencing that work.

To the extent that the New York Times has a powerful role in shaping how policy options are framed and discussed, it does a disservice to the public and policymakers when it cherrypicks science. I suppose this is because they have decided to pick sides in the political debate over climate change and that political calculus shapes its editorial decisions.

Posted on May 31, 2006 07:01 AM View this article | Comments (36)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

May 30, 2006

Scenarios, Scenarios: Hansen’s Prediction Part II

After a bit more investigation, motivated by comments on my earlier post on Jim Hansen’s 1988 predictions (thanks all), it turns out that Jim Hansen has two sets of scenarios labeled A, B, and C. This is confusing to say the least. The conclusions of the earlier post remain unchanged, however, the analysis below may help to explain some things.

The first set of scenarios A, B and C are from his 1988 paper and the details can be found in the appendix to that paper. The second set of scenarios named A, B, and C was apparently generated for his 1998 paper in order to rescale emissions projections based on the lack of realism in the 1988 projections. The earlier post of mine therefore is actually a comparison of the 1998 scenarios with what has transpired since, and in that case it is true that Scenario C (let’s call it C98) is clearly the most comparable to how things have evolved since 1998.

For his 1988 paper here then from its appendix are the relevant annual growth rates for each scenario relevant to the time period 1990-2005, which I am now labeling with the year affixed for clarity:

Scenario A88

CO2 1.5%
N2O 0.2% 1990-1999, 0.4% >2000
CH4 1.5%

Scenario B88

CO2 1% 1990-1999, 0.5% >2000
N2O 2.5% 1990-1999, 1.5% >2000
CH4 1.0% 1990-1999, 0.5% >2000

Scenario C88

CO2 1.5 ppm 1990-2000, fixed at 368 ppm after 2000
N2O 0.0%
CH4 0.5% year 1990-2000, fixed at 1916 ppm after 2000

How do these scenarios compare? From the earlier post here again are the actuals:

CH4 0.46%
N2O 0.95%
CO2 -0.52% (Annex 1 Countries 1990-2003)
CO2 >0.45% (Non-Annex 1 Countries 1990-2003) (note typo caught in earlier post)
CO2 1.5 PPM (1990-2005)

How to evaluate these scenarios?

From 1990-2000 Scenario C88 was right on target with respect to CH4 and CO2, and off with respect to N2O (The description of Scenario C88 actually doesn’t mention N2O in the appendix describing the growth rates, so I assumed that it was zero).

Scenarios A88 and B88 were off by factors of 3 and 2 respectively with respect to CO2 and CH4. With respect to N2O Scenario A88 was by a factor of 0.2 too small and B88 was a factor of 2.5 too large. These are large errors, much larger than those documented with respect to the 1998 projections, as would be expected.

So, there are several conclusions to draw from this exercise.

1. With respect to Jim Hansen’s 1988 predictions, his Scenario C88 was the most accurate with respect to emissions 1990-2000. That scenario froze time in 2000, meaning that going forward there are two evolving scenarios which both have dramatically overestimated emissions. The lower of the two is thus “more accurate” than the other. Neither is particularly accurate or realistic. Any conclusion that Hansen’s 1988 prediction got things right, necessarily must conclude that it got things right for the wrong reasons.

2. With respect to Hansen’s 1998 predictions C98 has been the most accurate.

3. In two sets of predictions compared with experience, Jim Hansen’s predictions of emissions have proved to be overly aggressive both times with respect to rates of emissions with his lower estimate proving most accurate.

4. When discussing Hansen’s scenarios make sure that you differentiate between 1988 and 1998 versions.

More comments welcomed!

Posted on May 30, 2006 03:55 PM View this article | Comments (31)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Dave Roberts Responds on The Climate Debate

Over at the GristMill blog, Dave Roberts continues our exchange on the notion of a “third way” perspective on climate change. Dave is typically thoughtful in his comments in which he is having none of the third way business, arguing:

It's possible, and frequently true, that one side's right and the other is wrong, even if many of the correct people argue poorly or are otherwise annoying. (emphasis in original)

However, I’m not at all sure what he is referring to in terms of "right" and "wrong" because he does not say. He writes,

It is conventional wisdom now that every issue is defined by two shrill, partisan camps, and that it is a mark of intellectual integrity to choose a path between them.
As a heuristic, this may have once had some value, but today it's become a fetish. A tic.

Let's be clear: There is no empirical significance in falling between, or even just outside, two opposing positions. A position's truth value has nothing to do with its number of adherents, or its adherents' rhetorical acumen. The desire not to be a "joiner," not to belong to a "tribe," is a matter of temperament, not empiricism. (emphasis in original)

Let me offer several other criteria – other than "truth value" (which I honestly do not understand what Dave means by – what does it mean to ask "Is a policy option "true"?") -- through which we might evaluate competing policy arguments: realism (is it possible?), practicality (is it doable?), and worth (is it desirable?). From an empirical perspective I am confident that the current approaches to climate policy advocated by both the climate skeptics and alarmists fail according to all three criteria. (To be glib, for "current approaches" simply assume (a) "do nothing" for the skeptics and (b) the approach favored by the FCCC for the alarmists.) I don’t know if the proposals that are frequently advocated here at Prometheus are "in between" or "outside" the current debate and I’m not sure that I care or that such partisan-relative-geography even matters. What matters is that there are basically two approaches to climate policy that take up all the air in the debate under a shared assumption that arguing about science is the appropriate battle ground for the debate. In my view significant progress on climate mitigation or adaptation won’t be made until new options are considered beyond those at the focus of the skeptic-alarmist debate. If that view makes me a temperamental third wayer, then I am guilty as charged.

Given that policy debates almost always boil down to two options – a dynamic recognized long ago by Walter Lippmann – the importance of "third way" thinking should be a function of whether the two options at the center of debate are up to the task of dealing with the problem motivating the policy in the first place. Dave Roberts may deplore third way thinking in general, but there are situations when both of the dominant poles of policy debates are similarly misguided.

Thus far, for all of its bluster the climate debate has been characterized by a paucity of realistic, practical, and worthwhile policy options. I’m all for empiricism, so if Dave wants to engage in an exchange focused on a substantive evaluation of actual climate policy options, I’d be happy to participate.

Posted on May 30, 2006 08:05 AM View this article | Comments (5)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 29, 2006

Evaluating Jim Hansen’s 1988 Climate Forecast

A lot of attention has been paid by both sides of the climate debate to a prediction made in 1988 before Congress by NASA scientist James Hansen. Today this forecast is the subject of an op-ed by Paul Krugman in the New York Times in which he accuses a prominent climate skeptic of scientific fraud. For some time I have been interested in various claims about Jim Hansen’s forecast because I am interested in prediction and its use/misuse in policy and politics. But what has been missing to date is a rigorous evaluation of Hansen’s forecast. Here is an initial effort to bring a bit more rigor to such an evaluation. The numbers below are not the last word, may contain errors, and are intended to open a discussion on this subject.

Hansen’s 1988 prediction was based on an analysis presented in this paper:

Hansen, J., I. Fung, A. Lacis, D. Rind, S. Lebedeff, R. Ruedy, G. Russell, and P. Stone 1988. Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model. J. Geophys. Res. 93, 9341-9364. (Abstract)

The paper generated future climate predictions based on three scenarios, described in the abstract as follows:

Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000.

In this PDF, Jim Hansen provided an image of the prediction for the three scenarios with an overlay of the actual temperature increase in a response to Michael Crichton. I have reproduced the figure immediately below.

The observations (black) are very closely matched to Scenario B. Consequently, Jim Hansen claimed, "the real world has followed a course closest to that of Scenario B" (PDF). But is this correct? It appears that Jim Hansen may have gotten the right answer on temperature for the wrong reasons because his assumptions about emissions paths were not accurate. Further, Scenario B with the best match to temperature is the most inaccurate with respect to emissions projections.

The three scenarios used by Jim Hansen were based on assumptions about how society would produce emissions forward from 1988. Key assumptions were made for methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O), and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) – For scenarios A and B in developing and developed countries, and for the global total in the case of Scenario C. Here are the assumptions from Hansen’s 1988 paper for growth rates in CH4, N2O, and CO2:

Scenario A

CH4 0.5%
N2O 0.25%
CO2 3% developing, 1% developed

Scenario B

CH4 0.25%
N2O 0.25%
CO2 2% developing, 0% developed

Scenario C

CH4 0.0%
N2O 0.25%
CO2 1.6 ppm increase annually

In order to evaluate whether these assumptions played out as projected in the three scenarios I consulted online databases with estimates of increases in CH4, N2O, and CO2.

I found CH4 data for 1990-2005 in an EPA report (PDF) in Appendix A-II.

I found N2O data for 1990-2005 in the same EPA report (PDF) in Appendix A-3.

I found CO2 data from the UN FCCC in a recent report (PDF) , for Annex I countries in table II-3 for 1990-2003.

I found global CO2 levels for 1990-2005 in the U.S. government database.

I used this data to compare growth rates in CH4, N2O, and CO2 to Jim Hansen’s 3 scenarios from 1988. Here is what I found:

Actual Rate of Increase

CH4 0.46%
N2O 0.95%
CO2 -0.52% (Annex 1 Countries 1990-2003)
CO2 >4.5% (Non-Annex 1 Countries 1990-2003)
CO2 1.5 PPM (1990-2005)

Comparison with Scenarios

Most Accurate CH4 Assumption = Scenario A
Most Accurate N2O Assumption = each
Most Accurate CO2 Assumption = Scenario C

In none of the three emissions assumptions did Scenario B contain the most accurate emissions assumptions. From this initial evaluation, it seems that to the extent that Jim Hansen’s Scenario B has accurately anticipated global temperature increases since 1988, it has done so based on inaccurate assumptions about emissions paths. Perhaps the errors cancel out, but an accurate prediction based on inaccurate assumptions should give some pause to using those same assumptions into the future. I am not sure which Scenario would be evaluated as the most accurate, but given the importance of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, I’d lean toward Scenario C. None of this is to doubt that global temperature has increased or will continue to increase as projected by the IPCC.

The usual caveats apply: This analysis provides no support for anyone who would cherry pick one scenario over another to evaluate their accuracy (as Paul Krugman has accused Patrick Michaels and Michael Crichton of doing). Nor does this analysis provide any reason not to support the importance of action on climate policy.

What it does, however, is raise questions about how scientists are treated differently in the public by other scientists and the media, and importantly, how some instances of policy-relevant science are framed critically and other instances are framed quite positively. Take William Gray for example who spent decades warning about a coming increase in hurricane activity, who was proven correct when activity increased, only to be frequently excoriated by his peers for his views on global warming. On hurricanes, Gray may have been right for the wrong reasons, but he was nonetheless right in his warning. Hansen on the other hand, is feted by his peers and the media yet just like Bill Gray may have been right for the wrong reasons.

Posted on May 29, 2006 04:10 PM View this article | Comments (24)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 27, 2006

Definately Not NSHers

Joel Achenbach has a long and interesting article on climate skeptics in the Sunday Washington Post, you can read it here.

Posted on May 27, 2006 03:24 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 25, 2006

Reaction to Comments on Non-Skeptic Heretics

My only partially tongue-in-cheek post yesterday on the NSH Club generated many comments here and on Kevin’s NoSeNada blog. As well, my email box filled up with a bunch of comments. Here are a few perspectives on the various comments:

1. Dave Roberts, a commenter whose views I have a lot of respect for as they can always be counted on for being thoughtful and passionate, of Grist Magazine responded with fury to both my post and Easterbrook’s op-ed. Of Easterbrook, Roberts (somewhat bizarrely in my view) takes him to task for coming around to Roberts own views, writing on the GristMill blog:

So all of us who have been warning about it for years -- pushing against dimwits like Gregg Easterbrook -- are now, retroactively, by His Own Centrist Grace, transmuted from "alarmists" to reasonable people.

Of my post Dave similarly pulls no punches in the comments,

You can [Ed- I assume this was supposed to be and. RP] Easterbrook share then tendency to set up strawmen and then proclaim your own intellectual heroism for disagreeing with them. Your eagerness to seen as a maverick completely distorts your perceptions.
This is a complicated discussion. There are a whole range of positions, defended by various people in good faith. Defining your little team seems like the least productive way of engaging the issue.

A few responses to this: First, Dave’s assertion on his blog that "there's no substitute for political engagement" does not seem to apply to my attempt to stake out a distinct political position on climate change that is different from the existing dominant two camps. Third way political campaigns are often castigated in exactly the manner that Dave has dismissed my views -- i.e., if you are not with us, then you must be against us!

Second, Dave, unlike many of the NSHers I pointed to and commenters reacting to my post has come out firmly against adaptation except, as he writes in the comments here, for that climate change already committed to, explaining on his blog:

Once we "adapt" to the new climate we have in 2040, the changes will keep coming. We'll have to adapt all over again to the climate of 2060, and the climate of 2080, etc. Human society, no matter how clever, no matter how wealthy, simply isn't equipped to live in a constantly, dramatically changing climatic situation. Economic development depends on stability and predictability. . . We need to commit unreservedly to halting our acceleration of that instability. We all need to be pulling in the same direction, and that won't happen until arguments like [The atmosphere is warming, and it's attributable to human activity, but the "cure" (substantial CO2 emissions cuts) would be worse than the disease. It would be easier, and cost less, simply to adapt to a warmer world.] die a richly deserved death.

But for all of his complaining about my views, he doesn’t offer up any policy options (aside from denying value of adaptation), relying instead on heated political rhetoric and empty appeals to mitigate. So Dave, if you are reading, you are invited to share your specific policy recommendations here.

2. Andrew Dessler, whose views I also have a lot of respect for, commented (along with many others) here that he is:

-extremely pro-mitigation --- we need to begin to institute policies to reduce GHG emissions
-extremely pro-adaptation --- we also need to begin to institute policies to reduce our vulnerability to climate change

This immediately presents a very different perspective than Dave Roberts, hence Andrew’s NSH status ;-) But Andrew then says, "overall, I'm indifferent to the Kyoto Protocol."

Sorry Andrew, but you can’t have it both ways! The Kyoto Protocol, as is the FCCC under which it was negotiated, is in fact strongly biased against adaptation. If you are indeed strongly pro-adaptation and pro-mitigation at the same time, a view which I share, then it seems only logical and consistent to observe that Kyoto and the FCCC don’t share this same commitment. There is of course a need for some international framework to help shape and coordinate climate policies, and the FCCC is a monumental achievement, but it is not beyond evolving in positive ways. And the difference between evolution and revolution may not be large. Simply ask people about the value of reopening FCCC Article 2 for discussion to see what I mean. Opening up the discussion of balance of adaptation and mitigation, and the institutional incentives for each under the FCCC, would be a good place to start, but seems pretty far off.

3. Over at NoSeNada, Kevin provides a good characterization of my initial intent of the NSH post suggest of NSHers: "these are some people who aren't afraid to dissent from the conventional wisdom, even when dissenting gets them a lot of flak" rather than "here's a new club of people who all feel the same way". I haven’t asked anyone if they agree or not with my characterization of NSHers, I just lumped in folks whose views do not appear to be well characterized by the existing Manichean debate. And from my email inbox, it seems there are a lot of such people!! At the same time, it is important to recognize that there are also many people whose views are reflected by the two-sided debate and who (on both sides) are not at all excited by the prospect of a third way position, whatever it is called, tongue-in-cheek or not.

Overall it has been a surprising conversation, not least because of all of the apparent latent support for the notion that there is in fact a third way position on climate change. Keep the comments coming; this has been a valuable exchange, thanks all!

Posted on May 25, 2006 12:22 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 24, 2006

Gregg, Welcome to the NSH Club!

In the New York Times today, author and commentator Gregg Easterbrook renounces his “climate skeptic” credentials in favor of accepting that there is a consensus on climate science. This qualifies him for membership in the burgeoning club of non-skeptic heretics (NSH). Here is an excerpt from Gregg says in his op-ed:

Yes: the science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert.

But what is it that I mean by “non-skeptic heretic”? These are people who accept the science of climate change but do not engage in meaningless exhortations or bland political statements, and instead openly confront some of the real but uncomfortable practical challenges involved with reducing emissions and adapting to climate. Easterbrook writes,

President Bush was right to withdraw the United States from the cumbersome Kyoto greenhouse treaty, which even most signatories are ignoring. But Mr. Bush should speak to history by proposing a binding greenhouse-credit trading system within the United States.

Easterbrook has previously commended the Bush Administration’s Methane to Markets program, which granted him immediate heretic credentials, coupled with his new NS status, qualify him to be in the NSH Club. Saying anything remotely non-negative about Bush Administration is a fast ticket to the NSH Club. Commenters here have almost gone so far as to call me a Republican (ouch!;-) for questioning certain firmly held "truths." NSH members don’t seem to fall on partisan lines, though most so far are defectors from the climate policy mainstream, which helps to explain why they do seem to receive a chilly reception from the mainstream non-skeptics. There are nonetheless growing members from the traditional skeptic crowd as well.

A brief foray into the archives provides the following list of people whose writings suggest strong canadacies for membership in the NSH Club:

Myself
Dan Sarewitz
Steve Rayner
Kevin Vranes
Richard Tol
Hans von Storch
Nico Stehr
Steve Rayner
Myanna Lahsen
Bjorn Lomborg
Ted Nordhaus
Michael Shelleberger
Andrew Dessler
Indur Goklany
David Keith
Tim Dyson
Roger Pielke, Sr.
Michele Betsill
Chris Landsea
Karen O’Brien
Robert Lempert

There are of curse many more out there as well. And there seem to be others who are occasionally testing the waters of the NSH Club (the water is HOT!), such as reporter Andy Revkin, as well as some folks from the traditional skeptic community, such as John Christy.

For the mainstream climate advocates the NSH Club is a threat not only because it undercuts their primary point of authority in scientific cum political disputes, but it risks proposing practical and meaningful policy options that might in fact make a difference and thus allow them to leapfrog into a position of new authority on the climate issue. Consequently, there have been efforts to frame this group as traditional skeptics in new clothes, which are sometimes labeled as "impact skeptics" -- who have the temerity to suggest that some future impacts of climate change might be less-than-catastrophic (for some), or might be best handled by adaptation, and "policy skeptics" -- who have some doubts that the framework of the FCCC and its Kyoto Protocol are the last word on climate policy. And there are of course traditional skeptics who stand by their views, such as represented in he recent CEI commercials or by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK). Through such evolving framings of the debate we are seeing a mighty struggle to hold on to the status quo, which has been a fun and rewarding debate for many, but hopelessly ineffective from the standpoint of policy action.

The NSH Club seems to be here to stay and drawing members from both sides of the heretofore gridlocked debate. Expect much angst from those o both sides who will try very hard to preserve the old debate. At the same time expect much interesting discussion about policy, as science begins to take a backseat. Such discussion, like all important political discussions will sometimes uncomfortable and challenging, but it will be a breath of fresh air from the burgeoning ranks of the NSH!

Update: You can find Andy Revkin's blog here, where he has some writings along NSH lines.

Posted on May 24, 2006 06:16 AM View this article | Comments (31)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 22, 2006

Climate Change and Disaster Losses Workshop

With Munich Re, we are co-organizing a workshop this week outside of Munich that will bring together experts from around the world to deal with two questions:

The economic costs of weather-related disasters have increased dramatically in recent decades. However, experts disagree about the reasons for this increase. Some think that the trend can be explained entirely by the ever-growing numbers of people and value of property in harms way. Others think that human-caused climate changes have led to more frequent and intense weather events and therefore account for some part of the increased damage.
We are organizing a workshop to bring together experts from around the world to address the following two questions:

1. According to the research currently available, what factors account for the increased costs of disasters in recent decades?

2. And what are the implications of these understandings, for both research and policy?

Participants have been selected not only because they can bring value to the discussion, but because they bring to the workshop different answers to these questions. Our goal is not to reach a complete consensus, but what one member of the Workshop Organizing Team appropriately called a “consensus dissensus” – agreement on areas where there is remaining disagreement, the research necessary to resolve those differences, and the significance for research and action.

The Workshop is sponsored by Munich Re, GKSS Research Centre, the Tyndall Centre, and the U.S. NSF.

We expect to produce a report and a paper for publication on the workshop. Meantime those interested in learning more can access a library that we have started to put together with literature relevant to the discussion. If you would like to suggest additions to the workshop, we would be happy to add them.

Posted on May 22, 2006 06:45 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

May 20, 2006

Signs of Change?

The New York Times has an op-ed today that makes a point that we’ve been arguing for a long time:

Clearly, it's time for some radical ideas about solving global warming. But where's the radical realism when we need it?

Is this evidence that mainstream discussion of climate policy is beginning to reflect the realties of the impoverished political debate narrowly focused on science and largely irrelevant policy options? Lets hope so.

Posted on May 20, 2006 10:04 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 18, 2006

Fox News Documentary

On Sunday Fox News will air their second documentary about climate change at 10PM EST. Details can be found here. Several months ago they were out in Colorado interviewing people for this, me and my father included. I gave a long interview presenting my standard stuff that Prometheus readers are familiar with by now. Even so, I will be interested to see how (or if) they use my interview in the documentary. I have my reactions Monday. I'd welcome yours as well, and we can discuss.

Posted on May 18, 2006 09:47 AM View this article | Comments (49) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 17, 2006

A Few Reactions to the Bonn Dialogue on the FCCC

This week the International Institute for Sustainable Development continues its invaluable service of providing summaries of international meetings and negotiations by providing a summary of the “UNFCCC dialogue on long-term cooperative action.” Here are a few reactions to that summary, focused mainly on issues of adaptation. The IISD summary suggests that serious problems remain with consideration of adaptation under the FCCC and that some developing countries are not satisfied:

ADAPTATION: Tanzania and the Philippines said adaptation should have the same status as mitigation, expressing concerns that it had not yet been seriously addressed. Tuvalu underscored adaptation as a crucial issue, and called for urgent action rather than studies or pilot projects, implementation of UNFCCC Article 4.4 (developed country support for adaptation for vulnerable developing countries) and a process to ensure a rapid response to help countries suffering damage. The Philippines highlighted the need for innovative ways of financing. Egypt noted that mitigation efforts in developing countries are receiving more support than adaptation measures through the CDM.

We have discussed this subject frequently. The FCCC has a built-in bias against adaptation and characterizes it as being in opposition to mitigation. Bizarrely, under the FCCC adaptation has costs but not benefits (and the IPCC follows this cooking of the cost-benefit books), because under its view of the world adaptation would be unnecessary if climate change could be prevented. Under this way of thinking, adaptation projects reflect costs that would be avoided with mitigation, hence, preventing adaptation represents a benefit of mitigation. Think about that for a minute, and ask yourself, how can adaptation and mitigation really be complements under the FCCC if the case for the latter depends in no small part on preventing the former?

Under the FCCC adaptation to climate change means something very specific, it does not mean adaptation to climate, but only to those marginal effects of climate changes directly attributable to greenhouse gas emissions. If this strikes you as unrealistic and confusing, you’d be right. The reality is that in many, if not most, places in developed and developing countries adaptation to climate (broadly, not just the marginal effects of GHGs on climate) makes good sense as societal is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate, whatever the underlying causes. As we have stated here many times, it is scientifically untenable to tease out the GHG contribution to human disasters like Katrina. It is nonsensical to try to implement policies that address only those marginal impacts of GHGs, rather than the root causes of disasters themselves, which lie primarily in societal vulnerability.

We discussed this sort of nonsense following COP-10 in December, 2004 based on another IISD report which included the following telling explanation of why it is that developing countries have difficulty receiving funding for adaptation projects:

. . . adaptation projects are generally built on, or embedded in, larger national or local development projects and, therefore, the funding by the GEF would only cover a portion of the costs. In other words, if a country seeks funding for a project on flood prevention, the GEF would only be able to finance a portion proportional to the additional harm that floods have caused or will cause as a result of climate change, and the rest would have to be co-financed by some other body. The plea from LDCs, particularly the SIDS, lies precisely on this paradox, in that even if funds are available in the LDC Fund, their difficulty of finding adequate co-financing, and the costly and cumbersome calculation of the additional costs, renders the financial resources in the LDC Fund, in practice, almost inaccessible.

At this weeks meeting a comment by the UK summarized by the IISD suggests that little has changed in this regard:

The UK identified some cross-cutting themes, including financing and scientific uncertainty, which is particularly problematic for adaptation.

Why is scientific uncertainty problematic for adaptation? Because unless there is a way to attribute the impacts of GHG-caused climate change on developing countries, under the FCCC there is no vehicle for action, as the FCCC is not an all-purpose framework for reducing vulnerabilities to the effects of climate. How ironic is this? Adaptation is all about decision making under uncertainty and preparing for a future that is unknown. So in the face of uncertainties adaptation should make good sense, because its benefits are broad. Yet, under the FCCC the arbitrary rules have been set up in such a way as to mostly exclude adaptation as a policy response.

Of course, this gets back to the fact that the FCCC has been and continues to be a vehicle for changes to global energy policies and considerations of adaptation simply get in the way. Approaching climate change in this fashion makes about as much sense as telling someone that because we don’t know when they will be struck by heart disease we can provide little assistance helping them to adopt of a healthy lifestyle.

To be fair, I have many friends and colleagues who are far more sanguine about the prospects for adaptation under the FCCC, and are willing to debate this point strenuously with me when I raise comments like those above. They use words like “mainstreaming” and “sustainable development” to make their case, and cite Article 4.4 of the FCCC, among others. I respect their views and perhaps our differences in views have a bit of glass half full/half empty about them. But even so I have been convinced for some time now that the FCCC is much more of an obstacle to effective action on adaptation than a facilitator. Much of its efforts on adaptation seem to be an effort to provide a fig leaf of competence in order gloss over what increasingly appears to be a fatal flaw in the framework. The recent report from the IISD provides no reason for me to change my views.

Until the very core of the FCCC is opened up for discussion (and by core I mean Article 2 and its gerrymandered definition of climate change), the bias against adaptation is likely to persist, and adaptation policies will continue to be presented as counter to the goals of mitigation and will continue to be considered in that manner in formal negotiations (statements to the contrary notwithstanding). If this is anywhere close to the mark then people will suffer and die more than they might otherwise because of the words used to frame the climate debate as an issue of energy policy, and energy policy only.

For further reading:

A short essay:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2004. What is Climate Change?, Issues in Science and Technology, Summer, 1-4. (PDF)

Peer-reviewed studies with lots of detail:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2005. Misdefining “climate change”: consequences for science and action, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 8, pp. 548-561. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 1998. Rethinking the Role of Adaptation in Climate Policy. Global Environmental Change, 8(2), 159-170. (PDF)

May 15, 2006

More Peer-Reviewed Discussion on Hurricanes and Climate Change

In the May issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, a group of distinguished scientists have written a response to our 2005 article on Hurricanes and Global Warming. The scientists include Rick Anthes, Bob Correll, Greg Holland, Jim Hurrell, Mike MacCracken, and Kevin Trenberth. Our response is co-authored by the same group that brought you Pielke et al. 2005 – Pielke, Landsea, Mayfied, Laver, and Pasch. Links to the entire set of papers are below in reverse chronological order. I’ll be happy to address comments and questions on this exchange in the comments. Overall, I think that this is a fruitful exchange that clearly delineates some of the differing positions on this subject. Have a look!

Reply to Comment by Anthes et al. 2006: Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. W. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver, R. Pasch, 2006. Reply to Hurricanes and Global Warming Potential Linkages and Consequences, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87:628-631. (PDF)

Comment on Pielke et al. 2005: Anthes, R. A., R. W. Corell, G. Holland, J. W. Hurrell, M. C. McCracken, and K. E. Trenberth, 2006 Hurricanes and global warming: Potential linkage and consequences. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 87:623-628. (PDF)

Original paper: Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, 2005. Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 86:1571-1575. (PDF)

Posted on May 15, 2006 10:46 AM View this article | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

May 10, 2006

A Bizarro GCC and The Public Opinion Myth, Again

A story in today’s Wall Street Journal provides additional evidence of the fantasy world that is climate politics:

An educational group that former Vice President Al Gore is helping to launch intends to spend millions of dollars convincing Americans that global warming is an urgent problem.
The U.S. hasn't enacted mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, a situation many environmentalists attribute to slim public awareness of the consequences of rising temperatures.

The group, which yesterday adopted the name Alliance for Climate Protection, plans to use advertising and grass-roots organizing to try to raise awareness, particularly among labor groups, hunters, evangelicals and conservatives in general.

The effort, still in the planning stages, will look "like a political campaign," predicts Lee M. Thomas, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency during President Ronald Reagan's second term and has agreed to be a board member.

This is a wasted effort for a number of reasons. First, as we’ve documented here many times (e.g., here and here) while he public does not have a deep grasp of the technical details of global warming, it does have an overwhelming awareness of the issue. Not only is there awareness, but an overwhelming majority already favor action. Public education to achieve awareness and support for action that already exist will be efforts wasted on the convinced (e.g., here).

A second reason is that any effort to elevate the intensity of public opinion (not mentioned in the article, but necessary to elevate one issue over another in the public’s eye) will run a very real risk of making policy arguments that are misleading and perhaps simply incorrect. Assertions that future hurricane damages can be modulated via emissions policies are an example of this type of policy over-promising. The reason for this is that global warming is not an issue for which immediate action can lead to tangible short-term benefits (e.g., discussed here), so for many people it simply does not compare to the importance of other issues that do have short-term effects, like gas prices and hurricane reinforced roofs.

The Alliance for Climate Protection seems to me to simply be a Bizzaro version of the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition and I suspect that it will have much the same effectiveness on public opinion and ultimate fate..

Posted on May 10, 2006 07:03 AM View this article | Comments (57) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 08, 2006

Myths of the History of Ozone Policy

I have heard the case of ozone depletion invoked time and time again by advocates for mitigation action on climate change. Such invocations are not only like the old adage of generals fighting the last war, but worse, because they are like old generals looking to fight the old war as they wish it had been, rather than how it really was.

Here is a True/False quiz on the history of ozone policy. Keep track of your answers and the key will be provided after the jump:

1) Science provided a clear message.
2) Policy makers relied on consensus science to take action.
3) Public opinion was intense and unified.
4) Ozone skeptics remained mute and high-minded.
5) Science reached a threshold of certainty that compelled action

If you answered False to each of these then give yourself 100%. The ozone story is documented in this paper:

Betsill, M. M., and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 1998: Blurring the Boundaries: Domestic and International Ozone Politics and Lessons for Climate Change. International Environmental Affairs, 10(3), 147-172. (PDF)

Here are some brief comments on the questions above:

1) Science provided a clear message.

The science of ozone depletion was quite uncertain all the way through (and beyond) the Montreal Protocol in 1987, but especially so during the late-1970s/early-1980s adoption of the Toxic Substances Control Act, Clean Air Act Amendments, and Vienna Convention. Similarly, the settlement of the NRDC lawsuit that paved the way for the U.S. participation in the Montreal protocol took place before the discovery of the ozone hole.

2) Policy makers relied on consensus science to take action.

Policy makers used science as an indication of a possible problem and then very much followed a "no regrets" strategy. They first regulated "non-essential" uses of CFCs, for which substitutes were more readily available, and then took on essential uses later. In this way policy makers did what was relatively easier first, and left the more politically difficult challenges for later. In this way they reduced the scope of the problem. Climate change has seen the opposite strategy with the most difficult challenge and largest framing (regulating global energy use) at the center of the debate. Consensus science really did not play a role in ozone policy until after the Montreal Protocol when the issue was mature and fine-tuning was possible in the policy responses.

3) Public opinion was intense and unified.

According to the official UN history of the ozone issue there were exceedingly few news stories on ozone depletion in the U.S., China, U.K., or Soviet Union from 1977-1985, when much of the policy framework for the issue was developed (Figure 8.1, p. 293). The NYT had about 20 stories in 1982, and in no other year were there that many stories combined in 10 different leading newspapers during that period. This was also a period of intense (and legitimate) scientific debate. In fact, many people believed after the aerosol spray can ban in the late 1970s that the problem had been solved. It is hard to imagine ozone having anywhere near the salience and uniformity of opinion that we now see among the public on climate change.

4) Ozone skeptics remained mute and high-minded.

According to that same UN history (p. 295) one British scientist commented in 1975 that [Ozone-depletion theory is] "a science fiction tale . . . a load of rubbish . . . utter nonsense." There were plenty of skeptics on this issue, buoyed by fundamental uncertainties in the science in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The focus on "no regrets" strategies kept the attention off of science and onto policy options, which led to a breakthrough in the invention of substitutes for CFCs.

5) Science reached a threshold of certainty that compelled action.

Action on ozone proceeded incrementally with many decisions taken, first in the U.S. and then internationally. There was no "threshold for action" that we see so often called for in the context of climate change. Action took place based on what the political dynamics would allow. Science played a very important role in placing ozone depletion on the decision making agenda and then again in fine tuning the international protocol once it had been widely accepted. In between it was effective politics and a healthy policy process that compelled action, not science.

On the ozone issue we seem to have learned the wrong lessons – those that never existed in the first place. Progress on climate change mitigation might be more effective if many of today’s advocates actually fought the last war, rather than the one that they seem to have think that they won.

Posted on May 8, 2006 01:38 PM View this article | Comments (56) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Environment

May 02, 2006

The Next IPCC Consensus?

Yahoo Asia has a news story on the on the forthcoming IPCC report. Here is an excerpt:

A United Nations panel on climate change noted for the first time the likelihood that global warming resulting from human activities is causing heat waves and other abnormal weather phenomena as well as Arctic ice mass loss, according to a draft report seen by Kyodo News on Sunday.
"It is very likely that greenhouse gas forcing has been the dominant cause of the observed warming of globally averaged temperatures in the last 50 years," says the draft fourth assessment report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

I haven’t see the draft of the report so I don’t know if it is accurate or not, but assuming that it is, it raises a few interesting issues in the context of our recent discussion of the notion of consensus.

First, it is worth comparing the quoted sentence by Yahoo Asia to its companion in the IPCC TAR (here in PDF):

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

One key difference is the change from “likely” (meaning 64-90%) to “very likely” (meaning >90%). They did not use “virtually certain” (>99%). (For the terms, see this PDF). From where I sit, a 10% chance that a greenhouse gas forcing is not the dominant cause of warming seems to allow plenty of room for healthy skepticism to exist. I’m interested in understanding why the IPCC is confident at the 90% level and not the 99% level. Clearly many scientists who have sp[oken out publicly on climate change are 99% certain.

A second key difference is the substitution of the phase "dominant cause" for the word "most." IPCC terms are not chosen arbitrarily and my reading of this is that as far as GHGs, it represents a step back from the statement in 2001. I equate "most" with a majority (>50%) and "dominant" with a plurality. I am sure commentators will have a field day with that. Were I a betting person I'd wager that "dominant" won't last until the end.

Of course, it should be said that the news story is referring to a draft and these statements may well be substantially modified before the report’s official release. However, if accurate, the preview of what the IPCC will say seems to allow considerable room for healthy skepticism, meaning that for the foreseeable future climate policy must develop in the context of a lack of absolute certainty. Less prosaically, we can fully expect the mainstream-skeptic debate to be with us for a long time, so we’d better develop policy responses that are robust to that conflict, efforts to scour the debate of such voices notwithstanding.

Posted on May 2, 2006 02:35 PM View this article | Comments (38) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

May 01, 2006

Really, Really, Really Bad Reporting

Time magazine has named MIT’s Kerry Emanuel one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Congrats to him, I certainly think he is brilliant and the honor is well deserved. However, I can’t imagine that Kerry is too happy with the unfortunate blurb Time put together to describe him.

It's easy to argue about the hypothetical causes and effects of global warming. It's a lot harder for any serious disagreement to continue when extreme weather is demolishing a major American city. The U.S. experienced just such a moment of clarity last year when Hurricane Katrina laid waste to New Orleans, awakening all of us to the true cost of climate change. It was Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who helped us make the connection.

Perhaps before writing that bit of nonsense Time might have visited Kerry’s homepage and considered this statement he has posted:

Q: I gather from this last discussion that it would be absurd to attribute the Katrina disaster to global warming?
A: Yes, it would be absurd.

Posted on May 1, 2006 08:40 PM View this article | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Klotzbach on Trends in Global Tropical Cyclone Intensity 1986-2005

Here (in PDF) is a very interesting paper by Phil Klotzbach, a student of Bill Gray’s at Colorado State University, accepted for publication by Geophysical Research Letters, and apparently in press for later this month (according to this page). The paper challenges the findings of recent high-profile studies on trends in hurricane intensities.

In the paper Klotzbach replicates the methodology of Webster et al. (2005) (PDF) and a very similar approach to Emanuel (2005) (PDF) to explore trends in tropical cyclone intensity over the period 1986-2005, which is a subset of the period used by Webster et al. and Emanuel, and apparently the period during which there is the most agreement on the quality of the observational data. What he finds is pretty interesting. Here are a few of Klotzbach’s talking points (PDF) that he prepared to accompany the paper:

3) If the increases in TC activity found by Emanuel [2005] over the past 30 years (based on data from 1975-2004) and Webster et al. [2005] over the past 35 years (based on data from 1970-2004) are robust, one would expect to see similar trends over the shorter time span evaluated in this paper (1986-2005), especially since SST increases have accelerated in the past twenty years.
7) With regards to ACE [Ed.- A measure of intensity, similar to Emanuel’s PDI], there has been a large increase in ACE in the North Atlantic basin since 1986. There has been a large decrease in ACE in the Northeast Pacific basin since 1986. All other basins show small upward or downward trends. Globally, there has been a slight increasing trend from 1986-2005; however, if only the past sixteen years are evaluated (1990-2005), there has actually been a slight decreasing trend.

8) With regards to the number of Category 4-5 hurricanes, there has been a large increase in North Atlantic storms but also a large decrease in Northeast Pacific storms. When these two regions are summed together, there has been virtually no increase in Category 4-5 hurricanes (i.e., 47 Cat. 4-5 hurricanes from 1986-1995 and 48 Cat. 4-5 hurricanes from 1996-2005). For the globe, there has been an approximate 10% increase in Category 4-5 storms from 1986-1995 to 1996-2005; however, most of this increase occurred from the late 1980s to the early part of the 1990s in the Southern Hemisphere where some data quality issues may have still been present. There has been very little change in the number of Category 4- 5 hurricanes since 1990, which is an agreement with Figure 4, panel A from Webster et al. [2005].

10) These findings indicate that there has been very little trend in global tropical cyclone activity over the past twenty years, and therefore, that a large portion of the dramatic increasing trend found by Webster et al. [2005] and Emanuel [2005] is likely due to the diminished quality of the datasets before the middle 1980s. One would expect that if the results of Webster et al. and Emanuel were accurate reflections of what is going on in the climate system, than a similar trend would be found over the past twenty years, especially since SSTs have warmed considerably (about 0.2°C – 0.4°C) during this time period.

Interestingly, from Table 2 of Klotzbach’s paper, he shows that the number of category 4-5 storms increased from 164 in 1986-1995 to 180 during 1996-2005. Between the same two periods the number of Category 4-5 storms in the Atlantic basin increased from 10 to 25 storms, meaning that setting the Atlantic aside, the rest of the globe saw and increase from 154 in 1986-1995 to 155 during 1996-2005, or no trend at all. However, a close look at the basins around the world shows lots of variability. Consequently, this paper is quite useful to my research because it means that in regions outside the Atlantic basin that damage trends related to storm intensity since 1986 must be due to factors other than changes in storm intensity.

More generally how this peer-reviewed paper, which challenges much of the received wisdom on hurricanes of late, is handled by the scientific community, the blogoshpere, and the media will say a lot about the current state of the debate over climate change.

Posted on May 1, 2006 02:22 PM View this article | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

April 28, 2006

Al Gore’s Bad Start and What Just Ain’t So

The image above is taken from the homepage of Al Gore’s new movie. If the imagery is indicative of the role of science in its presentations of policy options, then the case for action on climate change is going to suffer a setback. Reducing smokestack emissions, or any CO2 emissions, is simply not an effective tool of hurricane disaster mitigation.

Often on these pages we have made the case that the debate that rages over hurricanes and climate change is largely irrelevant to climate policy, even as it used as a symbol in climate politics. The reason for the insensitivity of policy to this debate is the overwhelming influence of societal factors in driving trends in the growth in disaster losses even under assumptions that global warming has significant effects on hurricanes. We have made the case in a wide range of fora and in a wide range of ways, and yet, it seems that the urge to use hurricanes as a justification for climate-related energy policies is just too appealing, despite its grossly unsupportable scientific grounding. It does not matter whether or not scientists can establish a link between global warming and hurricanes – it won’t affect how we think about climate policy.

More evidence for this perspective is provided in a recent news story about the insurance and reinsurance industries,

"Regardless of whether climate change is leading to increases in the number of storms or their intensity, analyses by ISO's catastrophe modeling subsidiary, AIR Worldwide, indicate that catastrophe losses should be expected to double roughly every 10 years because of increases in construction costs, increases in the number of structures and changes in their characteristics," said [Michael R.] Murray [ISO assistant vice president for financial analysis], "AIR's research shows that, because of exposure growth, the one in one-hundred-year industry loss grew from $60 billion in 1995 to $110 billion in 2005, and it will likely grow to over $200 billion during the next 10 years."

Assume a doubling of losses every ten years for the next 80, and you get a multiple of 2^8 or 256. Can anyone cite a study that suggests that hurricane frequencies or intensities will increase by 1/100 of this amount? (Note that damage is not linear with intensity, but even so.) You can’t. Even with less aggressive assumptions about societal change one still gets very, very large increases in impacts. For the simple math of why it is that societal growth dominates any scenario of the projected effects of climate change, and hence climate mitigation, on hurricanes, see this post we did a short while back. And there are umpteen others available on this site. I await the acceptance of this argument by the mainstream climate science community (as well as the relevant parties of the blogosphere), of which a troubling number have ignored or openly resisted this argument, and some very publicly yet without substance. But they shouldn't, as it is about as solid a policy case as one can imagine.

As we have often said, climate mitigation makes sense, and so too does preparing for future disasters, but linking the first with the second is simply unsupported by an honest policy assessment. And it seems to me that honest assessments of policy action help the case for action on climate change. Al Gore is off to a bad start -- let’s hope the rest of his effort is substantially better or else he risks setting back the case for action on climate change.

Posted on April 28, 2006 02:29 AM View this article | Comments (48) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

April 24, 2006

Climate and Societal Factors in Future Tropical Cyclone Damages in the ABI Reports

Last year the Association of British Insurers released several reports on damages from extreme weather events and climate change. Since then, I’ve seen the reports cited as evidence of (a) a climate change signal has been seen in the disaster record, and (b) the importance of greenhouse gas reductions as a tool to modulate future disaster losses.

Unfortunately for those citing the ABI reports in these ways, the actual content of the reports supports neither of these claims. A close look at the ABI report shows that it actually supports the arguments that we have made on the relationship of extreme weather events and damage trends. And there is at least one significant error in the report, which serves as a reminder why as valuable as such “grey literature” can be, it is always important to put complex research through a process of rigorous peer reviews. Here are all the gory details (and I do mean all!):

The ABI overview report (PDF) uses catastrophe models (provided by a firm called AIR headquartered in Boston) to project future increases in damage costs related to climate change and extreme events. The report observes:

This study is one of the ﬁrst to use insurance catastrophe models to examine the potential impacts of climate change on extreme storms. It focuses on one of the most costly aspects of today’s weather – hurricanes, typhoons, and windstorms, because of their potential to cause substantial damage to property and infrastructure.

The report concludes of tropical cyclones in the U.S. and Japan, and European windstorms:

Under these climate change scenarios, total average annual damages from these three major storm types could increase by up to $10.5 bn above a baseline of $16.5 bn today, representing a 65% increase.

My analysis below focuses on the two largest contributors to these costs, tropical cyclones in the U.S. and Japan. First, it needs to be observed that the report does have an enormous oversight:

These loss estimates do not include likely increases in society’s exposure to extreme storms, due to growing, wealthier populations, and increasing assets at risk. For example, if Hurricane Andrew had hit Florida in 2002 rather than 1992, the losses would have been double, due to increased coastal development and rising asset values. Adaptive measures to limit vulnerability could prevent costs escalating.

Why does this matter? Consider Japan, which the report estimates will see its population reduced by half over the next 100 years. By not factoring in this decrease in exposure, the report overestimates the future impacts of climate change by a factor of two. In other words, if today’s population of Japan was half its present value, its current baseline of average tropical cyclone damages would be proportionately lower. It is incomplete, at best, to project future damages by holding society constant and simply changing the climate. Society changes in big ways, and these also must be considered in any projection. The failure to consider societal change sets the stage for misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the ABI reports.

On to the data:

From Table 6.4 we find a baseline of total losses for the US and Japan related to tropical cyclones of 13.5 billion (9.5 and 4.0, respectively). In the ABI Technical Report (PDF, Table 3.7 on p. 38) we see that the total losses increase by the following amounts for a doubling of CO2 by the 2080s:

Wind speed increase US Japan
4% 4.4 1.6

6% 6.8 2.5

9% 11.3 4.1

The ABI also provides data that would allow for a sensitivity analysis of the influence of changing per capita wealth and populations on future damages. Here is what is reported in ABI Technical Report tables 3.8 and 3.9 for population and wealth out to 2100 (2004 = 100):

US Japan

Wealth 262 280

Population 267 50

Since the climate changes impacts are projected to 2085, we need to adjust this table to 2085 through interpolation (2004 = 100):

US Japan

Wealth 236 259

Population 231 57

So this gives a combined change in population and wealth for the US and Japan, 2004-2085, under the assumptions of the ABI as follows:

US = 2.36 * 2.31 = 5.45
Japan = 2.59 * .57 = 1.48

So using the framework we had presented in an earlier post to examine the sensitivity of losses to future climate and societal changes:

Baseline US = 9.5
Increase related to changing climate, society constant (4%, 6%, and 9%) = 4.4, 6.8, 11.3
Percentage increase over baseline = 40%, 63%, 103%
Increasing damage as a function of societal changes (climate constant) = 51.8
Percent increase of societal changes over baseline = 545%

Sensitivity ratio, societal factors to climate factors, US case:

13.6 to 1
8.7 to 1
5.3 to 1

Baseline Japan = 4.0
Increase related to changing climate, society constant (4%, 6%, and 9%) = 1.6, 2.5, 4.1
Percentage increase over baseline = 46%, 72%, 119%
Adjusted for population decrease = 26%, 41%, 68%
Increasing damage as a function of growing wealth (climate constant) = 10.4
Percent increase of societal changes over baseline = 259%

Sensitivity ratio, societal factors to climate factors, Japan case:

10 to 1
6.3 to 1
3.8 to 1

In Table 3.5 in the Technical Report the ABI estimates that climate mitigation could reduce from about 20% to 80% of the projected increases in damages related to climate change, or from $1.2B (0.2 * (4.4+1.6)) to $12.3B (0.8 * (11.3+4.1). Setting aside the inter-related effects of societal and climate change as well as the baseline value (which consequently makes this calculation very conservative), by contrast efforts to reduce vulnerability could reduce future damages by as much as $62.2 billion (51.8 + 10.4). In other words reducing vulnerability is between 5 and 52 times more effective than mitigation. This is the same conclusion that we reached in our published work on this subject.

Unfortunately, the information found in the ABI report is sometimes misrepresented. For instance, in an exchange with me in Science, Evan Mills makes the following claim (here in PDF) about the ABI report:

As an indication of the potential value of emissions reductions, the Association of British Insurers, in collaboration with U.S. catastrophe modelers, estimated that U.S. hurricane or Japanese typhoon losses would vary by a factor of five for scenarios of 40% and 116% increase in pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Perhaps this is just inartful writing, but this claim is decidedly not what the ABI report says, as can be clearly seen from the tables and analysis above. When assumptions and qualifications are dropped, meanings can change dramatically, sometimes 180 degrees as happened in this instance. Less charitably, Mills claim about what the ABI report says is a complete misrepresentation. Elsewhere I have written about the “laundering of grey literature,” and this instance is one worth watching with respect to the next IPCC report.

Contrary to some citations of the ABI reports on climate change, a close look indicates that the reports actually underscore the points we have been making about the relationship of tropical cyclones and climate change. It is worth noting that the analysis in this post takes the ABI assumptions exactly as they are given in the ABI reports. This exercise indicates that only way to conclude that reducing emissions is an effective tool of disaster management is to rig the analysis to guarantee this result by doing two things: (1) freeze society and only allow climate to change, and (2) to disallow vulnerability reduction as a policy response and allow only greenhouse gas reductions. This is of course not how the real world works. The bottom line is that it would be a mistake to cite the ABI reports as in any way contradictory to the work we have done. In fact, I’m going to start citing them in support of our work!

Posted on April 24, 2006 11:36 AM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

April 23, 2006

Conflicted about Conflicts of Interest?

On climate change, do the media, scientists, and commentators treat possible conflicts of interest equally across the political spectrum? Based on the anecdote reported below, it appears not.

First the precedent. Imagine if a prominent non-scientist responsible for editing official government reports on climate change was at the same time being paid to engage in advocacy work related that that issue. You and I would probably have some concerns, no? This situation is not so far from a true story.

Last fall, a senior staff member in the Bush Administration’s Council on Economic Quality resigned after it was revealed in the New York Times that he had edited government reports related to climate change. As The New York Times reported,

Philip A. Cooney, the former White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming, will go to work for Exxon Mobil this fall, the oil company said yesterday.
Mr. Cooney resigned as chief of staff for President Bush's environmental policy council on Friday, two days after documents obtained by The New York Times revealed that he had edited the reports in ways that cast doubt on the link between the emission of greenhouse gases and rising temperatures.

A former lawyer and lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute, the main lobbying group for the oil industry, Mr. Cooney has no scientific training.

Much concern, appropriately in my view, was expressed at the time that Mr. Cooney’s ties to an organization with a vested political agenda on climate change made it unseemly at best to have him involved with editing a government report on climate change (although as I wrote at the time, the edits themselves were not so significant). For instance, one member of the press asked the following of President Bush’s spokesman, Scott McClellen,

"Scott, on Philip Cooney, you said earlier today that the White House has been -- that he had been looking at other options for some time. With his move to Exxon, are there concerns now about at least an appearance of impropriety?"

McClellen avoided the question, of course.

Now consider this case. Last night HBO aired a documentary on global warming (which I did not see). The program describes itself as focused on describing the problem posed by global warming and recommending solutions. Its producer, Laurie David, claims that the documentary to be non-partisan, but at the same time the program clearly describes its mission as one focused on advocacy. The writer of the program is identified as Susan Joy Hassol.

Ms. Hassol, interestingly enough, currently serves as the Technical Editor for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s report on Climate Change Science Program Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences (authors are listed here in PDF). She was also a lead author of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (here in PDF) and edited the U.S. National Assessment (here in PDF).

I am sure that Ms. Hassol must be good at what she does, given her resume (a short but incomplete bio is here in PDF), though she is clearly not a scientist and it is unclear what subject(s) her degree(s) may be in. Ms. Hassol is not shy about her political agenda on climate change, as indicated by this interview last week in the Aspen Times:

Hassol said specific mention of Kyoto is not in the final version [of the HBO film], even though she felt it was important.
"There was an effort not to want to alienate anyone," she said, though she said politics is an essential part of solving global warming.

"We need to have a law in this country that makes it no longer free to dump carbon into the atmosphere," she said. "Why wouldn't you do that? It's so cheap to burn fuel and burn coal. The costs of climate change are not built in to the costs of burning fossil fuels, and they should be."

However, the film does not include those points.

"I raised the idea," she said. "Their eyes glazed over. You just can't do everything in one hour. It was tough. There were a lot of things I wanted to include that we couldn't."

Even with the restrictions on some of the material, she is excited about the solutions presented, from energy efficiency to new technologies.

"We have an enormous challenge, yet it's not an impossible challenge," she said. "It can be addressed. We can't stop it cold. This is definitely the largest challenge humanity has ever faced."

So here is the situation: A prominent non-scientist responsible for editing official government reports on climate change is at the exact same time being paid to engage in advocacy work related that that issue. To quote the media question to Scott McClellen regarding the Phil Cooney affair, “are there not indications of at least the appearance of impropriety?”

Let’s get the obvious differences out of the way – Mr. Cooney worked as a government employee for the President in the White House, while Ms. Hassol serves as a paid consultant for the government. ExxonMobil is a favorite target of activists, and the environmental groups associated with the HBO special are much less visible. Those differences aside, my question is, is it fair for Mr. Cooney to serve as the focus of attention for his possibly conflicted role in the preparation of official government reports on climate science, and Ms. Hassol to get a free pass while also editing major government science reports? Or think of it this way, if Mr. Cooney has been an outside consultant editing the same reports, while also in the pay of ExxonMobil (or any other group with a vested interest) would that have lessened the focus on his role? I think not. Let me reiterate that this post is not to disparage either Mr. Cooney or Ms. Hassol, but to compare and contrast their very similar professional roles and how it seems that each has been treated very differently by the media and commentators, and certainly by scientists. Does this situation say something about different standards applied to different people on this issue, depending upon whose politics they happen to advocate? Are we conflicted about conflicts of interest?

Posted on April 23, 2006 09:53 AM View this article | Comments (67) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 21, 2006

BBC on Overselling Climate Science

The BBC has a really excellent half-hour program on the overselling of climate science. A short news story accompanies the program, but it is really worth listening to the program in full, and it is available here. The program makes a compelling case that climate science has, in many instances, been oversold. A central focus on the program is the path between scientific publication, official press release, and media reporting. The BBC program finds fault at all three stops. I have a few thoughts on the program after the jump.

First, the BBC critiques a number of areas of arguably exaggerated climate science and a card-carrying climate skeptic is nowhere to be found. This is smart and responsible reporting, given the intense politicization of the climate issue. In a comment posted at the Climate Audit weblog the producer of the piece explains (in response to an earlier comment about the program’s conclusion that it should give skeptics little comfort -- a conclusion that the earlier commenter called a “rider”),

I produced the documentary. I think what you describe as the rider was important because we wanted to move beyond the sceptics v believers argument. I think the programme was better for not featuring sceptics, that the true believers could just dismiss.
Climate science needs to be put under the same degree of public scrutiny as politics, business and other scientific fields. This can’t happen if you have to choose to be either a partisan sceptic or an uncritical believer.

It would be oh-so-easy for someone to simply dismiss the BBC story had they not carefully chosen who they interviewed. On numerous occasions the program clearly described that the people that they were interviewing actually believe that climate change is real and a problem. As the news story accompanying the program notes,

All of the climate scientists we spoke to fervently believe global warming is being caused by human activity. Many agree there's also a major problem with alarmism. As one scientist said: "If we cry wolf too loudly or too often, no-one will believe us when the beast actually comes for dinner."

Second, the program interviews Hans von Storch and Steve Rayner, two extremely thoughtful observers of and participants in climate science. In January, 2005 we highlighted this passage from a paper that von Storch had written with Nico Stehr and Dennis Bray:

We need to respond openly to the agenda-driven advocates, not only skeptics but also alarmists, who misuse their standing as scientists to pursue their private value-driven agendas. This is a tragedy of the commons, namely that the short term gains (in terms of public attention; success of specific political agendas; possible funding) of a few are paid for on the long term by the scientific credibility of the whole discipline. Instead, sustainability requires that the discipline of climate science to provide the public with options of policy responses to the challenge of climate change, and not to prescriptively focus on only one such option (i.e., maximum reduction of GHG emissions).

von Storch and Stehr also teamed up on an essay which appeared in January 2005 in Der Spiegel in which they wrote,

Sadly, the mechanisms for correction within science itself have failed. Within the sciences, openly expressed doubts about the current evidence for climatic catastrophe are often seen as inconvenient, because they damage the "good cause," particularly since they could be "misused by skeptics." The incremental dramatization comes to be accepted, while any correction of the exaggeration is regarded as dangerous, because it is politically inopportune. Doubts are not made public; rather, people are led to believe in a solid edifice of knowledge that needs only to be completed at the outer edges.
The result of this self-censorship in scientists' minds is a deaf ear for new and surprising ideas that compete with or even contradict conventional patterns of explanation; science degenerates into being a repair shop for popular, politically opportune claims to knowledge. Thus it not only becomes sterile; it also loses its ability to advise the public objectively.

Steve Rayner from Oxford whose perspectives were highlighted here just last month warned of the “danger of using bad arguments for good causes.”

Third, that exaggerated climate science via press release is often used as a tool of stealth (or even overt) political advocacy has been well documented in, of all places, the peer reviewed literature. Consider the following two articles:

Henderson-Seller, A., 1998. Climate whispers: Media communication about climate change. Climatic Change 40:421-456. (link, subscription required)
Ladle, R. J., P. Jepson, and R. J. Whittaker, 2005. Scientists and the media: the struggle for legitimacy in climate change and conservation science, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 30: 231-240. (PDF)

These articles indicate that scientific community has at its disposal solid information based on practical experience and academic knowledge of communication on how to avoid misrepresentations of climate science, whether willful or by accident.

The BBC program is a breath of fresh air because it breaks out of the stale skeptic vs., believer (to use their words) framing of almost all discussions of climate change. Such efforts to regulate excess without falling into a clearly defined, pre-existing political battle are far too rare in this area. Here’s hoping that more media, and more scientists, see the value in such a third-way approach for keeping both skeptics and believers in check. In the long run, it is science that will benefit.

Posted on April 21, 2006 12:03 AM View this article | Comments (29) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 20, 2006

Some Simple Economics of Taking Air Capture to the Limit

A while back we discussed the notion of “air capture” which refers to the direct removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and referenced the work of David Keith at the University of Calgary. David has an excellent paper on this in the journal Climatic Change, available here, and David’s views on my earlier post can be found here.

With this post, I’d like to engage in some simple math on the economics of air capture. Think of this exercise a bit like the mathematician's tendency to take things to their limit. In a policy sense, exploring air capture is also a bit like taking things to the limit. If climate change is defined as a problem of increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases), then it is logical that the solution would be to stop that increase, and some form of air capture is a logical way to do that (please note that I have not said anything about technical feasibility or economic efficiency). The exercise below explores what sort of costs air capture implies using the lower end of Keith’s cost estimates of $200 per ton of CO2 removed from the atmosphere (the upper end is simply 2.5 times higher, for those interested in those numbers). I’d like to motivate some discussion on this subject, because I’d like to understand it further. A central question that I have been pondering is: Given the numbers below, why isn’t air capture technology at the center of debate on climate change?

If the end of the world is at risk, as some have warned, should a politically-neutral technology (i.e., requires no change in behavior, no complicated negotiations, no oversight or compliance regimes, no carbon markets, nada) that may cost as little as 1% of today’s global GDP (yes, a big number I realize) at least be on the table with other options of similar magnitude costs, but with huge political obstacles to their implementation? At a minimum why isn’t air capture technology research at the center of the governmental investment in climate change technologies? I remain completely baffled by this oversight in the policy debate.

Here is the math:

Starting points: 1 ppm of CO2 equals 2.08 billion tons (Thanks to CU faculty colleague Jim White for this info!) At $200/ton air capture cost this equals $416 billion per 1 ppm CO2 scrubbed from the atmosphere.
A. Total Cost for US to reduce emissions to 1990 levels:

A1. Annual cost

1990 US CO2 emissions: 5,005,300,000 tons
2004 US CO2 emissions: 5,988,000,000 tons
Source: US EPA

Lets just say roughly 1 billion tons, annual cost of compliance to 1990 levels via air capture = $200 billion or approximately 1.5% of US GDP.

A2. Incrementally increasing costs

Yearly increase in CO2 emissions = roughly 150,000,000 tons
Annual increase in costs = $30 billion or (0.2% of US GDP)

B. Cost for Global reduction of emissions

B1. To pre-industrial values

From 380 ppm to 280 ppm requires a reduction of 100 ppm or $41.6 trillion dollars (~67% of global GDP, assuming ~$60B global GDP), with an average annual recurring cost of reducing approximately 1.5 ppm or $624 billion (~1% of global GDP).

B2. Brute force stabilization to 350 ppm

Presumably, air capture could be used to “tune” the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to some desired concentration. From 380 to 350 ppm requires an initial reduction of 30 ppm or $12.5 trillion dollars (~21% of global GDP), with an average annual recurring cost of reducing approximately 1.5 ppm or $624 billion (~1% of global GDP).

B3. Brute force stabilization to 400 ppm

From 380 ppm to 400 ppm implies ~10 years of business as usual, and then with an average annual recurring cost of reducing approximately the annual increase of 1.5 ppm or $624 billion (~1% of global GDP). The US share of this cost would initially be approximately 25% (or somewhat less) of this total or $151 billion. Developing country costs would start out small and would increase as their economies (and emissions) grow. My first impression is that these numbers and time frame seem surprisingly reasonable.

How would any of this be paid for? I don’t know and haven’t given this much thought. But the numbers at the lower end, e.g., $151 billion for the U.S., seem to be well within the range of a gasoline or carbon tax, which could be phased in very gradually over the next 10 years.

Some caveats and notes: CO2 isn’t the only important greenhouse gas, but it is important. Cost estimates are estimates, Keith says they might be accurate to within a factor of 3, and given what I know about the uncertainty in past efforts at technological forecasting the costs could be much higher or much lower, and it is worth noting that cost estimates of this sort often wind up being far too high than what proves to be the case in reality. Nonetheless, the best data on air capture technologies will come from actual engineering experiments. As David Keith writes in his Climatic Change paper and on our blog, in reality air capture would make the most sense as a complement to other forms of mitigation and sequestration. My point here is not to propose an optimal policy in any way, but to take air capture to the limit. I am not advocating air capture as a solution (I simply don’t know enough), but I am advocating air capture as a contribution to the debate on climate change. And of course none of this addresses adaptation to climate or climate change. And above all – caveat emptor!

Posted on April 20, 2006 06:37 AM View this article | Comments (38) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

April 18, 2006

Congressional Opinions on Climate Science and Policy

Thanks to Chris Weaver who posted a link yesterday in the comments to a very interesting recent poll (here in PDF) from the National Journal on views of members of Congress on climate science and policy. The poll provides some empirical evidence to support a number of arguments made here on Prometheus. Here is my interpretation of the significance of the poll:

1) The poll asks, “Do you think it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made pollution?” The replies are interesting with 98% of Democrats saying “Yes” and only 23% of Republicans saying “Yes.” Presumably, “beyond a reasonable doubt” means with greater than 95% certainty, so the question requests a level of certainty greater than that expressed by the 2001 IPCC which expressed a 64%-90% certainty on the same question. So members of both parties need to go beyond the most recent IPCC to answer this question. They could be steeped in the most recent science, but I’d guess there is more than a small ideological element at play here, on both sides. I haven’t seen the most recent drafts of the 2007 IPCC, but I assume that it will come out much more consistent with what the Democrats believe. Nonetheless, an important observation here is that, as has been found in many areas, the views of members of Congress are more ideologically determined than those of their party membership among the general population. In opinion polls of the public asking the same question, Democrats do not show such unanimity of opinion, and Republican views are not so consolidated. I chalk this down to the effects of gerrymandering of Congressional districts which has often been pointed to as a key factor in a legislature far more ideological than the people who they actually represent.

2). But what should not be overlooked, is that even with the party divisions, a clear majority of members of both the House and Senate believe that global warming is real and caused by humans. If the poll numbers accurately reflect Congressional perspectives, then 55 members of the Senate and 251 members of the House (!!) believe that “it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made pollution.” This seems to be inescapable evidence that there is exceedingly little value left in continuing to argue the science of this particular question. Clearly, there are other factors at play here beyond “skepticism” which shapes how decision makers act on climate change. Efforts to educate Congress on the reality of climate change are in my view completely wasted on a majority of the convinced.

3) The poll asks a second question, “Which of these actions to reduce pollution could you possibly support?” and the answers included five options, Mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions, Increased spending on alternative fuels, Greater reliance on nuclear energy, Higher fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles, and a Higher gasoline tax. For each of these issues, except a gasoline tax which is not favored by members of either party, there is far more agreement than was displayed on the question of science. And in each case there is evidence of enough support to suggest that agreement across parties might be found on particular policy options. The devil is of course always in the details, but what this poll shows is that debate on climate policy show be taking place in terms of policy options, and not science. There is ample evidence that there is room for compromise across partisan boundaries, without the need to turn Republicans into Democrats or vice versa.

Bottom line: The nation awaits politically creative policy options that can navigate the complicated set of interests of 535 members of Congress to start taking effective action on climate policy. All of the precursors for such action are in place, minus of course the politically creative options. Efforts to debate the science are simply misplaced in such a context. Die hard partisans will no doubt come up with a range of excuses why they cannot compromise, and will gravitate back to the science as a comfortable home for maintaining the present debate. Such partisans typically point the finger of blame at their political opponents, though they should be looking in the mirror. The evidence from this poll suggests very strongly that such reactions are grounded more in a desire to maintain the present gridlock, rather than to move the issue of climate policy forward.

Posted on April 18, 2006 07:47 AM View this article | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 12, 2006

Prove It

MIT professor Richard Lindzen has an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on the climate debate. He asserts:

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. . . And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift.

I will grant him several of these claims – including the mindless labeling of certain scientists as industry stooges or scientific hacks – but the rest of these very serious claims need to be backed up by more than just bald assertion.

As far as certain scientists who are disfavored in the grants process or in peer-reviewed publication because of their political views, I guess I’d say: prove it. I have no doubt that extra-scientific factors often play a role in the publication process and in proposal reviews. However, the nature of peer-reviewed publication and funding is so decentralized that if you can’t publish your work somewhere or get it supported, eventually, well, there must be a reason, and, hint, hint, it’s not an environmental conspiracy.

Make no mistake, funding for climate science is profoundly influenced by political considerations, just not in the way that Lindzen suggests. As Dan Sarewitz and I argued in 2003,

Our position, based on the experience of the past 13 years, is that although the current and proposed climate research agenda has little potential to meet the information needs of decision makers, it has a significant potential to reinforce a political situation characterized, above all, by continued lack of action. The situation persists not only because the current research-based approach supports those happy with the present political gridlock, but more uncomfortably, because the primary beneficiaries of this situation include scientists themselves.

Read that paper here in PDF.

Posted on April 12, 2006 08:45 PM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | R&D Funding

Super El Nino Follow Up

In fairness to Jim Hansen, I have an obligation to post this follow up email to his list serve related to his super El Nino prediction that I discussed earlier this week (for those interested in a copy of the revised paper or to get on Hansen's email list, which I'd recommend, I suggest contacting him directly at jhansen@giss.nasa.gov):

Figures for attached "Global Temperature Change" paper are at: ftp://ftp.giss.nasa.gov/outgoing/JEH/pnas11april06/11april2006_figs.pdf
Apologies for another e-mail, but I inadvertently sent the first draft of "Temperature" paper to my full e-mail list, so need to also send out the revised version.

Comments were received from about 10 people -- very helpful -- thanks! I feel guilty about putting so many people to reading a draft. It ended up on a blog and in a newspaper! Interesting world that we live in these days.

Primary comments received:

1. Crichton stuff: downplay or throw it out; gives him too much attention/credit.

I try to downplay it, but for the reason given in the paper, I think that it should not be ignored. He is taken seriously by the highest levels in the government.

2. Super El Nino: lots of criticisms, especially implication (via question "Super El Nino in 2006-2007?") that I
am predicting a super El Nino in 2006-2007.

Present version should make clear that what we are saying is: Global warming has increased the east-west equatorial temperature gradient and that should increase the probability of a super El Nino. It is still a crap shoot, so it requires many rolls of the dice for empirical verification. Even in the last 30 years there have been only two super El Ninos.

We disagree with the contention that the greater warming in the West Pacific might be a figment of the areas considered, or the fact that our map compares the last five years with the late 1800s. The results look the same if we plot the temperature change based on the trends for the entire period of data.

It is true that, by choosing the areas in the east and west differently you can get the El Nino in the late 1870s to look almost as strong as the 1998 El Nino. But we are not claiming that there have never been super El Ninos in the past. I hope that is clearer in the present version.

3. Modern vs paleo (Holocene and last million years) comparison.

This didn't generate a response, but it is the important part. I am becoming of the opinion that even 1C additional warming may be highly undesirable; 2-3C is clearly a different planet.

Overall: this has still not been submitted to a journal or refereed, so take it with a grain of salt - but it is better than first draft. Also, as a couple of you suggested BAMS is not the right place -- it started out as a Crichton piece, but the added parts are more important. I will probably send it to PNAS, as you can tell from the format.

Jim

Posted on April 12, 2006 12:27 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 06, 2006

Out on a Limb with a Super El Niño Prediction

I’m not really sure what to make of this, other than there is a dark line being drawn in the sand by NASA’s Jim Hansen and colleagues (PDF):

We suggest that an El Nino is likely to originate in 2006 and that there is a good chance it will be a "super El Nino", rivaling the 1983 and 1997-1998 El Ninos, which were successively labeled the "El Nino of the century" as they were of unprecedented strength in the previous 100 years.

Here is what NOAA/NCEP/CPC says:

Most of the statistical and coupled model forecasts indicate ENSO-neutral conditions in the tropical Pacific through the end of 2006 (Fig. 6). The spread of the most recent statistical and coupled model forecasts (weak La Niña to weak El Niño) indicates uncertainty in the outlooks for the last half of the year. However, current conditions (stronger-than-average easterly winds over the central equatorial Pacific and below-average upper-ocean heat content) support those forecasts indicating that La Nina conditions will continue for the next 1-3 months.

It would of course be incorrect to evaluate the science underlying a single prediction based on a single forecast. Nonetheless, the reality is that Dr. Hansen has bet some of his public credibility in making such a forecast, for better or worse. If he is proven right with this forecast, contrary to all of the models and statistics, then his credibility will rise far beyond its already stratospheric levels. If he is wrong, he will be brought a bit back to Earth by his critics who will use this against him. In short, he is taking a big risk, with potential for a big payoff or a big cost. A final note worth thinking about – a strong El Niño event is typically inconsistent with a very active hurricane season, so if Dr. Hansen is proven right, then a bunch of other folks will likely be wrong (including Bill Gray, NOAA, and others who are anticipating another active hurricane season). Time, and not much of it, will tell.

Posted on April 6, 2006 04:50 PM View this article | Comments (67) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Factcheck.org, part II

After I sent an email to factcheck.org yesterday they responded with an email and modified their online story. I am happy to learn of their commitment to accuracy. However, they don't have it right yet, so I have followed up with them.

The modification reads,

One who does not foresee "devastating hurricanes" is Roger Pielke Jr. He says perceptions regarding hurricanes are skewed by recent major storms, and adds:
Pielke : Claims of linkage between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature . . . (and) any future changes in hurricane intensities will likely be small in the context of observed variability.

Pielke directs the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and maintains the Prometheus science policy web log.

My follow-up response to Factcheck.org included the following:

Your amended text is as follows:
"One who does not foresee "devastating hurricanes" is Roger Pielke Jr."

That is incorrect. In 1997 in our book titled "Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Soceity" (John Wiley Press) we wrote:

"Hurricane impacts are certain to become a more imprtant policy issue in the near future than they have been in the recent past. As long as societal vulnerability to hurricanes continues to increase, we will continue to see damages and casualties increase, making reduction of vulnerability all the more important." (P. 193)

We will therefore continue to see "devastating hurricanes," e.g., at the 2005 AGU meeting I presented a talk discussing the possibility of a $500 billion hurricane.

So I'd suggest something like the following:

"Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor at the University of Colorado, finds the notion of global warming affecting hurricanes quite plausible, but maintains that the ever-growing concentration or people and property on the coast to be a much more important factor in the growing toll of hurricane landfalls."

I do appreciate their attention to getting the facts right.

Posted on April 6, 2006 01:52 PM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 05, 2006

Fact Checking Factcheck.org

FactCheck.org has a story up on global warming which has some major errors in citing our work on hurricanes. It states,

One dissenter from the consensus view, Roger Pielke Jr., says perceptions regarding hurricanes in particular are skewed by recent major storms, and adds:
Pielke : Claims of linkage between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature . . . (and) any future changes in hurricane intensities will likely be small in the context of observed variability.

Pielke directs the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and maintains the Prometheus science policy web log.

This is wrong on two counts as readers here know well:

1) I accept the consensus view of the IPCC WG I on the science of climate change.

2) Our hurricane work that they cite comes from a peer reviewed paper (in BAMS) which presents research that is well within the range of current scientific discussion on climate change. By suggesting that there is a consensus and dissenting view on hurricanes Factcheck.org gets it wrong.

Posted on April 5, 2006 03:46 PM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 02, 2006

On the Value of “Consensus”

The notion of a scientific consensus on climate change has become a common fixture in discussions of climate science and policy. What once may have been a useful concept has now become little more than a political touchstone used more often to advance political agendas than to support policy development. Even to discuss this issue, as I am here, is to risk being labeled a “climate skeptic” by the denizens of politically correct discourse on climate. Lest there be any confusion, as I’ve written many times, I accept the IPCC consensus on climate science, and base my readily available peer-reviewed climate policy research on the IPCC scientific consensus.

There is of course a scientific consensus on climate change. But what, exactly, does this mean? Checking in with the dictionary folks at Oxford we learn that a “consensus” is a “general agreement.” And a “general agreement” means that there is an “accordance in opinion or feeling … concerning all or most people.” But a “general agreement” is imprecise, so the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has sought to institutionalize the process of defining exactly what it is that scientists are in accordance on and with what certainty. In 2001 the IPCC issued its Third Assessment Report and in its communiqué to policy makers summarized the Working Group I consensus in 17 pages (hereafter SPM, here as PDF, and the other working groups also produced SPMs).

This is where things get tricky. Consider for example this statement from the SPM:

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

How might one interpret this statement? Fortunately, the IPCC has standardized its terminology on uncertainty (see this document in PDF). So an equivalent phrase would be:

Relevant IPCC Lead Authors judge that over the past 50 years that the majority of observed warming has been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations with between 64% and 90% certainty.

But even with the quantification, it is unclear how one should interpret this statement, because the IPCC relies on “expert judgment” – an opaque, negotiated process among IPCC co-authors -- to arrive at its consensus statements and levels of uncertainty. There are other methods (e.g., formal expert elicitation) to derive a consensus perspective, but none can remove the need for judgment and corresponding ambiguity (for more discussion of this point see the End Note below). Think about the following questions that one might ask about this IPCC statement:

Would it be fair to interpret this statement as indicating that anyone who is less than 64% certain that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” is a climate skeptic?
Similarly, would it be fair to interpret this statement as indicating that anyone who is more than 90% certain that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” is a climate alarmist?

Does the statement in fact allow for scientifically valid views outside the 64%-90% range, with the range simply representing a measure of central tendency?

I have no idea how to answer these questions in a way faithful to the intent of the IPCC, and in my experience it turns out if you ask 5 IPCC contributors you get 5 different answers. The IPCC consensus is remarkably open to interpretation, and consequently we should not be surprised to see it used in very different ways.

For instance, when I read the 2001 IPCC statement from above as a non-expert, I see that the IPCC TAR decided to use the word “likely,” rather than “very likely” (>90%) or “virtually certain” (>99%), which seems to clearly suggest that there was some considerable uncertainty in this statement, i.e., up to a 1/3 chance that the warming over the past 50 years was due to factors other than greenhouse gases. The statement would thus seem to allow a large enough amount of uncertainty to warrant scientifically valid questions about the trend and its causality. And it would also seem that at least in 2001 the climate research community would have agreed with this interpretation, having subsequently focused a considerable amount of research attention on the issues of detection and .attribution related to temperature.

Others interpret the IPCC consensus statements in a much more categorical fashion, for instance, in 2004 Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist and co-host of the RealClimate blog, appealed to and restated this same IPCC consensus statement but completely dropped the references to uncertainty writing (here in PDF),

In the 20th century, global climate warmed by ~0.6°C . . . Most of this warming is due to the rising concentration of CO2 and other anthropogenic gases.”

He then labels people who have doubts about the causes of the global temperature increase – “The attribution sceptics doubt that human activities are responsible for the observed trends.” To be fair, it may be that Rahmstorf and his colleagues at RealClimate believe that the science on this particular issue has now moved from “likely” into the realm of “virtually certain,” perhaps giving us a hint of what to expect in the next IPCC, explaining that

The following scientific findings can no longer credibly be argued to be in dispute:
(1) The observed large-scale warming of the atmosphere and ocean is an entirely expected, and in fact well-predicted, consequence of the human-caused accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

(2) There is no other reasonable scientific explanation for the observed warming.

But until the next IPCC process actually is completed and guidance is formally provided to policymakers, non-experts like me have no choice but to rely on the 2001 IPCC as the most recent authoritative consensus statement of the scientific community. The only alternative that we non-experts have is to pick and choose among more recent science and interpretations of that science according to whose views we trust or feel more politically comfortable with. Preventing this sort of cherry picking through a comprehensive community view was one of the main reasons for the creation of the IPCC in the first place.

In practice, the notion of “consensus” is typically portrayed in pure black and white. You are either with the consensus or you are one of those skeptics, who Rahmstorf characterizes as “frequently dishonest.” And we see this pattern whether the issue is temperature trends as discussed above, or a seemingly even more uncertain issue like hurricanes and climate change. Consider this quote from a recent ABC News story which focuses on the nefarious intentions of the oil industry-funded climate skeptics, “But some continue to promote the idea there are “uncertainties in the science”.”

Such characterizations by scientists and the media can have a chilling effect on scientific discourse because they create powerful incentives to avoid research which may be somehow critical of the consensus, leaving such research primarily to those seeking to challenge the consensus. So as a result, some chose to focus on critiquing the hockey stick, others choose to critique the satellite temperature record, still others focus on critiquing the role of the sun in the climate system, and so on. It seems clear that the orientation that each of these researchers take to the subject of study is profoundly shaped by an interest in either consolidating or expanding the “consensus,” with trans-scientific agendas shaping more than a few perspectives. As a result, many climate scientists have become much more tactical in how they select research topics. If this interpretation is anywhere close to the mark then climate science as a whole suffers because of an adversarial orientation in which scientists pick and choose research topics and stances according to what they want to (dis)prove, not simply what they want to learn.

Underlying much of the tactics of climate science are of course political perspectives. What the ABC News article cited above really means is that some assert that there are “uncertainties in the science” as a rationale for business-as-usual policies on climate change, and it is this sort of characterization of uncertainty that is unwelcome. At the same time, it seems that the mentioning of those very same uncertainties in climate science is OK, so long as one also accompanies that with an appropriate qualification about the need for political action.

Consider that among much of the environmental and scientific communities it is appropriate for James Hansen to state: “Climate models suggest that doubled CO2 would cause 3ºC global warming, with an uncertainty of at least 50%” (PDF). But among many of the same people, the following statement by George Bush is inappropriate, "We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it." Both statements seem to me to be obviously scientifically consistent the knowledge represented by IPCC. The difference is that James Hansen has openly advocated one political agenda and George Bush another. The defining characteristic of a “climate skeptic” does not seem to be only how one views climate science, but how one orients climate science in political context. This explains why it will be extremely unlikely to see Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger labelled climate skeptics, even though they wrote in Saturday’s New York Times a statement entirely consistent with Rahmstorf’s “attribution skeptics”:

Environmentalists and their opponents have spent far too much time debating whether global warming is caused by humans, and whether the transition to cleaner energy sources will be good or bad for the economy. Whatever the causes, warming is a genuine risk.

They won’t be called skeptics because they also advocate a “Global Warming Preparedness Act.” Politics manifests itself in how various people choose to interpret the notion of “consensus” and use it in politically convenient ways.

In its efforts to precisely delineate a “consensus” the IPCC and those who incessantly cite a universal consensus may be leading us astray. The focus on consensus diverts attention from policy development to endless scientific debates with the pockets of remaining resistance to the consensus, and in the process creates a false impression that securing total conformance to the “consensus” is a prerequisite for action.

As M. Granger Morgan and colleagues remind us, the exact definition of a scientific consensus can be a function of the method used to elicit scientific perspectives. For example, they find that the consensus view on uncertainties associated with aerosol forcing reported by the IPCC in 2001 dramatically underestimated the uncertainties actually held by the relevant experts, they conclude,

The range of uncertainty that a number of experts associated with their estimates, especially those for total aerosol forcing and for surface forcing, was often much larger than that suggested in 2001 by the IPCC Working Group 1 summary figure.

And as well, science advances with surprising findings, new discoveries, and unexpected results. For all of these reasons the precise details of a scientific consensus are always in flux, seeking to pin it down precisely in for it order to sit untouched for 5 or 6 years does not faithfully represent how science works, and more importantly, it does not effectively inform the needs of policy making. For these reasons I wrote last year:

So in addition to arguing about the science of climate change as a proxy for political debate on climate policy, we now can add arguments about the notion of consensus itself. These proxy debates are both a distraction from progress on climate change and a reflection of the tendency of all involved to politicize climate science. The actions that we take on climate change should be robust to (i) the diversity of scientific perspectives, and thus also to (ii) the diversity of perspectives of the nature of the consensus. A consensus is a measure of a central tendency and, as such, it necessarily has a distribution of perspectives around that central measure (1). On climate change, almost all of this distribution is well within the bounds of legitimate scientific debate and reflected within the full text of the IPCC reports. Our policies should not be optimized to reflect a single measure of the central tendency or, worse yet, caricatures of that measure, but instead they should be robust enough to accommodate the distribution of perspectives around that central measure, thus providing a buffer against the possibility that we might learn more in the future.

Until we have a consensus on the diminishing value of the notion of consensus as the keystone of the climate debate, we’ll continue to see the politicization of climate science and the continued gridlock on climate policy. Climate researchers will continue to array themselves tactically with respect to the consensus, ensuring a continuous stream of research results that shade the consensus to and fro. But the reality is, scientists are in general agreement, and at this point effective action on climate change does not depend on either strengthening or more precisely measuring that agreement. The important questions instead are what actions, when, by whom, at what cost, to whom, how, and why?

***End note: From Reilly et al. 2001:

Expert judgment was widely used in preparing the TAR, but the organizers were not able to impose a consistent procedure across the various components. The likelihood terms above were variously assigned on the basis of "judgmental estimates" in the discussion of the science of climate (1) and on using "collective judgment" when discussing the effects of climate change (2). However, little or no documentation is provided for how judgments were reached or whose estimates were reflected. In discussion of mitigation measures (3), the TAR did not report any analysis using these concepts. The TAR states that many hundreds of scientists contributed to the report. In the absence of documentation, readers could easily conclude that reported likelihoods represent a consensus among them (7). This is not necessarily the case (8). Many of the scientists listed as contributors were never consulted about these probability judgments.

Posted on April 2, 2006 04:30 PM View this article | Comments (35) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 29, 2006

Once Again Attributing Katrina’s Damages to Greenhouse Gases

Last fall we took issue with Kevin Trenberth, NCAR scientist and IPCC lead author responsible for the chapter on hurricanes, when he gave a presentation to policy makers that attributed part of Katrina’s rainfall to greenhouse gas emissions, and suggested that the added rainfall may have caused the New Orleans flooding and damage.

When I blogged this, some folks accused me of misquoting him or “putting words in his mouth.” Fortunately, Kevin has spoken to the media this week in New Zealand on this subject, and we can let his own words speak for themselves. Here is a how the Dominion Press reported Kevin’s thoughts on Katrina:

“Hurricane Katrina, which ripped through New Orleans last year, leaving a repair bill of up to US$200 billion, is a sign that humans ought to be paying more attention, he says. "This is not to say Katrina was due to global warming . . . There is an influence of global warming, something like an 8 per cent influence.
"So if about 305 millimetres of rain falls in New Orleans that means about an extra 25.4mm of rainfall more than might have occurred anyway. Often it's the straw that broke the camel's back. Was 25.4mm of extra rainfall enough to cause the levees to break? The big flooding event in Manawatu, that may be an example of the same kind of thing . . ."

Scientists routinely tell us that we cannot attribute the effects of anthropogenic climate change to any one particular event, and while Trenberth does say that we cannot attribute the existence of Katrina to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), he does suggest that once it does exist we can attribute precisely 25.4 mm of rainfall to GHGs, and that this difference could have led to the disastrous flooding of New Orleans (as well as another flood event in New Zealand). Here is what we said about this last fall:

Perhaps there are good scientific reasons for making such a claim, but they probably should go through peer review before being announced as fact (with no sense of uncertainty!) before policy makers. Especially when other scientists, like Kerry Emanuel, assert that such precise attribution is not possible. And further, given that the IADWG has published in JOC May 2005 that attribution of trends in precipitation to GHGs has not yet occurred, it stretches the credulity of this non-climate scientist to think that such precise attribution is possible for specific events.

I am a supporter of scientists speaking their minds, and I support Trenberth’s right to say what he believes. Kevin is a prolific scientist who is widely cited in the community. However, on this issue he is way out on a limb, especially in his comments about damage, a subject on which I have some expertise. In a 1999 paper (PDF) we responded to Kevin’s frequent invocation of the straw/camel metaphor to draw a very different conclusion:

With respect to the relative contribution of climate and societal factors to the flood damage record, Trenberth’s (1997) metaphor of increasing precipitation being the ‘‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’’ is particularly apt. The camel (representing society) is already burdened by the weight of past decisions that have placed people and property into harm’s way. Thus, when hydrologic floods do occur, they can lead to enormous damage. In many instances, such damage is avoidable— society need not wait for the ‘‘last straw’’ to act.

Kevin’s statements on hurricane science and impacts are especially troubling because of his role as the lead author of the IPCC chapter on hurricanes. For better or worse, his credibility, and thus that chapter’s legitimacy, is at risk on this particular issue. [Note: Kevin has an open invitation to respond to this post here, which we will gladly publish.] It is important for the climate science and policy communities to recognize the reality that out-on-a-limb statements by leaders in the IPCC community can seriously damage the credibility of the IPCC and the legitimacy of arguments for action on climate change even if, as some assert, such views have no bearing on the content of the report or are tangential to more important reasons for action.

Posted on March 29, 2006 05:37 AM View this article | Comments (26) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

March 28, 2006

New Options for Climate Policy?

At times we have complained about the lack of a formal mechanism to introduce new and innovative policy options into the climate debate resulting in a Manichean battle over Kyoto. In a short essay for Foreign Policy in Focus, William D. Nordhaus, of Yale University and one of the leading authorities on the economics of climate change, would seem to agree with this perspective in the context of mitigation. Here is an excerpt:

After more than a decade of negotiations and planning under the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the first binding international agreement to control the emissions of greenhouse gases has come into effect in the Kyoto Protocol. The first budget period of 2008-2012 is at hand. Moreover, the scientific evidence on greenhouse warming strengthens steadily as observational evidence of warming accumulates. The institutional framework of the Protocol has taken hold solidly in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which covers almost half of Europe's CO2 emissions.
Notwithstanding this apparent success, the Kyoto Protocol is widely seen as somewhere between troubled and terminal. Early troubles came with the failure to include the major developing countries along with lack of an agreed-upon mechanism to include new countries and extend the agreement to new periods. The major blow came when the United States withdrew from the Treaty in 2001. By 2002, the Protocol covered only 30% of global emissions, while the hard enforcement mechanism in the ETS accounts for about 8% of global emissions. Even if the current Protocol is extended, models indicate that it will have little impact on global temperature change. Unless there is a dramatic breakthrough or a new design, the Protocol threatens to be seen as a monument to institutional overreach.

Nations are now beginning to consider the structure of climate-change policies for the period after 2008-2012. Some countries, states, cities, companies, and even universities are adopting their own climate-change policies. Are there in fact alternatives to the scheme of tradable emissions permit embodied in the Protocol? The fact is that alterative approaches have not had a serious hearing among natural scientists or among policymakers.[emphases added]

What, according to Nordhaus, is wrong with Kyoto?

The fundamental defect of the Kyoto Protocol lies in its objective of reducing emissions relative to a baseline of 1990 emissions for high-income countries. This policy lacks any connection to ultimate economic or environmental policy objectives. The approach of freezing emissions at a given historical level for a group of countries is not related to any identifiable goal for concentrations, temperature, costs, damages, or “dangerous interferences.” It is not inevitable that quantity-type arrangements are inefficient. The target might be set to ensure that global temperature increase does not exceed 2 or 3 degrees C or for some other well-defined and well-designed economic and environmental objectives.

I discussed practical problems of implementation associated with the notion of “dangerous interference” in this paper (PDF). And Richard Tol took issue with the justification behind the 2 degree stabilization target of the EU in a post for us here. The key point in Nordhaus’ comment seems to be the need for “well-defined and well-designed economic and environmental objectives.”

Nordhaus points our attention away from Kyoto and toward internationally harmonized carbon taxes. Whether or not such policies represent a practical, realistic, or worthwhile alternative to Kyoto (and Nordhaus makes a strong case that they do), Nordhaus correctly points our attention to the critically important need for options to the current gridlock to be presented and evaluated. To be most effective as input to the policy process, discussion of such options should take place not only among individual scholars but also more formally through authoritative institutions of climate science and policy. The alternative, as Norhaus warns, is that we are left with a "monment to institutional overreach."

Posted on March 28, 2006 02:46 PM View this article | Comments (36) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 22, 2006

A View From Colorado Springs

For those unfamiliar with the geography of Colorado, Colorado Springs is not far from Boulder, perhaps two hours drive on a good day. But in some respects it seems pretty distant. A link to an editorial in the Colorado Springs Gazette appeared in my inbox (thanks!) on Senator James Inhofe's request for information on UCAR/NCAR, which is here in Boulder. Here is how it begins:

[Disclaimer: I worked for UCAR/NCAR 1993-2001 and am hardly an unbiased person in this matter. You've been warned. Comments after the excerpt below.]

One senator’s inquiry into the inner workings of Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, and its parent organization, the University Center for Atmospheric Research, is being construed by some as an act of political intimidation. The senator, James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is a global warming skeptic. NCAR and UCAR, which receive federal support through the National Science Foundation, are viewed as leading proponents of global warming theory. That’s led some to allege that Inhofe is trying to pressure NCAR and UCAR into tailoring their research to take a more skeptical view, and of polluting the purity of science with politics.
But we’re not sure Inhofe’s request is out of line. NCAR’s contract with the NSF hasn’t been put up for competitive bid in years — which strikes us as a legitimate subject of inquiry. What else Inhofe might be looking for is unknown. But if he’s searching for evidence that the organizations are engaged in “advocacy science,” rather than conducting unbiased research, that’s a legitimate inquiry as well, since federal funds are involved.

Taxpayers have an interest in knowing they are supporting sound, even-handed, agenda-free science, on climate change or any other issue. And if Inhofe or any member of Congress has reason to doubt this, inquiries are in order.

Some are shocked, shocked by the suggestion that science can be corrupted or co-opted — that researchers at NCAR and UCAR are doing anything other than objective research. How dare anyone question the integrity of “science,” they huff. But that’s a willfully naive view, given the way science, policy, advocacy and big money intermingle in this society.

Scientists are as susceptible to being seduced by political agendas, personal biases and self-interest as any other human beings, in our view. And given the power they wield on so many policy disputes, from global warming to the Endangered Species Act, it’s legitimate to ask if they have agendas.

It’s obvious that scientists have increasingly been crossing the line into advocacy. We find it laughable, for instance, when the Union of Concerned Scientists — which for years has been pushing a radical, left-wing political agenda — accuses the Bush administration of “politicizing” science.

Read the whole thing. Now some reactions.

My thoughts on this are very much along the lines of my reaction to Representative Joe Barton's request for information related to the so-called "Hockey Stick." Here is what I said about that:

From the perspective of climate science or policy Rep. Barton’s inquiry is simply inane. There will be little insight gained on climate or how we might improve policies on climate change through his “investigation.” As Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has written in response to Rep. Barton, “These letters do not appear to be a serious attempt to understand the science of global warming. Some might interpret them as a transparent effort to bully and harrass climate change experts who have reached conclusions with which you disagree.... If the Committee indeed has a genuine interest in the science of global warming, you should withdraw these letters and instead schedule a long-overdue Committee hearing on climate change.”
Of course, it is doubtful that Rep. Barton’s Committee (on Energy and Commerce, I remind you) actually has any real interest in the science of climate change, except as a tool of tactical advantage in the continuing political battle over global warming. Rep. Barton and others opposed to action on climate change will continue to gnaw at the hockey stick like a dog on a bone so long as they perceive that it confers some political benefits.

1. I do think that it is perfectly fair to question the long-term management of NCAR by UCAR. Some competition might be valuable.

2. We have often discussed the consequences of scientists politicizing science. Like it or not, the reaction of the Gazette will not be unique. Unfortunately, the likely instinctive response of most people -- on all sides of this issue -- will be to exacerbate the politicization.

3. Senator Inhofe is going about this all wrong in my view. If he really wants to investigate UCAR/NCAR, then he should tap some of his colleagues on Senate Commerce and do it via hearings, out in the open, and through established channels of legislative oversight authority. His fishing expedition smacks of political opportunism, and will delegitimize any merit that his efforts might have.

4. For many scientists, it is crucial to understand where the editorial writers for the Colorado Springs Gazette are coming from. Simply opposing, criticizing, or dismissing their concerns will not be a good strategy, if for no reason than their views are likely to be widely shared by a significant part of the population, and both the future of support for your science, and support for the use of your science. depends upon maintaining some degree of legitimacy across the populace. Politicze the scientific enterprise at your own, and society's, peril.

5. In the blogosphere both the Inhofe request and the Gazette editorial serve in many situations as perfect wedge devices which allow people to align according to their political predispositions. This is well and good, but the scientific blogo-subset has to deicde if this is the best way to engage this issue. In my view, it may make things worse.

Posted on March 22, 2006 08:30 PM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

The Big Knob

In 2000, we wrote a paper titled, "Turning the Big Knob: Energy Policy as Means to Reduce Weather Imapcts." The metaphor implied that some viewed energy policies as a means for decision makers to tune the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in such a way to modulate the number or intensity of extreme events, and thereby also modulate the resulting societal impacts. Frequent readers of Prometheus will know that this subject has been the subject of many discussions on this site of late, and will know that we think that while there are good reasons for concern about climate change, and for reducing GHG emissions, the Big Knob strategy is a loser when it comes to disaster impacts.

Upon hearing from several critics of our work comments to the effect that no one really believes that GHGs can be used to intentionally modulate hurricanes or their impacts, I thought it worth showing the figure below. This was part of a major media campaign by a leading (and typically very thoughtful) environmental group last fall focused specifically on hurricanes (not GHG reductions generally). This image was taken from their WWW site at the time. See the Big Knob?

Posted on March 22, 2006 04:35 PM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

March 15, 2006

Forbidden Fruit: Justifying Energy Policy via Hurricane Mitigation

We’ve on occasion discussed a paper that we did in 2000 on the relative contributions to future damage of changes in intensity of hurricanes (called tropical cyclones worldwide) and changes in societal vulnerability, under the assumptions of the IPCC to 2050. Our paper found that the independent effects of changes in societal vulnerability are larger than the independent effects of changes in storm intensity by a factor of between 22 to 1 and 100 to one. The ratios are far larger the further one goes into the future. This would seems to provide pretty compelling evidence that even if scientists are underestimating the degree to which hurricane intensity will change in the future, energy policies simply are not going to be an effective tool of hurricane policy. Thus we have often recommended keeping separate the issues of greenhouse gas reductions and hurricane policy.

For obvious reasons some people find this argument inconvenient. One response to a talk I gave on this last week was, “if we don’t have the imagery of hurricane damage it is going to make the task of selling greenhouse gas reductions that much harder” (see also the recent discussion at Kevin’s NoSeNada blog, and thanks to Brian S. for motivating this further discussion). Below is some simple math that should make the point inescapable, drawn from the analysis in Pielke et al. 2000 (PDF). Have a look, and play around with the numbers yourself.

A = hurricane damages today = $1

B = increase in hurricane damages in 2050, according to high end of IPCC TAR = 10% increase = $1 * 0.10 = $0.10

C = increase in hurriane damage in 2050, according to low end of IPCC TAR in Pielke/Landsea normalization method = 220% increase = $1 * 2.20 = $2.20

D = combined effect of B and C = $2.20 * 0.10 = $0.22

E = Total increase in costs = B + C + D = $0.10 + $2.20 + $0.22 = $2.52

F = Total costs in 2050 = A + E = $3.52

Of E the part that can be addressed by intentionally modulating the intensity of hurricanes (a dubious proposition, but lets assume) is $0.32 (B + D), and the part that can be addressed by addressing vulnerability is $2.44 (C + D) (note: does not equal E because D is counted twice because it is influenced by both factors).

So if you focus on energy policies as a way to modulate hurricane behavior as a tool of disaster mitigation, and assuming that (a) you can instantaneously reduce GHGs to pre-industrial, and (b) that we are not committed to change already, then you can at best reduce the increase in future damages from $3.52 to $3.20, still representing a 320% increase from today.

But lets be slightly more realistic, how about Kyoto? Assuming that the effects of GHG reductions on hurricane intensity are instantaneous and exactly proportional to emissions concentrations (also dubious assumptions, but lets go with them) under full and successful implementation of Kyoto, including the participation of the US, the reduction in projected damages would be about $0.03. (Assuming: increase 2005-2050 = ~120 ppm, Kyoto’s effects = ~12 ppm, $0.32 * 12/120 = ~$0.03, but substitute numbers as you wish, I just made these up.) Now before people start writing to tell me Kyoto is a first step, please go ahead and substitute second, third, and fourth steps as you wish and see what effects they get. Then get back to the political realities such as Kyoto is not meeting its targets, and the subsequent steps look a long way off (not to mention the incorrect simplifying scientific assumptions above about the close connections of GHG reductions and corresponding reductions in hurricane intensity) .

Again, it is important for me repeat that I support emissions reductions, and I even think Kyoto makes good political sense for the U.S. to be a part of, however, it stretches credulity to think that Kyoto or any emissions reductions policy makes sense as a tool of hurricane (or more generally, disaster) mitigation. The important policy question is not whether or not global warming affects hurricanes, it probably does, but rather, what outcomes can be expected from different policies in response to hurricanes related to the things we care about, like property and life?

Moving on, if you focus on reducing vulnerability as a tool of disaster mitigation, then you can at best reduce the increase in future damages by $2.42 to $1.10, representing an increase of 10% from today. And of course mitigation need not stop at the level of damages we see today, and in principle can cut into that original $1.00 of losses, which proportionately reduces the increase related to changing storm intensity. It seems obvious that achieving the same $0.03 reduction in future losses from the $2.42 expected due to increasing vulnerability would be a much more tractable and cost effective approach to hurricane mitigation than an indirect effort to modulate storm behavior. Put another way, 100% success in implementation of Kyoto is the equivalent of about 1% success in addressing vulnerability. This is a huge difference in both the politics and the practicality.

Note that all of the above are calculated using the most favorable ratio toward emissions reductions of 22 to 1. The other end of the scale is 100 to one, so keep that in mind. Alos keep in mind that this anaysis goes to 2050, if you'd like to extend it to, say, 2085, probably should at least quadruple the vulneability numbers and increase the intensity numbers by a percent or three.

The bottom line: For advocates of emissions reductions, asserting a hurricane-energy policy linkage is tempting, very tempting. But it does not make good policy sense. It is a bad argument, perhaps even an abuse of science or immoral. If scientific accuracy is of concern, then look elsewhere for your justifications.

Talk in DC Today

Just a reminder for readers in DC, I'll be giving a talk at the Smithsonian at 5:30PM. Details here.

Posted on March 15, 2006 04:51 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

March 13, 2006

Reactions to Searching for a Signal

I would love to be the first person to conclusively identify the signal of increasing greenhouse gases in the historical record of disaster losses. I have no doubt that such a study, scientifically solid and peer reviewed, would be widely cited, globally reported, and the author(s) would reach near rock star status in the climate science and advocacy communities. The problem is that I (and a number of colleagues) have been looking for such a signal for more than 10 years, recording our efforts in dozens of papers along the way, and so far the signal hasn’t been found.

On Wednesday his week I’ll be giving the NRC Ocean Studies Board’s annual Roger Revelle memorial lecture at the Smithsonian in Washington DC in which I’ll provide an overview of this search and what we’ve found to date. The message of the talk is as follows:

1. Anthropogenic climate change is real.
2. Greenhouse gas reductions make good policy sense.
3. But there is no evidence that energy policies focused on climate change can be an effective tool of disaster mitigation.
4. There is currently no evidence that allows us to attribute to human-caused climate change any part of the decades-long trend of a rising toll of disasters, a record which is dominated by floods and storms.
5. More people are beginning to conduct research in this area and perhaps future research results will tell a different story, but 1-4 above are what can be said today and supported by scientific research.
6. Given the state of the literature, this should not be a controversial conclusion.
7. There are better justifications for GHG reductions than disasters, and there are far better options available to policy makers than energy policies to make a material difference in future impacts of climate and weather extremes.

Of late, as the subject of disasters and climate change has become increasingly salient I have noticed a significant ratcheting up in the intensity of criticism that some leading scientists bring to discussing my work. Some of it, quite frankly, borders on the bizarre. Consider the following recent experiences:

*On several occasions, one in a public forum, a very prominent scientist whose name you would all recognize all but accused me of falsifying my research results in order to hide the global warming signal in disaster losses that he believes must certainly be there. The alternative, that our work is solid, apparently is not a possibility.
*Another prominent scientist whose name you would all recognize quite angrily and nastily accused me in an email of being a climate change denier who refuses to see the truth. I replied with an explanation that I was no denier and I provided a list of a few dozen peer-reviewed papers to support my perspective on climate change and disasters, with no response.

*After giving a lecture at a major U.S. university I had a chance to talk one-on-one with the head of the unit that had invited me (a major unit on campus), who was another big-name-you-would-recognize. His first question for me was to ask my political orientation, stating that it was hard to discern from my talk. I thought it an odd question but I answered him anyway. He had no substantive questions about my talk, so I hope my answer to his political orientation question clarified everything.

*Perhaps most troubling, the editor of a leading scientific journal asked me to “dampen” the message of a peer-reviewed publication for fear that it would be “seized upon” by those seeking to defend their interests in business-as-usual energy policies. I found this incredible – was I really being asked to change scientifically well-supported arguments based on some editorial concerns about politics?!

These sorts of experiences are not completely new for me. In past years I have also described how colleagues have pressured me to be careful about my research because of its supposed political implications for those seeking to justify energy policy action based on reducing disaster impacts. Of course, from where I sit one important message of my research is for advocates of changes in energy policies related to climate change simply to make better arguments and to avoid bad ones. This message would seem to be in everyone’s interests.

Some of the experiences described above can be explained as resulting from interactions with a few hyper-politically-charged scientists, some who are full of anger and vitriol. So perhaps these experiences are only a function of a few bad apples that I have the good fortune to be interacting with. From that perspective perhaps I should not be too concerned by the behavior of these individuals. But given their prominence in the community and its institutions, and the chance that these are not isolated experiences, I do worry that the politicization of climate science is reaching epidemic proportions with profound consequences for the field. From my narrow perspective on the climate science community, viewed through the lens of how my work on disasters is received, it seems that some research is judged not by its content but by how some would like the research to turn out. For my part I will continue searching for a signal of global warming in the disaster record, and if and when I find it you’ll know that I really believe that it is there. And know that I won’t be intimidated, bullied, or pressured into saying otherwise or staying silent.

For those who are interested in my work in this area, the following list of publications focuses primarily on storms and floods and document various ways that we have tried to understand and probe the disaster loss record in these contexts. Of course, there is much research conducted by others on this subject, most of which is referenced in the articles below. We have discussed this subject at length here at Prometheus and new readers can find this discussion under the climate change archives. As in any area of science there is much work in this area remaining to be done, and such research may indeed provide new insights that change the perspectives of today.

PDFs of the articles below, almost all which are peer reviewed, can be found here, and the books should be obtainable from your library.

Downton, M., J. Z. B. Miller and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. Reanalysis of U.S. National Weather Service Flood Loss Database, Natural Hazards Review, 6:13-22.

Downton, M. and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. How Accurate are Disaster Loss Data? The Case of U.S. Flood Damage, Natural Hazards, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 211-228.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2005. Are there trends in hurricane destruction? Nature, Vol. 438, December, pp. E11.

Pielke, R. A., 2005. Attribution of Disaster Losses, Science, Vol. 310, December 9, pp. 1615.

Pielke, Jr., R.A., S. Agrawala, L. Bouwer, I. Burton, S. Changnon, M. Glantz, W. Hooke, R. Klein, K. Kunkel, D. Mileti, D. Sarewitz, E. Thompkins, N. Stehr, and H. von Storch, 2005.Clarifying the Attribution of Recent Disaster Losses: A Response to Epstein and McCarthy, Bulletin of American Meteorological Society, Volume 86 (10), pp. 1481-1483.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, 2005. Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 86:1571-1575.

Pielke, Jr., R.A. and D. Sarewitz, 2005. Bringing Society back into the Climate Debate, Population and Environment, Volume 26, Number 3, pp. 255-268.

Pielke, Jr., R.A., J. Rubiera, C. Landsea, M. Fernandez, and R.A. Klein, 2003: Hurricane Vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean, Natural Hazards Review, 4: 101-114.

Downton, M. and R.A. Pielke, Jr., 2001. Discretion Without Accountability: Politics, Flood Damage, and Climate, Natural Hazards Review, 2(4):157-166.

Downton, M. and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2001: Politics and disaster declarations. Natural Hazards Observer, 25(4), 1-3.

Changnon, S., R. A. Pielke, Jr., D. Changnon, D., R. T. Sylves, and R. Pulwarty, 2000. Human Factors Explain the Increased Losses from Weather and Climate Extremes, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 81(3), 437-442.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2000. Flood Impacts on Society: Damaging Floods as a Framework for Assessment. Chapter 21 in D. Parker (ed.), Floods. Routledge Press: London, 133-155.

Pielke, Jr., R. A. and M.W. Downton, 2000. Precipitation and Damaging Floods: Trends in the United States, 1932-97. Journal of Climate, 13(20),
3625-3637.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., R.A. Klein and D. Sarewitz, 2000. Turning the Big Knob: Energy Policy as a Means to Reduce Weather Impacts. Energy and Environment, Vol. 11, No. 3, 255-276.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., and R. A. Pielke, Sr. (eds.), 2000: Storms: a volume in the nine-volume series of Natural Hazards & Disasters Major Works published by Routledge Press as a contribution to the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Routledge Press: London.

Kunkel, K., R. A. Pielke Jr., S. A. Changnon, 1999: Temporal Fluctuations in Weather and Climate Extremes That Cause Economic and Human Health Impacts: A Review. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80, 6, 1077-1098.

Landsea, C. L., R. A. Pielke, Jr., A. Mestas-Nuez and J. Knaff, 1999. Atlantic Basin Hurricanes: Indicies of Climate Changes. Climate Change, 42, 89-129.

Pielke Jr., R.A., 1999: Nine fallacies of floods. Climatic Change, 42, 413-438.

Pielke, Jr., R. A. and M. Downton, 1999. U.S. Trends in Streamflow and Precipitation: Using Societal Impact Data to Address an Apparent Paradox. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80(7), 1435-1436.

Pielke, Jr., R.A., and C.W. Landsea, 1999: La Nina, El Nino, and Atlantic Hurricane Damages in the United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80, 10, 2027-2033.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. W. Landsea, M. Downton, and R. Muslin, 1999: Evaluation of Catastrophe Models Using a Normalized Historical Record: Why It Is needed and How To Do It. Journal of Insurance Regulation. 18, pp. 177-194.

Pielke, Jr., R. A. and C. W. Landsea, 1998. Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925-95. Weather and Forecasting, American Meteorological Society, Vol. 13, 621-631.

Pielke Jr., R. A., 1997: Reframing the U.S. Hurricane Problem. Society and Natural Resources, 10, 485-499.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., and R. A. Pielke, Sr., 1997: Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society. John Wiley and Sons Press: London.

Posted on March 13, 2006 05:47 AM View this article | Comments (30) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

March 08, 2006

On Missing the Point

Karen O’Brien, of the University of Oslo’s Department of Sociology and Human Geography, has a very thoughtful editorial in the current issue of the journal Global Environmental Change. She suggests, quite appropriately in my view, that debate and discussion on global environmental issues focuses too narrowly on “science” and not on important issues of “human security.” She is asking us to consider reframing how we think about and organize to act on environmental issues. In my view, O’Brien is absolutely correct in her analysis, but her perspective, and that of Oxford’s Steve Rayner which we discussed yesterday, are far removed from the center of the current politicized and scientized debates over global environmental issues. Here is an excerpt from her editorial:

The time has come to reframe global environmental change first and foremost as an issue of human security. For years, the global environmental change research, policy, and activist communities have been pointing to a long list of potential negative outcomes from human-induced environmental changes. The premise for concern has been that we are altering key components of the Earth System, changing climate and hydrological systems, carrying out dramatic land cover changes, undermining ecosystem services, and reducing genetic, ecosystem, and species diversity (MEA, 2005; Steffen et al., 2004). A substantial effort has been made to document, understand, and explain the science behind these issues, in order to support policies and actions that address the driving forces of environmental change. This science-based approach has produced powerful arguments for reconsidering current strategies of economic growth and development, in favor of what can be considered sustainable development. Nevertheless, the approach has maintained environmental change as an issue of “science” rather than of human security, and it has consequently failed to engage society in creating the transformations that will lead to sustainability.
Human security goes beyond the traditional understanding of security as a state-centered concept related to threats and conflict. In terms of environmental change, human security can be considered the condition when and where individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate, or adapt to risks to their human, environmental, and social rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in attaining these options (GECHS, 1999). This is a people-centered concept that focuses on enabling individuals and communities to respond to change, whether by reducing vulnerability or by challenging the drivers of environmental change. More than a measurable and objective state, human security is something that is felt and experienced, and it is fundamental to every individual's well-being.

The emphasis on “science” over “security” is evident in popular debates about climate change. For example, the media in Norway (as in many other countries) seems to be obsessed with the question, “Is this climate change or not?” Every extreme hurricane, storm, or heat wave raises the spectre of human-induced climate change. Following each major event, the Norwegian media gathers groups of scientists to defend their research and the strong scientific consensus that increased greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate. Sceptical positions and scientific uncertainties are then equally highlighted, and anyone who has not taken graduate level meteorology classes is thrown into deep confusion.

Watching the media debate the relationship between Hurricane Katrina and climate change in September 2005, I could not help but think that this is simply missing the point. The debate should not be about whether or not this is evidence of climate change, but about whether human society has the capacity to respond to these types of shocks. Focusing on scientific uncertainty diverts attention away from the factors that generate vulnerability and create human insecurities. Indeed, uncertainty about human impacts on the climate system is inevitable, and the more scientific knowledge we gain, the more uncertain we are likely to be …

Read the whole thing here.

March 07, 2006

“Bad Arguments for Good Causes”

In an editorial in the latest issue of the journal Global Environmental Change Oxford’s Steve Rayner laments “a widespread pathology: the use of bad arguments for good causes.” Rayner cites work that I and colleagues have been engaged in on hurricanes and global warming to help make this point (However, one might also look up on Promethesus Richard Tol, Hans von Storch, and Indur Goklany to see similar points being made in various contexts):

The danger of using bad arguments for good causes, such as preventing unwanted climate change, is two-fold. Generally, it provides a dangerous opening for opponents who would derail environmental policy by exposing weaknesses in the underlying science. Specifically, it leads to advocating policies for reducing future storm impacts that are likely to be ineffective in achieving their declared aim. With or without greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the costs of storm damage are bound to rise. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will have far less impact on storm damage costs than moving expensive infrastructure away from coastal margins and flood plains.
For good or ill, we live in an era when science is culturally privileged as the ultimate source of authority in relation to decision making. The notion that science can compel public policy leads to an emphasis on the differences of viewpoint and interpretation within the scientific community. From one point of view, public exposure to scientific disagreement is a good thing. We know that science is not capable of delivering the kind of final authority that is often ascribed to it. Opening up to the public the conditional, and even disputatious nature of scientific inquiry, in principle, may be a way of counteracting society's currently excessive reliance on technical assessment and the displacement of explicit values-based arguments from public life (Rayner, 2003). However, when this occurs without the benefit of a clear understanding of the importance of the substantial areas where scientists do agree, the effect can undermine public confidence.

Rayner calls for greater attention to the institutional mechanisms that society has in place to connect science and decision making: “Yet if we recognize that science cannot compel public policy, the need to develop effective institutional arrangements for it to appropriately inform public policy is greater than ever.”

I think that he is absolutely correct. However, many prominent members of the scientific community are so wrapped up in asserting truth claims against so-called skeptics that they have all but ignored the broader issues of institutional legitimacy and the need for action in the face of diversity. The climate issue illustrates these dynamics prominently but is by no means a unique case. Rayner explains how this occurs:

Once a candidate issue is selected for attention, policy makers are consistently led to believe that, given time and money, scientific inquiry will reduce relevant uncertainty about environmental risk. Their scientific advisors hold out the promise that more fine-grained information will clarify the nature and extent of the problem and enable policy makers to craft efficient and effective responses. While it justifies important (and often expensive) research programmes, this view tends to disregard two factors.
First, as scientific knowledge increases, it raises new questions to be answered. The proliferation of uncertainties may make policy less, rather than more tractable. In particular, see-sawing scientific opinion, for example about whether particular substances have a net warming or cooling effect, can be particularly worrisome to policy makers, inclining them to postpone judgement to the long-term.

Second, the accumulation of information may lead to “contradictory certainties” that may make decisions more complicated rather than self-evident. The result is often a surfeit of information from which decision makers with opposing viewpoints can pick or choose. A decade ago, writing in this journal, Herrick and Jamieson (1995) recognized just this problem with the US National Acid Precipitation Assessment Programme (NAPAP), which generated a veritable banquet of data and findings, but little guidance to help non-specialist decision makers to determine which items should be considered in the policy choice. As a result, the Clean Air Act Amendments were passed without the benefit of a clear scientific direction. In the end, public disagreements about science become a surrogate for political debates about values and science is reduced to the spectacle of duelling assessments.

So long as policy debates are dominated by people who believe that universal agreement on a particular set “facts” or perspective on “truth” is a prerequisite to policy action, don’t be surprised to see continued gridlock and inaction. That is a truth you can count on.

Posted on March 7, 2006 07:53 AM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

March 01, 2006

Politics and the IPCC, Again

Anyone with concerns about the politicization of the IPCC, and its stance of "policy neutrality," should raise an eyebrow at recent stories from the BBC and The Guardian. Leaking information before the report has gone through full review smacks of overt politicking. But more generally, those doing the leaking and their representations of what will be found in the IPCC are far from "policy neutral.” Perhaps it is time for the IPCC to dispense with the illusion of being policy neutral and simply admit its political agenda.

As far as the "news" that has been leaked, it is hardly news. According to the Guardian:

A draft of the next influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will tell politicians that scientists are now unable to place a reliable upper limit on how quickly the atmosphere will warm as carbon dioxide levels increase.

But this is also what was said by IPCC in 2001:

The range of global mean temperature change from 1990 to 2100 given by the six illustrative scenarios for the ensemble is 2.0 to 4.5C … Note that this is not the extreme range of possibilities, for two reasons. [emphasis added]

And further, both the Guardian and BCC note a “strengthening of consensus.” And here I have thought since 2001 that it was airtight, even unanimous. Was I mistaken? How can the consensus be “further strengthened” from the consensus represented in 2001?

These news stories continue a trend that we first observed with the 2005 Exeter meeting (see here and here) of using scientific/IPCC summaries as a tool of politics by those doing the science/assessing. I wrote last year:

If the Exter conference is indicative of the direction that the IPCC will be taking in its Fourth Assessment Report, then it will be remembered as a key milestone in the continuing evolution of the IPCC from honest broker to political advocate.

No matter what one's politics are on climate change, we should all be able to agree that the leaks to the British media represent a further politicization of climate science and damage the legitimacy of the IPCC as an independent -- "policy neutral" -- body.

Posted on March 1, 2006 10:27 AM View this article | Comments (104) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 21, 2006

Consensus Statement on Hurricanes and Global Warming

Under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization’s Commission on Atmospheric Sciences, its Tropical Meteorology Research Program Panel has just issued a statement on hurricanes and global warming (here in PDF).

The statement is significant not only because it was drafted by nine prominent experts, but because it includes in its authorship Kerry Emanuel, Greg Holland (second author of Webster et al. 2005), Ton Knutson, and Chris Landsea. Frequent readers will recognize these names as people not always in agreement. That they came together to produce a consensus statement is good for the community, and also gives a good sense on where they agree and disagree.

While the statement has enough background and language to allow anyone to selectively cherry pick from it in support of any perspective, here is the take-home message from the statement

“The research issues discussed here are in a fluid state and are the subject of much current investigation. Given time the problem of causes and attribution of the events of 2004-2005 will be discussed and argued in the refereed scientific literature. Prior to this happening it is not possible to make any authoritative comment.”

Therefore, for those of us not involved in primary research on hurricanes and climate change, any conclusions, or predictions about how future research will turn out, about the role of global warming in hurricanes will necessarily be based on non-scientific factors. If you are like the IPCC, then you will assume that observed climate phenomena can be explained by natural variability unless and until the thresholds of “detection and attribution” can be achieved. This is a high threshold for identification of greenhouse gas effects on climate, and it is of course not the only approach that could be taken. But it is the approach of the IPCC.

If you are politically or ideologically motivated to use the threat of stronger hurricanes in pursuit of some goal, then you will bet that a link will indeed be established. And similarly, if you are politically or ideologically motivated to discount the threat of stronger hurricanes in pursuit of some goal, then you will bet that no link is immediately forthcoming.

The reality is that the present state of science does not allow us to come to a conclusion that global warming has affected hurricanes (e.g., see this PDF). It is suggestive, and different experts disagree about what future research will tell us. I’d bet that this condition of uncertainty about future research will be with us for a long time. Thank goodness its resolution is not of particularly large importance for understanding and implementing those actions known with certainty to be most effective with respect to hurricane impacts (e.g., here in PDF).

Posted on February 21, 2006 06:56 AM View this article | Comments (31) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

February 16, 2006

NOAA and Hurricanes

NOAA has edited its press release that originally asserted a “consensus” among NOAA scientists, which we discussed here. How does this change the landscape of the hurricane climate issue? While it is a positive step forward for public relations, it doesn’t alter the current state of the science or most importantly, our understanding of what sorts of policy actions make the most sense in hurricane policy. Read on for details.

The material that NOAA added yesterday to their September 2005 press release reads as follows:

EDITOR’S NOTE: This consensus in this on-line magazine story represents the views of some NOAA hurricane researchers and forecasters, but does not necessarily represent the views of all NOAA scientists. It was not the intention of this article to discount the presence of a human-induced global warming element or to attempt to claim that such an element is not present. There is a robust, on-going discussion on hurricanes and climate change within NOAA and the scientific community.
The headline and paragraph could have more clearly stated:

“Agreement Among Some NOAA Hurricane Researchers and Forecasters”

There is agreement among a number of NOAA hurricane researchers and forecasters that recent increases in hurricane activity are primarily the result of natural fluctuations in the tropical climate system known as the tropical multi-decadal signal.”

The Wall Street Journal discussed this in an article today, and adds this detail:

Scott Smullen, NOAA's deputy director of public affairs, said the article was never meant to be an official position, and added that the use of the word "consensus" was a mistake made by one of his staff members. "There is no consensus," Mr. Smullen said.

As we’ve stated before, NOAA should not be in the business of issuing an agency perspective on areas of science, so from the perspective of NOAA public relations this would seem to be a positive step. But what does it tell us about the science of hurricanes and climate change? Absolutely nothing. It has been no secret that different scientists have different firmly held views about what future research will reveal. Because of the overlay of politics this has become a nasty personal debate among some scientists, fanned by media attention, fame, and hubris. What should we observers expect? Dan Sarewitz provides a guide:

When political stakes associated with a controversy are relatively low, high certainty is more permissible than when the stakes are high (e.g., Collingridge and Reeve, 1986). Fewer disciplines, institutions, and stakeholders are likely to have strong and competing interests in any particular assertion of uncertainty levels. . . But when the costs and benefits associated with action on a controversy begin to emerge and implicate a variety of interests, both political and scientific scrutiny of the problem will increase, as will sources of uncertainty.

In short, we should expect to see many studies on this subject coming out in the peer reviewed literature in coming years. Some will likely be supportive of the notion that GHGs, others will not. Advocates and scientists alike will cherry pick among these to make their case. And because the issue is so politicized only the most high-minded and responsible scientists will avoid getting caught up in mud slinging. From where I sit, both Kerry Emanuel and Chris Landsea, on different sides of this issue, have exemplified such responsibility.

But this public debate over global warming and hurricanes is also dangerous. It completely drowns out discussion, debate, and advocacy about those actions most likely to be effective with respect to hurricane policy. Politics sure is fun, and conflict draws attention. But the reality is that the scientific debate over hurricanes and climate change is going to be with us for many, many years. No matter how it is resolved, if ever, one way or another it won’t be particularly significant for policy. And the U.S. hurricane season is less than 4 months away.

Posted on February 16, 2006 07:20 AM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 15, 2006

On Having Things Both Ways

From James Hansen’s talk at The New School, 10 February 2006 (here in PDF).

I do not attempt to define policy, which is up to the people and their elected representatives, and I don’t criticize policies. The climate science has policy relevance, but I let the facts speak for themselves about consequences for policy-makers.

But then the very next sentence says:

I intend to show that the answer to the question “Can we still avoid dangerous human-made climate change” is yes, we could, but we are not now on a path to do that, and if we do not begin actions to get on a different path within the next several years we will pass a point of no return, beyond which it is impossible to avoid climate change with far ranging undesirable consequences. Why we are not taking actions to avoid climate change relates to the topic of this conference, which I will address in the latter part of my talk.

I have a lot of respect for Dr. Hansen’s stand against being muzzled in NASA, but his statement on policy suggests that he is either woefully uninformed about the nature of policy and politics or he is willfully couching political advocacy in the cloth of “science.” Further into his presentation he is explicitly political, and sadly misinformed about how politics works:

It seems to me that special interests have been a roadblock wielding undue influence over policymakers. The special interests seek to maintain short-term profits with little regard to either the long-term impact on the planet that will be inherited by our children and grandchildren or the long-term economic well-being of our country. The public, if well-informed, has the ability to override the influence of special interests, and the public has shown that they feel a stewardship toward the Earth and all of its inhabitants. Scientists can play a useful role if they help communicate the climate change story to the public in a credible, understandable fashion.

The public is in fact made up of special interests, which includes groups such as Democrats, Republicans, environmentalists, industrialists, academics, and NASA employees. Politics is not about “overriding special interests” but balancing them. Dr. Hansen would do well to read Federalist 10. After that he should read Sarewitz. With all this talk about scientific literacy of the public, perhaps we might start talking about politcal literacy among scientists. I have no problem with Dr. Hansen talking about policy and politics. I do have a problem with him talking about policy and politics and framing his comments as “science.” This is what politicizes science.

Dr. Hansen aside, perhaps one of the obstacles to developing effective climate policy is that we as a society have placed “Working Group 1” expertise in charge of leading the debate on climate policy when what we really need is the expertise found in “Working Group III” and beyond.

Posted on February 15, 2006 03:43 PM View this article | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 14, 2006

Europe's Long Term Climate Target: A Critical Evaluation

Ed.- Richard Tol, a professor at Hamburg, Vrije and Carnegie Mellon Universities. has written an interesting paper forthcoming in the journal Energy Policy critiquing the scientific basis for Europe's temperature target for responding to global warming. Frequent readers of this blog will be familiar with discussions of the FCCC and "dangerous anthropogenic interference." Prof. Tol adds to the diversity of perspectives here at Prometheus and offers a challenging, rigorous critique. Richard was kind enough to summarize his recent paper for us, so please read on. RP

The European Union have set a goal for international climate policy: The world should not warm more than 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures. This is an ambitious target. As the warming response to the enhanced greenhouse effect is so uncertain, it may imply that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide could not rise much above 400 ppm, only some 20 ppm above today. If recent trends continue, the 400 ppm level would be reached by 2020. A 400 ppm target may require zero carbon emissions, worldwide, by 2050.

One may of course dismiss the European target. Who are they to decide on a global target? Perhaps the target is just political posturing and wishful thinking, or maybe it is just the opening bid in international negotiations. Perhaps European policy makers have been led to believe that deep emission reduction is easy and cheap. However, the European Union is a major player in international climate policy, and its 2°C target deserves serious discussion.

Unfortunately, the European Union seems unprepared for such as discussion. The 2°C target can be traced back to a 1995 report of the German government’s Scientific Advisory Council on Global Environmental Change (WBGU). Estimates of the economic impacts of climate change are a crucial argument in the WBGU report. At that time, the best guess for economic damages due to a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was 1.5% of global income. The WBGU raised this to 5.0% without any supporting analysis. Since 1995, economic impact estimates have been revised downwards, but the WBGU has not changed its target.

The WBGU continues to play a substantial role in setting targets for European climate policy. The German government follows its advice. The advisors to the Dutch government just translate its findings. The European Commission leans heavily on its reports. In its latest, 2003, report, the WBGU sticks to the 2°C target. It did revise the justification, however. For this, the WBGU commissioned a report by Bill Hare, a climate campaigner on the payroll of Greenpeace International. The Hare paper is in typical Greenpeace style: Selective citation, quotations out of context, and a focus on alarming examples.

The UK government has not explicitly adopted the 2°C target, but it has been arguing vigorously for stringent emission abatement. The UK position largely rests on two model results, by Nigel Arnell for water and by Pim Martens for malaria. The models predict hundreds of millions of people at risk of malaria and water stress. Unfortunately, these models omit adaptation. Bed nets and perhaps a vaccine could reduce the burden of malaria. Improved irrigation efficiency and desalination can overcome water shortage. Other modellers have been able to include such adaptation, and show that the Arnell and Martens models dramatically overestimate the impacts of climate change

The UK government is obliged to do a cost-benefit analysis of every major project or policy. On climate change, it duly issued a well-crafted report on the social cost of carbon, that is, the target price for carbon permits. The report was well in line with the academic literature, but its summary recommended a number that was an order of magnitude higher than what is typically found in other papers. This has left people wondering, and a review is underway.

The European Commission is also obliged to do a cost-benefit analysis. Its report support the 2°C target. Whereas the UK analysis is sound apart from an unfortunate zero in the summary, the report by the European Commission would fail as a term paper in a course of cost-benefit analysis. In a cost-benefit analysis, one wants to equate the marginal costs and benefits, but the report only looks at total costs and benefits. In fact, the report does not estimate benefits either; it includes all impacts of climate change, not the ones that can be avoided. The impact estimates are over 10 years old, although newer and better studies are available. On the abatement side, the analysis stops in 2025, even though only a fraction of the needed emission reduction will have been achieved by then. The EU report does not review the cost-benefit literature, which reaches different conclusions. A commissioned paper that reached an opposite conclusion was similarly ignored.

I do not believe that there is anything in the literature on the impacts of climate change or the costs of greenhouse gas emission reduction that justifies the deep cuts in emissions necessary to meet the European 2°C target. However, that is not my main point. If policy makers believe that the 2°C target is justified, then they should support that with arguments. Sloppy methodology, selective citations, and exclusive input from environmental NGOs do not make for strong arguments. A democratic government should support its policies with sound science and reasoned judgements. The European climate policy falls short.

A more elaborate account of the 2°C target has been accepted for publication by Energy Policy. An early version can be downloaded here.

Posted on February 14, 2006 12:06 AM View this article | Comments (23) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

February 13, 2006

Andrew Dessler on Uncertainty

Guest Post by Andrew Dessler

Ed.- Professor Andrew Dessler, of Texas A&M University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, has been a frequent and substantive contributor to discussions here at Prometheus for a while now. On the occasion of the publication of his new book (The Science and Politics of Climate Change, co-authored with Edward Parson, Cambridge University Press, 2006), we thought it might be valuable to ask Andrew to present his views of science and policy in the climate issue to stimulate discussion and debate among our readers, and to give Prometheus readers a little diversity in the perspectives presented here. Andrew introduced his book here. This is part two, on uncertainty. RP

Anyone familiar with the climate change debate is familiar with the “scientific uncertainty” argument, which usually goes something like this:

The response to climate change must be based on sound science, not on speculation or theory. There is too much uncertainty and too much that we do not know about climate change. It would be irresponsible to undertake measures to reduce emissions, which could carry high economic costs, until we know that these are warranted.

Political analyst Frank Luntz suggests that this argument can aid in convincing people to oppose action on climate change, especially when used as part of a broader set of arguments that include economic and standard rhetorical components. The foundation of the argument – that there is uncertainty in present scientific knowledge of climate change – is uncontroversial. But is there so much uncertainty that we should delay action on addressing climate change until we know more? According to this argument, the answer is yes.

To dissect this argument, let’s consider three different arenas of decision making under uncertainty:

(1) Criminal trial: Anyone who’s watched TV knows that a criminal defendant in the US is presumed innocent unless the prosecution succeeds in demonstrating guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In other words, the decision to act (i.e., convict) requires a high standard of proof. The requirement of overwhelming proof is based on a value judgment about the relative severity of the two possible ways a criminal verdict can err — either by convicting an innocent defendant, or by acquitting a guilty one. Society has long judged it worse to convict an innocent defendant than to acquit a guilty one, so the criminal trial has been biased to make that outcome less likely.

The crucial point here is that the standard for conviction is based on a normative judgment about the relative harm of the two possible errors. The worse we judge a particular error to be, the more we try to make it unlikely by biasing the decision-making process against it. In doing so, we willingly accept a heightened risk of making the other type of error, because we judge it to be less bad.

(2) Civil trial: In civil law – private suits by one party against another, in which usually only monetary damages or requirements to change behavior are at stake – society has judged that there is no clear basis to believe one type of error or the other (i.e. errors that favor the plaintiff or the defendant) to be worse. As a result, civil suits are decided without bias, according to “the preponderance of the evidence.”

(3) National defense: In matters of national security, US policy often takes action based on threats that are not just uncertain but unlikely. In other words, even a slight risk of a threat is sufficient to justify action. The reason is that our government judges that the cost of being unprepared to meet a threat that does materialize is much worse than the cost of preparing for a threat that never materializes. This is well articulated by Secretary of State (at the time) Colin Powell when discussing why the USA was pursuing national missile defense: “[T]here is recognition that there is a threat out there . . . And it would be irresponsible for the United States, as a nation with the capability to do something about such a threat, not to do something about [it] . . . you don’t wait until they are pointed at your heart. You start working on it now.” (Remarks at the International Media Center, Budapest, Hungary, May 29, 2001). This can be considered as a strident articulation of the “precautionary principle”.

What do these three examples tell us about climate change? The “uncertainty” argument we presented at the beginning of this post argues that we should wait until we have overwhelming evidence before acting to address climate change, adopting a standard similar to that for a criminal trial. On the other hand, environmentalists often use Powell’s missile defense argument to advocate immediate action on climate change despite uncertainty.

Which standard for action should we adopt? The choice is not scientific; rather, it reflects a judgment about the relative costs of the possible errors. The argument that climate science is too uncertain to merit action would be appropriate if one judged it a worse mistake to limit GHG emissions too much than not to limit them enough — i.e. that the economic losses from too much mitigation were much worse than the costs of unavoided impacts of climate change.

It is our opinion that this is not the case and that, in fact, the reverse situation appears more likely. If uncontrolled climate change and its impacts turn out to lie at or below the bottom of the present projected range, then an aggressive mitigation program would impose substantial unnecessary costs, presently estimated to lie between a few tenths of a percent and several percent of future GDP. But if climate change and impacts lie near or above the top of the present projected range, then not pursuing aggressive mitigation would likely expose the world’s people to much more severe costs and risks, including a possibility of abrupt, catastrophic changes.

Thus, at its heart, the “scientific uncertainty” argument is not about science at all, but about a judgment about whether it is worse to under or overreact to climate change. Further, the argument is worded so as to imply that the “criminal trial” standard should be applied to GHGs — that GHGs are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We believe that a strong argument can be made that this standard is inappropriate and that overwhelming evidence is not necessary in order for us to begin taking action on climate change. We have enough evidence now.

Posted on February 13, 2006 08:13 AM View this article | Comments (37) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

February 11, 2006

Slouching Toward Scientific McCarthyism

In the 20 February 2006 issue of The New Republic, John B. Judis has an article about how the issue of hurricanes and global warming has been handled by NOAA. Judis is engaging in scientific McCarthyism by arguing that certain perspectives on science are invalid because they are viewed as politically incorrect by some.

The transformation of this part of climate science into pure politics is fully embraced by those on the political left and the right, and most troubling is that this transformation is being encouraged by some leading scientists who have taken to criticizing the views of other scientists because they happen to work for the federal government. These scientists know full well how such accusations will be received. What ever happened to sticking to the science? Read on for background and analysis.

Judis alleges that scientists and political appointees in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA (pronounced “Noah”) are together conspiring to suppress scientific knowledge about a linkage of hurricanes and global warming,

Many respected climate scientists, including some who work for NOAA, believe the organization's official line on the link between global warming and hurricanes is wrong. What's more, there is reason to believe that NOAA knows as much. In the broader scientific community, there is grumbling that NOAA's top officials have suppressed dissenting views on this subject--contributing to the Bush administration's attempt to downplay the danger of climate change. Says Don Kennedy, the editor-in-chief of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, "There are a lot of scientists there who know it is nonsense, what they are putting up on their website, but they are being discouraged from talking to the press about it."

The notion that NOAA has an “official line” on hurricanes put up on their website apparently comes from this press release from 29 November 2005 which includes the following statements:

The nation is now wrapping up the 11th year of a new era of heightened Atlantic hurricane activity. This era has been unfolding in the Atlantic since 1995, and is expected to continue for the next decade or perhaps longer. NOAA attributes this increased activity to natural occurring cycles in tropical climate patterns near the equator. These cycles, called “the tropical multi-decadal signal,” typically last several decades (20 to 30 years or even longer). As a result, the North Atlantic experiences alternating decades long (20 to 30 year periods or even longer) of above normal or below normal hurricane seasons. NOAA research shows that the tropical multi-decadal signal is causing the increased Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995, and is not related to greenhouse warming.

There is consensus among NOAA hurricane researchers and forecasters that recent increases in hurricane activity are primarily the result of natural fluctuations in the tropical climate system known as the tropical multi-decadal signal.

Judis argues that the scientific consensus has moved on:

NOAA's official position reflects what used to be the conventional wisdom on the relationship between global warming and hurricanes. Until recently, most empirical climate studies had focused on the frequency of hurricanes; and most researchers concluded that there wasn't a link to global warming--the frequency was connected to cyclical trends. But, in the last year, two important studies have suggested that there is an observable link between global warming and the growing intensity of hurricanes.

The studies that he refers to are familiar to readers of this bog, Emanuel in Nature and Webster et al. in Science, hereafter E05 and W05. What Judis doesn’t tell his readers is that neither E05 nor W05 are attribution papers – that is, neither paper conducted a rigorous analysis to explain the trends that they have documented. Here is what those papers actually say about attribution:

Emanuel et al. 2005 expresses some doubt as to the cause of the trends that he observes: “Whatever the cause, the near doubling of power dissipation over the period of record should be a matter of some concern”
Webster et al. 2005 more explicitly eschew attribution: “attribution of the 30-year trends [in hurricane intensity] to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state.”

Now to be fair, Emanuel and the Webster et al. team have stated frequently in public that they firmly believe that the trends that they have documented are in fact caused by global warming. Why is there a difference between the cautious statements these scientists have made in their peer-reviewed publications and what they have said in public? The difference is that between rigorous research and hypotheses about what future research will show. Neither E05 nor W05 fully explain the trends that they see, but as we suggest in or 2005 BAMS review (here in PDF), they are “suggestive” of a linkage. Further peer-reviewed research may indeed demonstrate attribution, but it has not yet, and for those of us without expertise in the science it is probably best to rely on what the peer reviewed literature says rather than picking sides in an unfolding debate yet to appear in the peer-reviewed literature.

Judging by a quote in the Judis article, Donald Kennedy of Science thinks that this issue is important enough to violate his own magazines embargo policy when he says that, “According to Kennedy, forthcoming papers by Emanuel and by Kevin Trenberth of NCAR could strengthen the case for a link between hurricanes and global warming.” Of course it seems obvious that even if such papers are soon to appear, it makes no sense for scientists who are unaware of them to reflect what they say. [My guess is that these papers will offer competing theories to explain recent trends.] But I suppose that the logic here is that such studies merely confirm what those evil NOAA scientists should have known in the first place.

TNR’s Judis appears to acknowledge a “scientific debate” but then writes as if the previous scientific paradigm has been overturned and anyone who says differently must be in cahoots with the Bush Administration’s spin machine or conservative commentators. Bizarrely, Judis criticizes NOAA scientists for making statements fully supportable by peer-reviewed science, and in some cases work that those scientists have published.

NOAA officials have sometimes included carefully crafted caveats designed to deflect criticism from scientists who know about the controversy. But, because they don't acknowledge the debate explicitly, the general public is likely to miss the caveats' significance. Appearing before a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee on September 20, for instance, Max Mayfield, the director of NOAA's National Hurricane Center, said, "The increased activity since 1995 is due to natural fluctuations and cycles of hurricane activity, driven by the Atlantic Ocean itself along with the atmosphere above it and not enhanced substantially by global warming." NOAA officials also resort to clever ambiguities that elude the public.”

If there is a scientific debate as Judis suggests, should Mayfield have the right to express his views on the science? Didn’t we just go through this with James Hansen? Is it that Mayfiled’s views are not politically correct and so therefore he must be lying to the public? Judis is encouraging scientific McCarthyism.

Judis continues to pile on NOAA administrators and scientists for making statements that are either consistent with existing science or their own personal views on the science,

They deny, for instance, any link between global warming and hurricane "activity"--a term that glosses over the distinction between frequency and intensity. The November issue of NOAA's online magazine declares that "NOAA attributes recent increase in hurricane activity to naturally occurring multi-decadal climate variability" (italics added). In settings where scientists are not likely to be listening, NOAA officials have even dropped the hedged and ambiguous language. On August 30, Conrad Lautenbacher, the head of NOAA, said in Weldon Spring, Missouri, "We have no direct link between the number of storms and intensity versus global temperature rise." The next month, when CBS's "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer asked Mayfield whether the hurricanes had "something to do with global warming," he replied unequivocally, "Bob, hurricanes, and especially major hurricanes, are cyclical." And, at the NOAA press conference, Bell said simply of hurricane intensity: "It's not related to greenhouse warming."

Bell has an impressive record of scientific research. Is he not allowed to speak to his conclusions and hypotheses, or are only certain perspectives allowed in today’s politics of the climate debate? If we are going to advocate that James Hansen can speak his views on climate science, which are not universally shared, on what basis is Judis criticizing Bell for expressing his views?

Judis even endorses scientific McCarthyism by associating the views of certain scientists with conservative commentators, suggesting that certain views should be evaluated by who refers to them,

As expected, Rush Limbaugh, Rich Lowry of National Review, The Washington Times, and other conservative voices have cited NOAA to attack what Limbaugh has called "the global warming crowd." But NOAA's and Mayfield's statements have also influenced mainstream commentators. Citing Mayfield, USA Today editorialized against "global warming activists" who were turning the "storms into spin." CNN correspondent Ann O'Neill counseled against attributing hurricanes becoming "bigger and meaner" to global warming. "Don't rush to blame it on global warming, experts warn," she wrote. And two of the experts she quoted were Mayfield and Chris Landsea, Mayfield's colleague at the National Hurricane Center. Citing Mayfield, a Chicago Tribune editorial issued a similar admonition against linking hurricanes with global warming.

Judis goes on to discuss the state of public relations in NOAA, a subject on which I too have heard rumors of a clamp down. As I understand things the alleged clamp down affects all NOAA employees, not just those who want to assert a linkage between global warming and hurricanes (Who are these folks? Judis does not name names.). This is indeed an important subject and it would benefit from some hard evidence (muzzled NOAA employees contact me: pielke@colorado.edu!). But to suggest that any such clamp down on media interactions has contributed to a stifling of discussion of hurricanes and global warming is absurd. This subject has received far more attention than is warranted by its policy significance. The great irony here is that Judis is trying to stifle the voices of those who he disagrees with.

For its part, NOAA should never put out an official agency position on a scientific subject, unless it has some formal mechanism for arriving at such a position (as does the FDA, for instance). Individual scientists, whether they are in NOAA and NASA, should be able to voice their views on science in which they have expertise. If many scientists within NOAA happen to think that the linkage of hurricanes and global warming is overstated by others, there is no need to ascribe this to the politics of the Bush Administration or to lying or deceit. Every NOAA scientist quoted in the Judis story has had a career that began long before Bush took office. Each is an accomplished scientist. They are deserving of our respect, even if their views are not received as politically correct.

The reality is that the last word on the science of hurricanes and climate change has yet to be written. And as far as the peer-reviewed literature is concerned, the debate really hasn’t even begun. There are differing expectations from very smart people about what future research will say. This is a recipe for an increase in our collective uncertainty. For the foreseeable future there will be conflicting statements made by qualified scientists. How people choose sides in this debate is likely to be much more a function of politics and ideology than anything else. Expect to see more scientific McCarthyism.

Posted on February 11, 2006 08:58 AM View this article | Comments (28) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 09, 2006

Greenhouse Gas Politics in a Nutshell

One the one hand . . .

The world has seven years to take vital decisions and implement measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions or it could be too late, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday. Blair said the battle against global warming would only be won if the United States, India and China were part of a framework that included targets and that succeeded the 1992 Kyoto Protocol climate pact. "If we don't get the right agreement internationally for the period after which the Kyoto protocol will expire -- that's in 2012 -- if we don't do that then I think we are in serious trouble," he told a parliamentary committee. Asked if the world had seven years to implement measures on climate change before the problem reached "tipping point", Blair answered: "Yes".(link)

On the other hand . . .

Restricting cheap flights by putting a tax on air travel to cut pollution was ruled out by Tony Blair yesterday. . . The prime minister said it would take a "fairly hefty whack" for people to cut back on flights, adding that it would be hard to sell such a move. Instead, he said, the best way to tackle climate change was to invest in more environmentally friendly aircraft and in other new technology. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, later accused Mr Blair of "talking big on the international stage on climate change", but throwing in the towel at the first difficulty at home. "Emissions from aviation represent the greatest challenge in tackling climate change. For the Prime Minister to wash his hands in this way is simply unbelievable," said Mr Baker.” (link)

Posted on February 9, 2006 12:08 AM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 06, 2006

Andrew Dessler on Climate Change

Guest Post by Andrew Dessler

Ed.- Professor Andrew Dessler, of Texas A&M University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, has been a frequent and substantive contributor to discussions here at Prometheus for a while now. On the occasion of the publication of his new book (The Science and Politics of Climate Change, co-authored with Edward Parson, Cambridge University Press, 2006), we thought it might be valuable to ask Andrew to present his views of science and policy in the climate issue to stimulate discussion and debate among our readers, and to give Prometheus readers a little diversity in the perspectives presented here. So I’ll now turn it over to Andrew. RP

During 2000, I was a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. I was OSTP’s staff atmospheric scientist, and one of my jobs was to explain to White House policymakers the scientific importance of newly published research as well as the truth or falsity of scientific arguments made in mainstream media outlets. Several times per week, I would run across the most ridiculous, obviously erroneous arguments about climate change in the media. I began to wonder why such outlandish arguments were being made and, more importantly, why these arguments got traction in the public debate.

By the end of my OSTP adventure, I decided that advocates make baseless and erroneous scientific arguments in policy debates because they work. The public does not understand how science works and therefore cannot interpret conflicting scientific claims in policy debates. If one scientist says, “the climate is warming” while another says, “no, it’s not,” most people just throw up their hands and tune out of the debate. The net result is an ill-informed electorate on these issues, which in turn leads to policy decisions that are not as informed by science as they could be.

When I returned to the Univ. of Maryland from my year at OSTP, I began teaching an introductory class for non-science majors on climate change and the Earth system. Part of the class was on how science and policy worked, and I noticed that the students were far more interested in those lectures than any lecture about sigma T^4. And I was quite impressed that with just a few lectures, I sensed that they became much more sophisticated consumers of science in policy debates.

The strong and positive reaction of my UMD students to these lectures convinced me to write a book about the climate change debate. To add some depth to the book, I recruited a former colleague from OSTP, Ted Parson, presently a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Ted is an expert on environmental policy, particularly its international dimensions, the political economy of regulation, the role of science and technology in policy and regulation, and the analysis of negotiations, collective decisions, and conflicts. I can attest that he knows a lot more about these things than I do. Before joining the Michigan faculty, Ted spent ten years on the faculty of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

With our book, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate, now out, Roger graciously invited me to write a few posts describing some of the arguments we make in the book. Some of these we’ve already discussed on Prometheus, such as our opinion that the reliance on scientific assessments greatly reduces the scope for partisan distortion of science in policy debates, and I won’t repeat them. But I thought that there were two other topics that Prometheus readers might want to discuss: 1) the use of “scientific uncertainty” in policy debates, and 2) elements of an effective GHG reduction plan. Look for posts on these topics over the two weeks, and perhaps one or two other posts, if I can think of good topics.

Posted on February 6, 2006 06:27 AM View this article | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

January 31, 2006

Stern Report on Climate Change

No chance yet to look this over, but the UK Stern Report on Climate Change has released its report, available here. This will surely be discussed a great deal. We’d welcome comments from anyone who has had a chance to look at it.

Posted on January 31, 2006 10:08 AM View this article | Comments (20) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 30, 2006

Boehlert on Hansen

From Spaceref.com:

Rep. Boehlert Responds to Accusations Concerning NASA's "Silencing" of Climate Scientist

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Monday, January 30, 2006
Source: House Science Committee

WASHINGTON - House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) sent the attached letter today to Dr. Michael Griffin, Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in response to articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post this weekend concerning NASA's treatment of Dr. James Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

January 30, 2006

Dr. Michael Griffin
Administrator
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington DC 20546

Dear Dr. Griffin:

I am writing in response to several recent news articles indicating that officials at NASA may be trying to "silence" Dr. James Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

It ought to go without saying that government scientists must be free to describe their scientific conclusions and the implications of those conclusions to their fellow scientists, policymakers and the general public. Any effort to censor federal scientists biases public discussions of scientific issues, increases distrust of the government and makes it difficult for the government to attract the best scientists. And when it comes to an issue like climate change, a subject of ongoing public debate with immense ramifications, the government ought to be bending over backward to make sure that its scientists are able to discuss their work and what it means.

Good science cannot long persist in an atmosphere of intimidation. Political figures ought to be reviewing their public statements to make sure they are consistent with the best available science; scientists should not be reviewing their statements to make sure they are consistent with the current political orthodoxy.

NASA is clearly doing something wrong, given the sense of intimidation felt by Dr. Hansen and others who work with him. Even if this sense is a result of a misinterpretation of NASA policies - and more seems to be at play here - the problem still must be corrected. I will be following this matter closely to ensure that the right staff and policies are in place at NASA to encourage open discussion of critical scientific issues. I assume you share that goal.

Our staff is already setting up meetings to pursue this issue and I appreciate NASA's responsiveness to our inquiries thus far. I would ask that you swiftly provide to the Committee, in writing, a clear statement of NASA's policies governing the activities of its scientists.

NASA is one of the nation's leading scientific institutions. I look forward to working with you to keep it that way, and to ensure that the entire nation gets the full benefit of NASA sciences.

Sincerely

[Signed]

Sherwood Boehlert
Chairman

Posted on January 30, 2006 03:04 PM View this article | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Dangerous Climate Change

The UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs has released online a new book (here in PDF, 16 MB) titled, “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change,” which is a collection a papers presented at a meeting of the same title early last year. We commented on the meeting last year here and here.

I have just read Rajendra Pachauri’s (head of the IPCC) introductory chapter which was based on remarks that he gave at the conference. Not much new in it, but I thought that the following passage from Dr. Pachauri’s chapter provides a telling indication of how a narrow focus on human-GHG-caused climate change tends to warp the thinking of otherwise smart people about issues that involve much more than just human caused climate change:

In Mauritius, a couple of weeks ago, there was the major UN conference involving the small island developing states. In discussions with several people there, I heard an expression of fear based on the question: suppose a tsunami such as that of December 26 were to take place in 2080 and suppose the sea level was a foot higher, can you estimate what the extent of damage would be under those circumstances? Hence, I think when we talk about dangerous it is not merely dangers that are posed by climate change per se, but the overlay of climate change impacts on the possibility of natural disasters that could take place in any event.

So by 2080 society is going to experience changes probably far greater than from 1930 to 2005 and he is talking about the difference in impacts between a 25 foot and 26 foot wall of water? In this case, he probably would have been on solid ground by saying that patterns of coastal development over the next 75 years are far, far more important than an extra 12 inches of sea level rise, rather than trying to link climate change to tsunami impacts. But as we've argued ad repeatium here, this is the kind of thinking that necessarily results from Article 2 of the FCCC.

I’d welcome comments from anyone who has read parts of the book. I am sure that it is a pretty accurate preview of what we should expectin IPCC AR4 next year.

Posted on January 30, 2006 12:19 PM View this article | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 28, 2006

Let Jim Hansen Speak

The Bush Administration once again demonstrates its unbelievable clumsiness when it comes to handling the politics of global warming. In a story carried on the website of the New York Times, Andy Revkin writes,

James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

What is it that the Bush Administration is trying to keep Jim Hansen from saying?

According to the NYT article,

The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet." The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.

Here is why the Administration’s actions are, from a political standpoint, incredibly stupid.

1. Many, many government scientists routinely engage in political advocacy on the climate issue. Revkin points to this in his article when he identifies a government scientist who expresses views less critical of the Administration’s stance on climate change, but who apparently does not have the same restrictions.

2. Clearly, Jim Hansen is being singled out because of his stature and visibility. But that same stature results in a front page New York Times story when he complains about his treatment.

3. Jim Hansen’s statements about “policy” are really just political exhortations, and not really about policy in any significant degree. The climate issue is in gridlock and it is inconceivable that (yet another) prominent scientist witnessing to his political values is going to change these dynamics, even if it offers some short term discomfort for the Bush Administration.

4. Jim Hansen’s statements had their 15 minutes of attention and were largely old news – the Bush Administration has turned a non-story into renewed focus on their approach to climate.

5. Finally, we want scientists to engage in policy discussions. Note to the Bush Administration – you are funding about $2 billion of research focused on improving policy. If scientists don’t talk about policy, then they are wasting the public’s money.

6. From a crass political standpoint, when scientists of the stature of Jim Hansen make overtly political statements absent any substantive or meaningful discussion of policy, they make themselves look bad. Had the Administration given Jim Hansen enough rope, he may very well have undercut his own authority by looking like just another scientist trying to couch his political views in science.

Let’s be clear: the Administration has every right to control what its political appointees say. They even are in the right when they insist that scientists clearly differentiate their own views from official government policies, particularly when the scientist is speaking from an official setting using government resources. This is especially important when the speaker is very prominent.

I am sure that the reaction of the Administration will be that this is either manufactured (read the whole NYT story) or it is the result of an over-aggressive political appointee (echoes of the defense used to explain why a prospective scientific advisory board member was asked who he voted for).

Two final points – this case helps to underscore how absurd it is to try to separate science and policy. The IPCC has a formal mandate to be “policy relevant, but policy neutral”. If the Bush Administration was smart and really wanted to silence scientists, it would ask why IPCC rules aren’t good enough for NASA scientists. Keeping science and policy separate makes no sense for the IPCC or U.S. government scientists.

And lastly, understanding this experience requires no need to fall back on a simple-minded “war on science”. This is just bad politics by the Bush Administration, which reflects on a policy failure shared by all.

Posted on January 28, 2006 11:21 AM View this article | Comments (35) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 27, 2006

Hypotheses about IPCC and Peer Review

The IPCC is the 800 pound gorilla in the climate debate. It has been the locus of legitimate and credible climate science (salience is another matter, but I digress). It is increasingly coming under criticism in a number of dimensions for some very good reasons. In this post I’d like to suggest a few hypotheses about how the IPCC has indirectly contributed to the politicization of climate science in ways we’ve not discussed here. These are for discussion, and I’d welcome evidence for/against and other sorts of examples.

Laundering Grey Literature

The IPCC has a requirement that its assessments be based on peer reviewed literature. It has not always held itself to this standard, particularly in its Working Groups II and III. I have noticed recently a number of peer-reviewed papers that reference so-called “grey literature” (e.g., agency, company, NGO reports) which hasn’t itself been peer reviewed. Then the peer-reviewed study that cites the grey literature is subsequently cited in another publication to refer to the information in the original non-peer reviewed source. This is a way to give the veneer of peer review to a non-peer-reviewed study. Here is an example of this dynamic.

Fun with Deadlines

The IPCC sets a deadline for when papers must be accepted in order to be considered in a particular assessment report. This guarantees that the assessment won’t have to be continually updated, but it also means that the assessment is automatically out-of-date in some case where new findings have been released. Because editors and journals have considerable discretion in when they publish what papers, the IPCC’s deadline can set the stage for some mischief in the publication process as papers with a particular slant are published before the deadline and other published after. I don’t have any data on this, but it’d be interesting to compare the time-to-publication of key papers cited in IPCC reports with a journal’s standard practices. This issue came to mind as I read this comment from RealClimate,

There are several more papers "in the mill" which we are not at liberty to discuss right now [Ed.- Embargoed, see below], which insure that the weight of peer-reviewed studies available for consideration in the next IPCC report will point towards a strengthening, not a weakening, of the IPCC '01 conclusions regarding the anomalous nature of recent hemispheric and global warmth in a long-term context.

Maybe it is just inartful language, but claims to “insure” previously found results do not make me comfortable about the agendas of climate scientists.

Embargoes as Silencers

This one is not about the IPCC, but Science and Nature. I was recently at a science talk at NCAR and a number of leading scientists refused to discuss their work because it would potentially be under “embargo” with Science or Nature, if accepted. My understanding is that embargoes refer to releasing papers accepted for publication to the media in advance of the artificial deadlines set by Science and Nature to generate news-worthiness. They do not apply to scientists talking among themselves in scientific settings. So when scientists use potential embargoes as a way to silence discussion and debate on their work, it reduces the internal vetting of scientific ideas and makes the leading journals the only place where debate can occur. Since Science and Nature are highly selective is what they allow as far as intellectual exchanges following up papers they publish, the entire process of scientific debate and learning is arguably slowed down. Meantime, this allows findings supporting one view or another to gain much greater standing in political debate than they might otherwise have.

Comments? Other observations?

Posted on January 27, 2006 08:41 AM View this article | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Two Interesting Articles

This post describes two papers that discuss different aspects of climate science, policy and politics. I don’t agree with everything argued in them, but they are thoughtful pieces of scholarship that challenge us to think. They are both worth a look.

In the journal Science Technology & Human Values Reiner Grundman has an interesting paper that makes the compelling argument that scientific consensus is neither necessary for sufficient for political action on climate change. He argues that the absence of a consensus did not limit progress on the ozone issue and the presence of a consensus has not forced progress on the climate issue. Instead, he argues the importance of political leadership. Here is the abstract:

Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 31, No. 1, 73-101 (2006) DOI: 10.1177/0162243905280024 © 2006 SAGE Publications
Ozone and Climate: Scientific Consensus and Leadership
Reiner Grundmann

Aston University

This article compares the cases of ozone layer protection and climate change. In both cases, scientific expertise has played a comparatively important role in the policy process. The author argues that against conventional assumptions, scientific consensus is not necessary to achieve ambitious political goals. However, the architects of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change operated under such assumptions. The author argues that this is problematic both from a theoretical viewpoint and from empirical evidence. Contrary to conventional assumptions, ambitious political regulations in the ozone case were agreed under scientific uncertainty, whereas the negotiations on climate change were much more modest albeit based on a large scientific consensus. On the basis of a media analysis, the author shows that the creation of a climate of expectation plus pressure from leader countries is crucial for success.

A second paper is by our Myanna Lashen also the journal Science technology & Human Values (here in PDF), and grapples with the contradictory impulse for more democratic decision making and the practical reality of the role of information limits and political power that shapes the ability of the public to weigh competing knowledge claims. She argues,

this study demonstrates that exposure to countervailing opinions does not necessarily result in a more informed, participatory, and critically aware citizenry, a necessary basis for legitimate policy making in policy arenas in which only probabilistic knowledge is possible. This study of U.S. climate politics highlights problematic aspects of how governments, international bodies, and political and vested interest groups have chosen to deploy science. It shows that these actors deploy science and the “symbols of science” (Toumey 1996) in ways that constrain public debate and critical, balanced understanding of the strengths and limitations of scientific knowledge.

Here is Lahsen’s conclusion,

As shown by countless social studies of science, science is intimately and inextricably interlinked with politics, and no transcendent definitions exist by which to distinguish true science from “pseudoscience.” Even peer-reviewed science produced by means of the scientific method of hypothesis, experimentation, and falsification is liable to error. But it is nevertheless a particularly rigorous basis for the production of knowledge, and it can and should enjoy greater consideration relative to claims that not only are produced by less rigorous methods but also are paid by, and designed to benefit, financial and political elites over the general good. As responsible citizens, we must learn how to recognize the difference and to define the general good by means of truly participatory processes.

Like all of her work, this piece is complex and rich in detail, and challenges you to think about the complexities and inconsistencies present in the real world of human action.

Posted on January 27, 2006 07:27 AM View this article | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

January 23, 2006

Big Knob Critique Response

In 2000, Dan Sarewitz, Bobbie Klein and I published a paper titled “Turning the Big Knob: Energy Policy as a Means to Reduce Weather Impacts” (PDF) in which we calculate the relative sensitivity of future tropical cyclone damages to the independent effects of changes in storm behavior under climate change to changes in societal vulnerability. For the changes in both storm behavior and societal vulnerability we used the assumptions of the IPCC. Brian Schmidt, who works for an environmental organization in San Francisco, and who occasionally has visited our website with always-thoughtful comments, has taken the time to write up a critique of our paper and post it on his blog. We appreciate the engagement. Brian graciously asked us for a response, so here it is.

First a correction, Schmidt states that “Climate will increase hurricane costs by about 40-50%, according to the studies cited in the paper.” This is what those early-1990s studies said, however, they used assumptions about changing hurricane intensity that were later revised downward by the IPCC. Using in the damage projection methods the actual numbers cited by the IPCC SAR for changing “maximum potential intensity” of tropical cyclones the projected increase in damages due only to the effect of changes in storms related to climate change is in fact about 8-10%. For close followers of this subject the numbers used by the SAR were about twice those projected in a subsequent paper by Knutson and Tuleya. This error is repeated throughout Schmidt’s post. It is worth noting that the general conclusions are pretty much insensitive to an error of this magnitude.

Schmidt offers three critiques of our paper. First, he writes, “it ignores the combined effects of climate change and increased economic value.” We have heard this before. The response is that we are performing a sensitivity analysis and not generating a prediction of future damages. Our point in this paper was to identify the independent effects of climate change versus societal change. It Schmidt would like to go ahead and add another factor that recognizes the fact that future damages will indeed be the result of the combined effects, he should go right ahead. This does nothing to change the fact that the independent effect of societal changes is larger than the independent effect of climate change by a factor of between 22 to 1 and 60 to 1. This is the case if combined effects are included or not.

Schmidt offers up this as a second critique, “Another major problem is the implicit assumption that by controlling land-use, one can in effect relocate away from global warming.” We said no such thing. What we did say is that if societal factors are far more responsible than climate change for the expected growing impacts of tropical cyclones, then from a policy perspective it is only logical that decisions related to societal vulnerability are likely to have greater potential to address those impacts. We discuss land use, but also forecasts and warnings (to save lives), reducing environmental degradation, enforcement of building codes and other policies. Relocation is not something that we discuss.

Schmidt’s third critique is even less appropriate, “A third major problem parallels the problem with Bjorn Lomborg's critique of a lack of economic analysis over global warming, particularly a lack of cost-benefit analysis.” We did not conduct a cost-benefit analysis, nor did we claim to, so it is hard to respond to this. We conducted a sensitivity analysis to ascertain where policy makers might have the greatest ability to influence future hurricane damages. What we found is that using the “big knob” of tuning global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is unlikely to be able to affect anything more than a very small portion of future tropical cyclone losses, and that this finding is very robust under all combinations of scenarios of climate change and societal change present in the IPCC SAR.

Schmidt offers three other minor critiques:

“ Damage estimates are artificially low because they come primarily from a time when hurricanes were at a low point in their long-term cycle. Recalibrating the damages to include more intense hurricane cycles we are experiencing now would give much larger figures.

Let’s accept this as true. It is irrelevant. Our analysis focused on how damages would increase as a multiple of a particular base year. Changing the base has no effect on the multiple, and has no effect on our sensitivity analysis.

“It's dated. It's from 2000, and relies extensively on 1996 IPCC assessments, which rely on still earlier studies. This isn't a flaw of the study itself, but rather than relying on it, the work should be done again with updated information.”

It is a 2000 paper. Nonetheless the analysis holds up exceedingly well as there has nothing that has occurred related to scientific understandings of tropical cyclones or projections of societal vulnerability that would change our basic conclusions. We do intend to update this analysis using the assumptions of the IPCC AR4 (we do have funded research on such sensitivity analyses under our SPARC project.). Better yet would be if the IPCC itself did such a sensitivity analysis, not just for tropical cyclones, but for every climate impact that is the joint function of climate and societal factors.

“It ignores costs resulting from redirecting land use.

We don’t claim to be doing a cost-benefit analysis, nor do we discuss relocation.

The bottom line is that the analysis is robust under a wide range of realistic and unrealistic scenarios for climate change and societal change. Even if we were to simply assume that the IPCC SAR underestimated changes in future tropical cyclone intensity by 100% or 200% the qualitative implications of our paper would remain unchanged. I appreciate Schmidt’s comments that changing land use behavior is difficult. But the reality is that there is no basis for expecting that a global energy policy focused on stabilizing greenhouse gas offers a meaningful tool with which to modulate future tropical cyclone damages.

The lure of a “big knob” that can be tuned to an ideal state is indeed appealing, but in the case of tropical cyclones the sooner we recognize that effective policy will take place on the ground in thousands of vulnerable locations around the world that experience damage, then the more effective policy responses will be.

Posted on January 23, 2006 07:31 AM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

January 21, 2006

“Practically Useful” Scientific Mischaracterizations

Gavin Schmidt, NASA scientist and a RealClimate proprietor, and I have occasionally engaged in a bit of back-and-forth on issues of science and politics. I respect Gavin, and we have always enjoyed cordial relations, but as regular readers here will know, I have frequently criticized RealClimate for hiding an implicit political agenda behind the fig leaf of putative concern about scientific truth. A recent exchange between Gavin and I related to a recent post of mine provides a look behind the fig leaf, and more importantly illustrates how hiding behind science contributes to sustaining gridlock on climate policy.

My post made the case the statements of some climate scientists about the state of climate science are likely shaped by the overriding objective of the Framework Convention which is to prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference" in the climate system. Gavin and I both seem to agree that the ultimate of the Convention is not grounded in an accurate reading of how the world works. I’ll let Gavin explain the fundamental weakness in the Convention’s overriding objective:

”This post is based on a kind of false dichotomy, that there are two separates states of 'climate' - One which is benign and one which is 'dangerous' and that the sole scientific and political task is to ascertain when the switch is and presumably avoid it. Does it really need me to point out how over-simplisitic this is? The fact is that there will not be a global tipping point that pitches us into 'dangerous' terrrority, more like countless local tipping points (for ecosystems, climate, argiculture) that will come at varying points in the trajectory. The further along we go, the more damage will be done - it may not be a smooth increase but it is certainly not a binary system.”

But Gavin makes an interesting leap in a further entry when he says “there are no binary states 'benign' vs 'dangerous'. This is a completely separate question from whether it is practically useful for a policy to set an arbitrary limit as if there were.”

So what he is saying here is that in some situations it is OK for policy makers to mischaracterize how the world actually works if they find such mischaracterizations to be “practically useful.” My response to this was to ask a question:

“But I am curious why is it then that you folks at Real Climate focus so much on "getting the science right" in the climate debate but you draw the line when it comes to the implementation of the FCCC? Maybe as a practical matter it is useful for Senator Inhofe (from his perspectives) to mischaracterize the science? It is OK for the FCCC to mischaracterize how the world works but not Inhofe? Seems like you are saying that policies out of step with scientific understandings are OK if the goals are in one direction but not others. . . In a number of publications I (and others) have pointed to the impracticality of the current policy framework, in part because it does not reflect how the world actually works.”

Let’s take a look at some of the effects of the Framework Convention’s mischaracterization of how the world works for real-world outcomes:

Astonishingly, developing countries face barriers to getting resources to deal with climate disasters because they can’t prove that the climate-related impacts, such as disasters, that they have experienced have actually crossed the “dangerous interference” threshold. Consider this report of the International Institute for Sustainable Development,

”. . . if a country seeks funding for a project on flood prevention, the GEF would only be able to finance a portion proportional to the additional harm that floods have caused or will cause as a result of climate change, and the rest would have to be co-financed by some other body. The plea from LDCs [Least Developed Countries], particularly the SIDS [small island developing states], lies precisely on this paradox, in that even if funds are available in the LDC Fund, their difficulty of finding adequate co-financing, and the costly and cumbersome calculation of the additional costs, renders the financial resources in the LDC Fund, in practice, almost inaccessible.”

Obviously, it is practically impossible to distinguish any climate change signal in disasters. The Framework Convention does not appear to be grounded in economic reality either, as suggested by Nordhouas and Boyer (2000, PDF):

“. . . it appears that the strategy behind the Kyoto Protocol has no grounding in economics or environmental policy. The approach of freezing emissions at a given level for a group of countries is not related to a particular goal for concentrations, temperature, or damages. Nor does it bear any relation to an economically oriented strategy that would balance the costs and benefits of greenhouse-gas reductions.”

Stanford’s David Victor agrees,

“Diplomats have been trying to build an overly ambitious system for controlling greenhouse gases that is based on a fundamentally flawed architecture. . . Governments need to start thinking about the alternatives to the Kyoto Protocol approach.”

One of the great ironies of this situation is that from the perspective of the stated political objectives of the Bush Administration, it would have been far more “practically useful” for them to have signed on to Kyoto rather than flipping the bird to the rest of the world when they unilaterally pulled out of the Protocol. I made this case in a post here a while back. This up-is-down perspective can cause dissonance I know. I am in fact saying that the best way to stymie progress on the climate issue is to support the Framework Convention and its Kyoto Protocol and the best way to facilitate action is to argue the case for new and innovative options to the policy strategy outlined under the Framework Convention. Because everyone is pretty wedded to their positions, it is not surprising that this argument finds few supporters on either side of the current debate.

So to return to where we started on this post, when scientists overlook, excuse, or otherwise defend the inescapable reality that the Framework Convention is grounded in a vision of the world that does not square with how the world actually works, not only are they showing their political colors, but more importantly, they are contributing to the sustainability of the current gridlock on climate change. When leading scientists point out the inconsistency of the Article 2 of the Climate Convention with reality, then we might have an opportunity to discuss new and innovative policy options. And that is something that really would be practically useful.

Posted on January 21, 2006 09:18 AM View this article | Comments (30) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 19, 2006

On Donald Kennedy in Science, Again

In this week’s Science magazine editor Donald Kennedy opines that “Not only is the New Orleans damage not an act of God; it shouldn’t even be called a “natural” disaster.” Could it be that he sees the significance of millions of people and trillions of dollars of property in locations exposed to repeated strikes from catastrophic storms? Unfortunately, not at all.

Prof. Kennedy is a Johnny-come-lately to exploiting Katrina for political advantage on climate change. He writes, “As Katrina and two other hurricanes crossed the warm Gulf of Mexico, we watched them gain dramatically in strength. . . We know with confidence what has made the Gulf and other oceans warmer than they had been before: the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human industrial activity, to which the United States has been a major contributor.”

I suppose one could make the convoluted case that Prof. Kennedy is [just a bad writer/only talking about statistics/dumbing-down the science/anticipating inevitable future research results] and didn’t really mean to link Katrina’s damage (or Katrina) with global warming. But he did, clearly. The current state of science doesn’t support such claims. Let’s review:

From Kerry Emanuel’s homepage:

“Q: I gather from this last discussion that it would be absurd to attribute the Katrina disaster to global warming?
A: Yes, it would be absurd.”

From Webster et al.(2005) in Science (PDF):

“. . . attribution of the 30-year trends [in hurricane intensity] to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state.”

From RealClimate:

“. . .there is no way to prove that Katrina either was, or was not, affected by global warming. For a single event, regardless of how extreme, such attribution is fundamentally impossible.” (emphasis added)

From Rick Anthes at UCAR (who effectively used the “act of god” metaphor in his essay):

“Whatever the relationship between hurricanes and global warming turns out to be, it is not likely to be simple, and we will never be able to attribute a single event like Katrina to a changed climate.”

If you want to read about Katrina not being an “act of God” I’d recommend this thoughtful essay by former national park service director Roger Kennedy. We criticized Donald Kennedy just last week for advocating policies related to extreme weather events that simply cannot work, and this week he backs that up with more of the same. If one actually cares about the impacts of hurricanes, it makes no sense to express concern about hurricane damage without at all mentioning coastal population growth and development. As I have written previously, our continuing focus on the issue of hurricanes and global warming is not simply about getting the science right. It is about advocating policies that can save lives and mitigate damage. Global warming is important, hurricanes are as well, but you can’t kill those two birds with a single stone. You can’t (PDF).

For an argument for policies that hold far more promise for dealing with hurricane impacts than those being advocated by Professor Kennedy, have a look at this op-ed (in PDF) that Dan Sarewitz and I had in the L.A. Times last fall. Reflecting upon Prof. Kennedy’s recent editorials, I not sure what is worse – the repeated advocacy of really bad policy on the pages of the nation's leading scientific journal or the deafening silence of the relevant scientific community in the face of these arguments.

Posted on January 19, 2006 03:16 PM View this article | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

A Question for RealClimate

Here is a question for the RealClimate folks, which I hope that they will address on their site, and other relevant experts are welcome to respond as well:

What behavior of the climate system could hypothetically be observed over the next 1, 5, 10 years that would be inconsistent with the current consensus on climate change? My focus is on extreme events like floods and hurricanes, so please consider those, but consider any other climate metric or phenomena you think important as well for answering this question. Ideally, a response would focus on more than just sea level rise and global average temperature, but if these are the only metrics that are relevant here that too would be very interesting to know.

Here is why I ask: I am in the midst of a professional exchange with colleagues related to some published work and the issue has been raised that certain observed climate phenomena are “consistent with” modeled results. But it seems to me that give the incredible number of model studies any observed behavior of the climate system is “consistent with” some model study that has been published somewhere by somebody. The way to make such a statement more meaningful would be to clearly distinguish a priori what observations would be “consistent with” from those that would be “inconsistent with” climate model behavior. I have often seen claims about “consistency” but never a discussion of what observed behavior of the climate system would be "inconsistent with" current expectations.

I have more than a passing interest in this question, having a long-time interest in the role of models (PDF) and predictions in decision making.

Thanks much for all responses.

Posted on January 19, 2006 09:21 AM View this article | Comments (40) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Past the Point of No Return?

Advocates for action on climate change are in an interesting double bind. One the one hand, some may feel that motivating action requires strong statements, such as we saw in comments from James Lovelock reported in The Independent earlier this week, that human-caused climate change has “passed the point of no return.” On the other hand, if it becomes generally accepted that we have indeed passed the “point of no return” then this condition would render irrelevant the central objective of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), under which the Kyoto Protocol is negotiated, requiring a new debate on the basic objectives of international climate policy.

The central objective of the FCCC is described in its Article 2 as “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” But if dangerous anthropogenic interference has already occurred or is inevitably on its way, then “prevention” is not in the cards and Article 2 becomes meaningless. And re-opening up Article 2 for revision would be extremely contentious, which in my view would not necessarily be a bad thing. So to be consistent with the FCCC, those calling for action have to walk a careful line between rendering the FCCC obsolete yet still making a strong case for immediate action, hence the double bind.

I would expect that we will see this double bind play out implicitly in the context of the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as in the public statements of scientists on climate change. For scientists who support the FCCC, the only “politically correct” interpretation of the state of climate science is to claim that we are approaching a point of no return, and that we have a brief window of, say, 10 to 20 years to take action. Any other position on the science of climate change could be interpreted as rendering the Framework Convention moot (i.e., past the point of no return), or not generating a sufficient motivation for near-term action (e.g., a longer time-frame for action).

We should fully expect to see this dynamic play out as a debate among those advocating action on climate change. Those who are hip to the implications of claiming that we are “past the point of no return” will find themselves contradicting those who are unaware of the political consequences of such strong statements. I’d bet that there already such statements from politically-savvy scientists in response to Lovelock’s recent claims. All of this might be good for climate policy as re-opening discussion of Article 2 is desperately needed (e.g., see this paper in PDF for more discussion of the pathologies associated with the FCCC and its Article 2).

Posted on January 19, 2006 08:08 AM View this article | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 17, 2006

Myanna Lahsen's Latest Paper on Climate Models

Myanna Lahsen is an anthropologist who spent about seven years embedded within the "tribe" of climate modelers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. She is presently a research scientist here at our Center, and for the last several years she has been conducting fieldwork in Brazil on the "interplay of science, culture, power and politics in international affairs through a focus on the Large-Scale Biosphere Atmosphere (LBA) experiment." Her project website is here. Her work is rich in detail and strong in weaving together analysis from data collected through participant-observation.

Myanna just had a very interesting paper come out on climate models:

Lahsen, M., 2005. Seductive Simulations? Uncertainty Distribution Around Climate Models, Social Studies of Science, 35:895-922. (PDF)

The paper will be of interest to scholars in STS because it provides an alternative (and much needed) perspective on Mackenzie's somewhat influential notion of the "certainty trough." If you are interested in Myanna's critique and elaboration of Mackenzie's perspective, then have a look at the full paper. For those folks interested in the perspectives of climate modelers on uncertainty with respect to their models, I thought that a few excerpts from Myanna's recent paper might be worth pulling out and highlighting. However, given the richness of the paper and importance of context for understanding her arguments, I would still encourage you to have a look at the whole paper. Meantime, the excerpts below will give you a sense of her analysis and arguments.

She starts by noting that her purpose is not to criticize models or modelers but to focus on how their creators understand them and their uncertainties. This is a particularly important subject because climate modelers are important contributors to policy debates and discussions on climate change.

"Climate models are impressive scientific accomplishments with importance for science and policy-making. They also have important limitations and involve considerable uncertainties. The present discussion focuses on uncertainties about the realism of climate simulations - rather than the models' significant strengths - in order to highlight features of models that are overlooked when their output is taken at face value." (p. 898)

Lahsen observes that in practice climate scientists routinely confused their modeled world with the real world.

" During modelers' presentations to fellow atmospheric scientists that I attended during my years at NCAR, I regularly saw confusion arise in the audience because it was unclear whether overhead charts and figures were based on observations or simulations. . . In interviews, modelers indicated that they have to be continually mindful to maintain critical distance from their own models. For example:
Interviewer: Do modelers come to think of their models as reality?

Modeler A: Yes! Yes. You have to constantly be careful about that [laughs].

He described how it happens that modelers can come to forget known and potential errors:

[Modeler A:] You spend a lot of time working on something, and you are really trying to do the best job you can of simulating what happens in the real world. It is easy to get caught up in it; you start to believe that what happens in your model must be what happens in the real world. And often that is not true . . . The danger is that you begin to lose some objectivity on the response of the model [and] begin to believe that the model really works like the real world . . . then you begin to take too seriously how it responds to a change in forcing. Going back to trace gases, CO2 models - or an ozone change in the stratosphere: if you really believe your model is so wonderful, then the danger is that it's very tempting to believe that the way it responds to a change in forcing must be right. [Emphasis added]

And as well in the following passage:

" Erroneous assumptions and questionable interpretations of model accuracy can, in turn, be sustained by the difficulty of validating the models in the absence of consistent and independent data sets. Critical distance is also difficult to maintain when scientists spend the vast majority of their time producing and studying simulations, rather than less mediated empirical representations. Noting that he and fellow modelers spend 90% of their time studying simulations rather than empirical evidence, a modeler explained the difficulty of distinguishing a model from nature:
Modeler B: Well, just in the words that you use. You start referring to your simulated ocean as 'the ocean' - you know, 'the ocean gets warm', 'the ocean gets salty'. And you don't really mean the ocean, you mean your modeled ocean. Yeah! If you step away from your model you realize 'this is just my model'. But [because we spend 90% of our time studying our models] there is a tendency to forget that just because your model says x, y, or z doesn't mean that that's going to happen in the real world.

This modeler suggests that modelers may talk about their models in ways they don't really mean ('you don't really mean the ocean, you mean your modeled ocean . . . '). However, in the sentence that immediately follows, he implies that modelers sometimes actually come to think about their models as truth-machines (they 'forget to step away from their models to realize that it is just a model'; they have a 'tendency to forget')."

Another modeler interviewed by Lahsen reinforces these perspectives:

" The following modeler suggests that the above tendencies are pervasive in the field of climate modeling:
Modeler D: There are many ways to use models, and some of them I don't approve of. [Pause] It is easy to get a bad name as a modeler, among both theoreticians and observational people, by running experiments and seeing something in the model and publishing the result. And pretending to believe what your model gives - or, even, really believing it! [small laugh] - is the first major mistake. If you don't keep the attitude that it's just a model, and that it's not reality . . . I mean, mostly people that are involved in this field really have that, they have the overtone that it is.

Interviewer: They do tend to think that their model is the reality?

Modeler D: Or even if they don't think that, they tend to oversell it, regardless.

Interviewer: And why do they oversell it?

Modeler D: Because people get wrapped up in what they have done. You know, I spent years building this model and then I ran these experiments, and the tendency is to think: 'there must be something here'. And then they start showing you all the wonderful things they have done . . . And you have to be very careful about that.

Confirming Shackley and Wynne's argument, modeler D suggests that modelers sometimes 'oversell' their models, strategically associating them with more certainty than is warranted. However, echoing others quoted earlier, Modeler D also suggests that modelers sometimes lose critical distance from their own models and come to think of them as reliable representations of reality . . . As GCMs incorporate ever more details - even things such as dust and vegetation - the models increasingly appear like the real world, but the addition of each variable increases the error range (Syukuro Manabe, quoted in Revkin, 2001)."

Lahsen reports similar conclusions related to another modeler that she interviewed:

" Modeler E, in the excerpt quoted above [Ed.- not shown here], distinguished some modelers from 'people who are interested in the real world'. He thus implied that modelers sometimes become so involved in their models that they lose sight of, or interest in, the real world, ignoring the importance of knowing how the models diverge from it. Recognition of this tendency may be reflected in modelers' jokes among themselves. For example, one group joked about a 'dream button' allowing them - Star Wars style - to blow up a satellite when its data did not support their model output. They then jokingly discussed a second best option of inserting their model's output straight into the satellite data output."

Lahsen's earlier work documented different perspectives between theoreticians (modelers) and empiricists (typically meteorologists or old-school climatologists), and reinforces that here.

" Modeler E noted that theoreticians and empiricists often criticize modelers for claiming unwarranted levels of accuracy, to the point of conflating their models with reality. My fieldwork revealed that such criticisms circulate widely among atmospheric scientists. Sometimes such criticisms portray modelers as motivated by a need to secure funding for their research, but they also suggest that modelers have genuine difficulty with gaining critical distance from their models' strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, they criticize modelers for lacking empirical understanding of how the atmosphere works ('Modelers don't know anything about the atmosphere'). . . In interviews, empiricists often voice criticisms along the lines of this one expressed by a meteorologist: 'I joke about modelers: they have a charming and naive faith in their models.' Such comments were especially common among empirical meteorologists trained in synoptic weather forecasting techniques, who conduct empirical research on a regional or local scale. They have not been centrally involved in the process of model development and validation, and thus may fall within MacKenzie's category of the 'alienated'. These empiricists trained in synoptic methods are particularly inclined to criticize GCMs. Such criticism may have to do with the fact that there is considerable resentment among various subgroups of atmospheric scientists about the increased use of simulation techniques, and such resentment may be echoed in other sciences in which simulations are ascendant . . . "

Lahsen describes the tensions between theoreticians and empiricists.

"Compared with modelers, such empirical research meteorologists with background in weather forecasting are part of a different social world; these two groups partake in different, albeit overlapping, social networks defined by different scientific orientations and cultural norms. The empiricists are less committed to GCMs or to the theory of human-induced climate change. They manifest skepticism about numerical forecasts in own creations. Simulation of complex, uncertain, and inaccessible phenomena leaves considerable room for emotional involvement to undermine the ability to recognize weaknesses and uncertainties. Empiricists complain that model developers often freeze others out and tend to be resistant to critical input. At least at the time of my fieldwork, close users and potential close users at NCAR (mostly synoptically trained meteorologists who would like to have a chance to validate the models) complained that modelers had a 'fortress mentality'. In the words of one such user I interviewed, the model developers had 'built themselves into a shell into which external ideas do not enter'.

But she also explains that they need each other.

" Generally speaking, atmospheric scientists are better judges than, for example policy-makers, of the accuracy of model output. However, the distribution of certainty about GCM output within the atmospheric sciences reveals complications in the categories of 'knowledge producers' and 'users', and the privileged vantage point from which model accuracies may be gauged proves to be elusive. Model developers' knowledge of their models' inaccuracies is enhanced by their participation in the construction process. However, developers are not deeply knowledgeable about all dimensions of their models because of their complex, coupled nature. Similarly, the empirical training of some atmospheric scientists - scientists who may be described as users - limits their ability to gauge GCM accuracies in some respects while enhancing their ability to do so in other respects; and, generally, they may have better basis than the less empirically oriented modelers for evaluating the accuracy of at least some aspects of the models. Professional and emotional investment adds another layer of complexity. Model developers have a professional stake in the credibility of the models to which they devote a large part of their careers. These scientists are likely to give their models the benefit of doubt when confronted with some areas of uncertainty. By contrast, some of the empirically trained atmospheric scientists, who are less invested in the success of the models, may be less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, maintaining more critical understanding of their accuracy."

We are in the process of getting all of her publications online accessible from her homepage, and will announce them when available. Meantime you can find the paper discusses above (here in PDF).

Posted on January 17, 2006 07:21 AM View this article | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 16, 2006

Indur Goklany's Rejected Nature Letter

Indur Goklany, of the U.S. Department of Interior, shared with us the letter reproduced below which he submitted to Nature and had rejected for publication, as is of course their prerogative. However the letter is interesting enough that we thought it to be worth sharing, with his permission. It is a response to an article by Patz et al. which appeared in Nature last November. Patz et al. repeated WMO claims that human-caused climate change causes over 150,000 lives annually, which comes from McMichael et al. 2004 (here in PDF). Last year we commented on this WHO report, taking a somewhat different perspective than Goklany does below. Have a look, it is an interesting letter. Goklany has also had some smart things to say in his publications about adaptation and climate change.

Goklany Letter

Sir - It is astonishing to find a review article in Nature (Patz, J.A., et al., Nature 438, 310; 2005), henceforth "the Review", whose major conclusion is taken from an analysis whose authors themselves acknowledge did not "accord with the canons of empirical science". Specifically, its estimate, that anthropogenic climate change already claims over 150,000 lives annually, is based on the Review's reference 57 which notes (on p. 1546)(1) that:

"Empirical observation of the health consequences of long-term climate change, followed by formulation, testing and then modification of hypotheses would therefore require long time-series (probably several decades) of careful monitoring.While this process may accord with the canons of empirical science, it would not provide the timely information needed to inform current policy decisions on GHG emission abatement, so as to offset possible health consequences in the future." [Emphasis added.]

In other words, science was sacrificed in pursuit of a pre-determined policy objective. But, absent serendipity, one cannot base sound policy on poor science. Sound science is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for sound policy.

Furthermore, the Review's policy pronouncement that "precautionary approaches to mitigating anthropogenic greenhouse gases will be necessary" (p. 315), even if ultimately proven sound, is not based on any policy analysis. As it notes, "the regions with the greatest burden of climate-sensitive diseases are also the regions with the lowest capacity to adapt to the new risks" (p. 315). Thus, another method of reducing this burden would be to enhance these regions' adaptive capacity to cope with these diseases. This can be accomplished by either specifically reducing their vulnerability to these diseases or by advancing the underlying determinants of adaptive capacity, namely, economic development, human and social capital, and the propensity for technological change (which is tantamount to advancing sustainable development). (2, 3)

Either adaptive approach would reduce both "new" health risks due to climate change and "pre-existing" risks occurring in the absence of climate change. By contrast, greenhouse gas reductions would only address new risks. Moreover, the burden of disease from new risks in 2000, which the Review itself estimates was a twentieth of the pre-existing burden (4), will-if projections of the global populations at risk of malaria (5) and hunger (6) are any guide-remain smaller, at least through most of this century. Secondly, either adaptive approach would reduce the total burden more rapidly than emission reductions because of the climate system's inertia. Therefore, by comparison with emission reduction efforts, either adaptive approach would for the next few decades reduce climate-sensitive risks faster, by a greater amount and, as shown elsewhere, more economically.(4)

For these reasons, the Review's policy fix-"precautionary approaches to mitigating anthropogenic greenhouse gases while research continues on the full range of climate-health mechanisms and potential future health impacts" (p. 315)-is inadequate to the "global ethical challenge" posed by climate change (p. 315). In the short-to-medium term, it would save more lives, and therefore be more precautionary and ethical, to reduce vulnerability to urgent climate-sensitive problems (e.g., malaria and hunger) which currently kill millions each year, promote sustainable economic development and implement "no-regret" emission reduction policies while undertaking the research and development necessary to expand the universe of "no-regret" technological options so that, in the long term, deeper emission reductions, when and if they become necessary, can be more reasonably afforded. (4) Such an approach would help solve current problems without compromising the ability to address future problems.

Indur M. Goklany* *US Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240, USA; phone: 202-208-4951; Fax: 202-208-4867; e-mail: igoklany@ios.doi.gov (The views expressed here are not necessarily those of any branch of the US Government)

References

(1) McMichael, A. J. et al., in Comparative Quantification of Health Risks: Global and Regional Burden of Disease due to Selected Major Risk Factors (eds Ezzati, M., Lopez, A. D., Rodgers, A. & Murray, C. J. L.) Ch. 20, 1543-1649 (World Health Organization, Geneva, 2004).

(2) Goklany, I.M., Energy & Environment 14, 797-822 (2003).

(3) Goklany, I.M., Energy & Environment 16, 667-680 (2005).

(4) World Health Organisation. The World Health Report 2002 (WHO, Geneva, 2002).

(5) Arnell, N. W. et al., Clim. Change 53, 413-446 (2002).

(6) Parry, M. L. et al., Glob. Environ. Change 14, 53-67 (2004).

Posted on January 16, 2006 07:13 AM View this article | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 15, 2006

Re-Politicizing Triana

University of Maryland's Bob Park, a generally reliable and always interesting commentator on science issues, falls well short of his usual standards in today's New York Times in an op-ed on the termination of the NASA Triana satellite. Park chooses to go after cheap political points rather than engage the real substance of policy issues involving the convoluted and controversial history of Triana.

Park bemoans the termination of Triana and asks ominously, "Why did NASA kill a climate change project?". He suggests a sinister conspiracy within the Bush Administration to "avoid the truth about global warming" and to transfer their "hated" of Al Gore onto the project he first proposed in 1998. Supposedly coming to Vice president Gore in dream, the original idea for Triana was based on putting a high definition TV camera far out in space where the satellite's 24-7-365 view of the Earth would inspire people to be better stewards of our planet. In 1998 the Clinton White House issued a press release on Triana, which described the proposal as follows:

"Vice President Gore proposed today that NASA scientists and engineers design, build and operate a satellite that will make available a live image of earth 24 hours a day on the Internet ... "This new satellite, called Triana, will allow people around the globe to gaze at our planet as it travels in its orbit around the sun for the first time in history," Vice President Gore said. "With the next millennium just around the corner, developing this High Definition TV quality image of the full disk of the continuously lit Earth and making it available 24 hours a day on the Internet will awaken a new generation to the environment and educate millions of children around the globe. This new space craft will be carried into low earth orbit where a small motor will place it in orbit 1 million miles from earth at the L1 point (short for the Lagrangian libration point), the point between the earth and sun where gravitational attractions are balanced. The satellite will carry a small telescope and camera to provide these new compelling images ... These images of the earth moved thousands of Americans and encouraged them to become active stakeholders in our planet's wellbeing, Vice President Gore said."

NASA, no fools when it comes to responding to influential policy makers, reacted quickly to the Vice President's proposal and set up a program. But positive feelings did not last long within NASA. In 1999, NASA's inspector general issued a report (here in PDF) that was extremely critical of Tirana's cost and mission, writing,

"In the context of NASA's constrained budget and the widespread availability of satellite pictures of the Earth, we are concerned about the cost and changing goals of the Triana mission. A relatively simple and inexpensive mission focused primarily (though not exclusively) on inspiration and education has evolved into a more complex mission focused primarily on science. The added scientific capabilities will increase the amount of data gathered by the mission, but they will also increase the mission's total cost. In addition, due to the mission's circumscribed peer review process,1 we are concerned that Triana's added science may not represent the best expenditure of NASA's limited science funding."

In 2000, the National Research Council issued a letter report on the scientific aspects of Triana, which gave a luke-warm endorsement of the mission, concluding:

"The task group found that the scientific goals and objectives of the Triana mission are consonant with published science strategies and priorities for collection of climate data sets and the need for development of new technologies. However, as an exploratory mission, Triana's focus is the development of new observing techniques, rather than a specific scientific investigation."

The NRC report was widely spun by advocates of Triana as an "endorsement" of the mission. This prompted Bob Harriss, formerly of NASA, and me to write a letter to Science in which we wrote:

"In the case of Triana, by focusing exclusively on "scientific merit," the NRC report neglected two important aspects of program evaluation: the cost-effectiveness and opportunity costs associated with the mission--which are particularly important given that no recently published NRC reports called for a mission such as Triana as part of the nation's remote sensing strategy. The opportunity costs of Triana go beyond those expressed in budgets to include research community time and focus, adherence to scientific goals, and ultimately scientific credibility. To provide two examples of questions that should have been addressed: Would national needs be better served if the resources devoted to Triana were instead focused on the widely supported goal of a synthetic aperture radar satellite mission? A series of successful Earth Science Enterprise satellite missions is providing a deluge of new data to the scientific community: Might national needs be better served by additional funds for analysis and applications of these data? But the NRC panel did not address such broader issues, stating that it "lacked the proper expertise, resources, and time to conduct a credible cost or cost-benefit analysis ... or an analysis of the mission goals and objectives within the context of a limited NASA budget or relative to other Earth Science Enterprise missions". It is exactly these issues that matter most in science and space policy decision-making. By focusing only on scientific merit, the NRC not only neglected the needs of decision-makers for a comprehensive perspective, but it provided an opportunity for the misuse of the report. Immediately after the NRC report was released, partisans were "spinning" it as an endorsement of the mission, misrepresenting the report's narrow focus on scientific merit under an assumption of successful implementation. Whether or not Triana makes sense as a component of the nation's remote sensing agenda would require consideration of the issues neglected by the NRC panel, including Triana's contributions to meeting its other rationales, such as education and space weather forecasting ... We have no reason to believe that Triana should not be a component of the nation's remote sensing infrastructure; however, the existing process has not shown why the mission should play such a role. The Triana experience provides a clear example of how the scientific community too often neglects asking and answering the difficult, but necessary, questions involved with effectively advising policy-makers on the nation's scientific priorities. Ultimately the soundness of the nation's scientific endeavors is at stake."

And this brings us back to Bob Park's New York Times op-ed today. Park continues the politicized legacy of Triana carrying the weight of political arguments of one sort or another, and while Park decries this, he perpetuates it by suggesting a sinister political motivation behind its termination. While perspectives on Triana are no doubt shaped by its unique origins, the reality is that has never occupied a high priority role in research priorities set forth by the climate science community, its costs ballooned and took resources from other earth and space science programs that had gone through community peer review (here in PDF, and it required a space shuttle flight of which there are exceedingly few left.

Park is going pretty far out on a limb when he suggests that Triana is a key resource in settling the climate change debate. It's not. To suggest otherwise is to either mischaracterize the current state of climate science, which has a robust consensus, or to mischaracterize the scientific value of Triana. There are lots of reasons to criticize the Bush Administration's approach to climate policy, but its support of research is not among them.

So, why did NASA kill Triana? Perhaps for some very legitimate reasons.

In his op-ed Bob Park choose scoring cheap political points rather than contributing to more effective science policy. He neglects important factors in favor of trying to place blame on the Bush White House for its alleged pursuit of a political vendetta and avoidance of scientific truth. In doing so, Park perpetuates the increasingly popular myth that science policy decision making is as simple as checking party identification. This is not just wrong, it threatens our ability to make effective science policy decisions.

Posted on January 15, 2006 10:16 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Space Policy

January 13, 2006

Does Disaster Mitigation Mask a Climate Change Signal in Disaster Losses?

Based on the current peer-reviewed literature, it absolutely does not. This post explains why this is the case.

One reaction to our work on attribution of factors responsible for the increase in weather-related losses worldwide has been to claim that successful disaster mitigation, that is, the protection of people and property from losses related to extreme events, has masked the role of climate change in driving increasing disaster losses. Such claims are not backed up by data or analysis.

For example, in his response to a comment (here in PDF) in Science Evan Mills asks, "What are the offsetting effects of human efforts to curb losses (building codes, early warning systems, fire protection, flood defenses, land-use planning, crop irrigation, etc.)?" He provides an answer to this question in his original paper:

"Many human activities mask losses that would otherwise manifest in the trend data. These include improved building codes, early-warning systems, flood control, electric load-shedding to avoid blackouts during heatwaves, disaster preparedness and response, and land-use planning. Insurer actions to reduce their exposures produce a dampening effect on observed insured costs. Untangling these offsetting factors is a necessary part of any comprehensive attribution analysis and has not been dealt with satisfactorily in the literature."

The argument here seems to be that successful mitigation efforts remove a portion of losses that otherwise would have occurred and with them they remove a signal of climate change. This argument is flawed for two reasons. First, it is logically incoherent. The effects of mitigation on losses are unrelated to climate signals. Mitigation modulates the exposure of population and wealth, it does not affect the underlying climate signal in the data. Hurricane Andrew will cost more than a category one storm taking the same path, regardless of level of mitigation. Second, a close look at actual disaster data shows that any signal of mitigation is exceedingly small in the context of the inexorable growth in population and wealth exposed to the effects of extreme events. In fact, it is not clear in many cases if mitigation efforts have had a positive or negative effect on losses. While documenting the costs and benefits of mitigation is important from the standpoint of disaster mitigation policy, by all indications it is largely irrelevant to this issue of attribution of trends in disaster losses as related to climate and societal factors. Let's consider each of these factors in turn.

Logically it makes sense that disaster mitigation affects the societal contribution to the disaster loss record, but not the climate contribution. This is explicit in the definition of disaster mitigation, which refers to "a sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk to people and property from natural hazards and their effects" (Source: FEMA PDF). When we look at a long-term trend in disaster losses, to identify a climate signal one of the first methodological steps is to adjust the data in a way that removes a societal signal from the loss data, by adjusting the data to some base year's losses, seeking to leave only those trends and variations that result from the physical behavior of the extreme weather phenomena. Successful mitigation actually contributes to this end by "dampening" the societal signal of increased wealth and population.

If the effects of mitigation were large enough and exhibited a systematic trend over time, then they would indeed be important factors to consider in loss normalization. There is no evidence that this is the case and ample evidence to the contrary (see below). At some point those who assert a climate change signal is disaster data will have to get their hands dirty with actual data analysis and research, rather than vigorous "proof bys assertion" (I couldn't resist).

There is the hypothetical situation where the mitigation efforts completely eliminate any damages whatsoever. In this case, a climate signal would of course be eliminated from the loss record, as the loss record itself would be terminated. Such situations are rare but not unprecedented. One example of this was shown to us in a recent seminar by Hans von Storch on North Sea storm surges which shows that the structural mitigation put in place after the North Sea floods of 1962 have eliminated damages in that region since that time making it impossible to glean climate trends from storm surge losses. But so long as the extreme event results in any damages at all, mitigation activities do not "mask" a climate signal. More intense events and more frequent events will still result in more damages than less and less intense events. In principle, successful mitigation may reduce the magnitude of societal growth on losses, but do not affect the ability to detect a climate signal in the loss record.

One way that mitigation effects might be seen in a long-term record of disasters is if one were to adjust the data for population and wealth, and if climate events are shown to have no trend, then the remaining trend in the adjusted dataset would necessarily be due to changing characteristics in the population and wealth, which might include the effects of mitigation. Successful mitigation would result in a long-term decline in losses, all else being equal. So for example, if we look at flood damages in the United States we find that losses per capita have increased while losses per unit wealth have in fact decreased (see this 2000 paper in PDF). These twin trends are consistent with the conclusion that when wealth and population are considered together in the context of a long-term trend if increasing precipitation, that mitigation has had a tangible effect on losses per unit wealth, and the increasing losses per capita reflect the growing wealth per capita. As we argued in the 2000 paper:

"after the variability in precipitation is accounted for, a significant decreasing trend is found in damage per unit wealth. This would suggest that the vulnerability of tangible property to flood damage has declined (perhaps because of successful flood policies), and the total damage has increased simply because of growth in total wealth."

So while it is possible that mitigation has had a discernible impact, it does not mask or otherwise preclude an analysis that concludes, as we did that, "the growth in recent decades in total damage is related to both climate factors and societal factors: increased damage is associated with increased precipitation and with increasing population and wealth. At the regional level, this study reports a stronger relationship between precipitation measures and flood damage, and indicates that different measures of precipitation are most closely related to damage in different regions. This study suggests that climate plays an important, but by no means determining, role in the growth in damaging floods in the United States in recent decades." (Note: For those interested in changes in precipitation, globally they have not been attributed to human caused climate change, see this discussion.)

So the presence of mitigation policies related to flooding precluded neither the identification of a small climate signal in the loss data nor identifying the much larger signal of societal changes, nor the relationship of the two. We found a similar result when we looked at hurricane damage and ENSO. (Hurricane damage is obviously a much more straightforward case for discerning climate-society relationships.) Efforts to mitigate hurricane impacts presented no obstacle to the identification of the climate signal of ENSO in the hurricane loss data (see this paper in PDF). We should not expect mitigation to mask climate signals because mitigation modulates only the societal signal in all cases except when it results in completely eliminating damages, which occurs in only exceedingly rare situations.

And perhaps troubling from the standpoint of disaster policy, a close look at loss data suggests that mitigation has a pretty small signal in any case. It may not even be positive in many instances. As FEMA notes, "Evaluating natural hazard mitigation is a complex and difficult undertaking which is influenced by several variables" (Source: FEMA PDF). The reason such evaluation is so difficult is that the signal of mitigation is small in the context of other factors. In his paper Mills selectively cites a study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which (in support of its efforts to justify building levees) asserts that, "estimates that flood control measures have prevented 80% of U.S. losses that would have otherwise materialized." Such studies have been widely criticized because flood control measures create the conditions that lead to flood damage in the first place. Tobin (1995) explains how this might be so:

"Once [a levee] has been constructed, however, the structure may generate a false sense of security to the extent that floodplain inhabitants perceive that all flooding has been eliminated. With the incentive to take precautions removed, few residents will be prepared for the remedial action in the event of future floods. Even more costly, however, this false sense of security can also lead to greater development in the so-called safe areas, thus adding to the property placed at risk when the levee does fail, the increase in development can actually raise losses even higher than if no local system has been constructed in the first place"

Something similar was observed in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. Surveys of damage found that homes built decades ago performed much better in the storm than homes built in recent years. Part of this was due to the style of home but also building quality and lack of effective inspections. So the effect of "mitigation" in the form of building practices was in fact to enhance vulnerability and thus increase losses as compared to past decades, which make in fact "mask" the actual costs of past storms estimated through normalization. Quantifying the effects of mitigation on losses has proven extremely difficult in aggregate loss trends because of the overwhelming influence of other societal factors.

So the methodology for distinguishing climate versus societal factors in the historical trend of increasing disaster losses remains unchanged by claims that disaster mitigation masks climate signals in loss data.

First, look to trends in climate events (e.g., frequency, intensity, location, etc.). If there are no trends identified, then it is impossible for trends in the events to be driving trends in the losses. If mitigation is in fact a significant factor this should be clearly identifiable in loss data adjusted for growth in population and wealth in the context of well-established understandings of climate phenomena.

Second, adjust the loss data to reflect changes in wealth and population exposed to the extreme events. If mitigation does not eliminate losses, then it is unlikely to have any material impact on the normalization methodology from the standpoint of discerning the effects of climate trends in the loss record.

Merely asserting the presence of disaster mitigation is an insufficient argument to overcome the evidence available to date (PDF) that supports the hypothesis that the worldwide trend of increasing weather-related disaster losses can be explained just about entirely by growth in population and property exposed to damages. I am open to new evidence and in particular quantitative analyses that address this hypothesis, as it is completely plausible that changes in climate could drive trends in disaster losses. However, we haven't see such data or analysis shown yet.

Posted on January 13, 2006 07:45 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

January 10, 2006

Does Donald Kennedy Read Science?

In an editorial in the 6 January 2006 issue of Science editor Donald Kennedy writes, "The consequences of the past century's temperature increase are becoming dramatically apparent in the increased frequency of extreme weather events ..."

In a letter published in Science 9 December 2005 written to correct another set of unsupportable claims published in Science about extreme weather events, I wrote (here in PDF),

"Over recent decades, the IPCC found no long-term global trends in extratropical cyclones (i.e., winter storms), in "droughts or wet spells," or in "tornados, hail, and other severe weather"... A recent study by the International Ad Hoc Detection and Attribution Group concluded that it was unable to detect an anthropogenic signal in global precipitation."

And even though my brief discussion of hurricanes got lost in the page-proof process (a correction is pending), recent research indicates no increase in the global frequency of tropical cyclones (e.g., Webster et al. 2005), and no long-term increase in the number or intensity of storms striking the U.S. (e.g., Landsea 2005). In short, there is no evidence to support Prof. Kennedy's claim of an "increased frequency of extreme weather events" that can be attributed to increasing global temperatures.

This issue is about more than simply getting the science right. In advancing an explicitly political agenda from a very influential position, Prof. Kennedy is making claims for particular policy actions that won't work as advertised. As we have written umpteen times here, and backed with research, yes greenhouse gas reductions make sense, but not as a policy instrument for addressing the escalating societal impacts of extreme events. While I have sympathies for Prof. Kennedy's politics, as a matter of policy, Professor Kennedy's argument is simply wrong.

Posted on January 10, 2006 09:09 AM View this article | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

January 06, 2006

The Policy Gap on Climate Change

Do scientists who work on the climate issue have a responsibility to place their work into policy context, specifically, to help policy makers understand the significance of science for alternative courses of action?

Here I'll argue that the answer to this question is clearly "yes," based on a careful look at the historical record of justifications given for public investments in climate research, but that many scientists, including leaders in the community and the IPCC, believe that the answer is "no." Such a refusal to formally sanction, much less engage in, the invention and evaluation of new policy options is one very important reason why the climate issue remains in gridlock, with debate continuing over bad options all around.

(Note: To be fair, some limited progress has been made on connecting climate science and policy, particularly at the regional and sub-regional scales, but there is a long way to go. See this informative but deflating post from Lisa Dilling on the recent CCSP workshop on decision support.)

Before proceeding several clarifications are in order. First, by "climate science" I mean all of the work conducted under climate research programs, which includes physical science and social science (including economics), and summarized by all three Working Groups of the IPCC. My focus is not exclusively on WG I-type science. Second, many scientists and organizations are indeed involved in political advocacy on the climate issue, where political advocacy is defined as working to reduce the scope of choice available to decision makers. Such advocacy often takes the form of explicit endorsement of specific policies. But advocacy can also be "stealth advocacy" in the form more general endorsement of those who support particular policies, or more commonly, opposition of those who advocate a particular course of action, with such opposition typically expressed in terms of science. What is wrong with advocacy anyway, as it is a noble calling in a democracy? In general nothing, but in some situations ever more advocacy can actually contribute to sustaining a political gridlock when all available options are bad ones, as I argued last year in an essay criticizing advocacy efforts by national science academies. The climate change debate desperately needs a dramatic expansion of policy options under discussion, but where will these new and innovative options come from?

Not from the U.S. scientific community is one answer (and I think that this argument holds more broadly, but the examples below focus primarily on the U.S. where more than half of all climate research funding comes from). To understand this argument, I'll present a bit of history on science-policy interactions on the climate issue. I'll provide references at the bottom for those interested in further details or sources.

From the start, politicians put responsibility for action on climate change onto the shoulders of scientists. Al Gore was representative of this dynamic when he stated in 1984,

"The ability of political and economic institutions to respond to a challenge of this magnitude will depend in large part upon how the scientific community explains the problem, how much certainty it invests in that explanation, and how actively involved it becomes in spelling out what the clearly sensible choice might be."

Politicians are more than happy to hand off this hot potato to scientists because dealing with climate change means making decisions and making decisions, especially far-reaching ones, holds the prospect of upsetting important constituencies, which cannot be a good thing for most politicians.

For their part the scientific community, or at least its leadership, warmly accepted the responsibility for leading the response to climate change. In the late 1980s the scientific community organized a massive research program under an explicit policy mandate. The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was developed with the following goal:

"To gain an adequate predictive understanding of the interactive physical, geological, chemical, biological and social processes that regulate the total Earth system and, hence establish the scientific basis for national and international policy formulation and decisions "

Read that goal statement closely. It is important to recognize that the USGCRP was never proposed as a basic research program, it was proposed as a program to support policy making, with science as a means to that end, not the end itself. The USGRP is a policy research program that includes climate science as its focus. This focus was codified in a 1990 law (P.L. 101-606) calling for the USGCRP to support policy development (a detailed history of this law and its meaning can be found in Pielke 1995 referenced below). In 1989 before the law was passed a member of Congress expressed his reasons for supporting the program, "We [in Congress] are in desperate need of policy assistance. What are the ways - what are some of the things that we could do to increase the policy relevance of scientific research on global change?" The answer to this question was to initiate a large-scale climate research program with a policy mandate.

Now it was not too long after the law was passed that a number of members of Congress began asking for results. In 1993 a leading official of the USGCRP testified before Congress and was asked the following question,

"How much longer do you think it will take before [the USGCRP is] able to hone [its] conclusions down to some very simple recommendations, on tangible, specific action programs that are rational and sensible and cost effective for us to take . . . justified by what we already know?"

The USGCRP official provided a stunningly telling reply, "Whether [USGCRP] research can translate into actions to deal with the climate change problem . . . is not really the business of the [USGCRP]. That is where our job ends and, thank God, in some sense, other people's job starts"

What?!? Think about this; here we have a multi-billion dollar research program, justified as providing "useable information to policymakers," and a leading official of that program disavows the program's connection to action? Either the program was misjustified or mis-implemented (see Pielke 1995 cited below for a comprehensive argument to this effect, in short the program's goals were never clearly described so that scientists could think they were supported to do basic research, policy makers could expect relevant, and the different perspectives were not resolved).

Fast forward a decade to the Bush Administration which decided to rearrange the structure of U.S. climate research by creating a Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) as an umbrella over the USGCRP and a new effort, the Climate Change Research Initiative (note: I am PI on a major CCRI research program on climate science policy, SPARC). The new structure restated the policy focus of climate research, "The Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) [was] launched by the President in June 2001 to reduce significant uncertainties in climate science, improve global climate observing systems, and develop resources to support policymaking and resource management." And similarly to a decade earlier, the leadership of the program disavowed any responsibility for connecting research to policy, with its director stating in congressional testimony in 2003, "The CCSP studies and reports do not recommend specific policy options."

One difference between 1993 and 2003 was that some prominent observers began to complain about the situation. For example, Donald Kennedy, editor of Science, wrote a 2003 editorial titled "The Policy Drought on Climate Change" in which he complained about the focus of the CCSP as being too narrowly on basic research and too little on research on policy options. Yet much stayed exactly the same.

In 2003 Dan Sarewitz and I wrote an essay for Issues in Science and Technology making many of these points titled "Wanted Scientific Leadership on Climate" (cited below). Issues printed an incredible letter in response from a group of very prominent scientists whose names will be familiar to anyone working on the climate issue - Tom Wigley, Ken Caldiera, Martin Hoffert, Ben Santer, Michael Schlesinger, Steven Schneider and Kevin Trenberth. In the letter (here as PDF) these scientists, apparently unaware of the justifications and legislation behind the research program which supported their work, sought to rewrite history in terms of their own interests,

"The basic driver in climate science, as in other areas of scientific research, is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Furthermore, the desire of climate scientists to reduce uncertainties does not, as Pielke and Sarewitz claim, arise from the view that such reductions will be of direct benefit to policy makers"

Compare this statement to the goals of the USGCRP and CCRI described above, and there is an obvious mismatch, again leading one to the conclusion that climate research is either misjustified or mis-implemented. The letter-writers then further disavow an explicit connection between climate research and the needs of policy makers, perhaps unaware that this is in fact established in law,

"Of course, it would be nave to suppose that climate scientists live in ivory towers and are driven purely by intellectual curiosity. The needs of society raise some interesting and stimulating questions that are amenable to scientific analysis. It is true, therefore, that some of the research results that come from climate science are policy relevant. It is also true that scientists in the community are well aware of this. It is preposterous, however, to suggest that climate science is primarily policy driven."

Preposterous. Right. About as preposterous as looking at climate research program documents, public law, and congressional hearings to document the repeated justifications expressed by and scientists and policy makers for spending tens of billions of dollars of public monies on climate research.

The disengagement of the scientific community from discussion of policy options continues. For example, the IPCC eschews formal discussions of policy options (something it did not do in its first assessment report where it had an explicit mandate to consider policy options). The net result of the IPCC's disengagement from discussing policy options means that it has in practice fallen in behind the Framework Convention and rather than helping to lead policy discussions on climate change it has arguably become more of an instrument of political advocacy than policy analysis. By taking such a stance, the IPCC is quickly working itself towards complete policy irrelevance. When 2007 comes around decision makers will need information on what to do post-Kyoto, not arguments in support of Kyoto or Climate Convention Article 2.

I was motivated to describe this history by a valuable conversation over the past week on this blog post with several climate scientists that I respect who vigorously defended the proposition that climate scientists should steer clear of engaging in policy research or discussions that might help to expand or clarify the scope of policy alternatives available to decision makers.

One scientist captured (perhaps unwittingly) the perspective held by the vast majority of scientists that I engage with on this issue when he wrote, "Nothing is perfect in this world, and that includes your utopian dream where scientists seek to "expand the scope of choice". Sure, that's a great job for some people to do, and I'm all for it. I don't see why it has to necessarily be _my_ job just because my field of research may have some policy implications." By contrast, in the U.S. at least climate research is supported for exactly this reason. For researchers who accept funding under the CCSP/USGCRP engaging policy is your job.

So my response to climate scientists who decry the pace of action on climate change, criticize the policies of Bush Administration, battle those nefarious climate skeptics, or their perceived mischaracterizations of their science in the media is as follows:

It may be wise to understand the justifications for the ample funds that our fields received from the public. Tens of billions of dollars in research support are provided not because the public or politicians share our innate curiosity in the behavior and implications of climate phenomena, but instead because they want policy options that are politically feasible, technically possible, and economically viable. When you complain about the lack of action, ask yourself where policy options come from. Then go look in the mirror.

References

Pielke Jr., R. A., 1995: Usable Information for Policy: An Appraisal of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Policy Sciences, 38, 39-77. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2000: Policy History of the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Part I, Administrative Development. Global Environmental Change, 10, 9-25. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2000: Policy History of the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Part II, Legislative Process. Global Environmental Change, 10, 133-144. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2001: The Development of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, A Policy Case Study Prepared for the 2001 American Meteorological Society Policy Symposium, June. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A. and D. Sarewitz, 2003. Wanted: Scientific Leadership on Climate, Issues in Science and Technology, Winter, pp. 27-30. (PDF)

Posted on January 6, 2006 09:47 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

January 04, 2006

Relevant but Not Prescriptive Analysis

Continuing a series of posts this week about the role of scientists in politics I'd like to call attention to a very interesting 2002 paper by Fulton T. Armstrong in the journal Studies in Intelligence. If Armstrong's name sounds familiar it may be because it came up last year in the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations as someone who has bumped heads with Bolton, and had been demoted as a result. See this article for some background.

Armstrong's article is titled, "Ways to Make Analysis Relevant But Not Prescriptive" and if this title also sounds familiar it may be because this is the same phrase used by the IPCC (e.g., here in PDF) to describe its relationship with policy in its work. In my comments below I'll contrast Armstrong's view on this subject with that of the IPCC, and my critique of some of the IPCC's practices related to policy analysis. The IPCC never defines what it means by "relevant but not prescriptive," but it seems pretty clear that however it uses the term it is not the same meaning as Armstrong suggests that it should be defined.

What follows are some excerpts from Armstrong's article, which is very interesting, but certainly not comprehensive on this subject. Let's start with Armstrong's "bottom line" and then I'll offer some comments on particularly interesting passages.

"The policymaker (or his or her boss) was elected by the American people to make value judgments. It is our job to develop a framework to help policymakers weigh multiple options, but their job to determine how to react to challenging situations, from turning the other cheek to staging a full confrontation. It is our job to discern whether the Argentine government's new economic policies will enable it to survive and satisfy people's needs, but it is the policymakers' job to determine whether Argentina's steps warrant US and IMF help. It is our job to assess the intentions, strengths, and vulnerabilities of violent groups, such as the Colombian FARC insurgents, but it is the prerogative of senior US officials to brand them "terrorists" and include them in the Global War on Terrorism. It is our job to provide information on whether the Cuban government is supporting terrorist activities, but it is the policymakers' choice whether to keep Cuba on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. It is the decisionmakers' prerogative to decide whether rhetoric hostile to a US policy-say, criticism of the war in Afghanistan-is a "setback" for the US national interest in absolute terms.

The Intelligence Community should provide policymakers with analytic products that are realistic and reflect a range of legitimate interpretations of events and their implications for the United States. We should be the radiologists: We take the picture and read the spots on it to the best of our ability, but we leave the diagnosis and cure to the doctors. We should provide the facts and possible interpretations of them, but not apply a value ruler. Our products should reflect an awareness of the immutable "national interests" as well as the range of policy options and political preferences-and not prejudge them for the policymaker."

The key here is found in the last statement. Armstrong sees that "not applying a value ruler" occurs not by ignoring policy, but by being aware of and engaged in policy analysis, by providing a range of options for policy makers to consider. This stands in stark contrast to the behavior of the IPCC, which stands at arms length from explicit discussion of policy options, yet expresses a clear preference throughout for certain policy options over others.

He starts his essay with some humor,

"The CIA is neither a policy nor a law-enforcement agency-this is our mantra from the day that we sign on. Analysts do not have policy preferences. Analytic products do not lean in specific policy directions.

The Agency produces intelligence free from political bias. We say implicitly that we focus on national interests, not the policy or political interests of an administration or the Congress. Every piece of intelligence we produce is to be both policy relevant and-despite the correlation between relevance and the political stakes behind it-reflect a non-politicized interpretation of the national interest. We say we can swim without getting wet."

In other words, politics imbues the work of the CIA, despite statements to the contrary.

"The complex dynamics that underpin policy preferences are part of living in the real world. Priorities are never as clear-cut as policy rhetoric would have them. It is the responsibility and prerogative of the policymakers to determine how conflicting interests will be prioritized for their purposes. It is particularly tough when policymakers' appetites for intelligence contributions do not correlate closely with the lofty priorities we think we should be supporting. Indeed, many of us have worked late into the night to meet a policymaker request for intelligence on a matter that is presented as being of urgent national interest, only to find out later that our support was used to help one side in a bureaucratic dogfight."

In other words, sometimes intelligence is used to support pre-determined political objectives. Shocker!

"The temptation to take sides in policy debates is strong, but analysts can run into trouble even inadvertently, because there are so many types and levels of "national interest." If we are not careful, sections that address "Implications for the United States" can become policy-prescriptive simply by describing a positive outlook that coincides with a policy direction or expressing pessimism about a foreign country's course of action, and can appear to "poke the policymaker in the eye," as former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates used to say."

The IPCC has run into considerable trouble on this count, exactly as Armstrong describes, starting with it schizophrenic approach to the concept of "climate change" itself (see this PDF).

Armstrong argues that being relevant but not prescriptive requires having an awareness of the political and policy terrain. Ignorance of or attempting to ignore this context is not helpful

"To stay clear of minefields, the crucial first step is to consciously assess the different categories into which US interests fall-not an easy task because all interests seek to cloak themselves as "national" interests. To do that, in my opinion, requires intelligence professionals to follow the policy and political debates and know where various policymakers and politicians are drawing the lines on national interests.

Our job is to remain outside the policy and political process, not to be ignorant of it. To navigate around the shoals of debate, we have to know where the points of contention are. We can garner only a piece of this from policymaker "feedback" on analysis, although such channels of communication are important. In my personal experience, feedback should always be taken with a grain of salt. Administration officials are human, and it is natural for them to favor information that supports their views.

Policymakers usually are not eager to challenge us or put opposing views on the table-because they see no benefit in questioning the conclusions, want to avoid the appearance of unduly influencing analysis, or are too harried to take the time. Periodic internal reviews of our work provide more meaningful insights into the quality and timeliness of our support to policymakers. Analysts should also seek information from outside the administration-from public forums, nongovernmental organizations, and Capitol Hill. Analysts should be versant in the policy and political sides of their stories. Savvy intelligence requires it."

The second part of the preceding excerpt warns of the dangers of relying too much on feedback from policy makers as a source for evaluating the effectiveness of intelligence. The IPCC has highlighted its role in support the Climate Convention and Kyoto Protocol (discusses here), but with more and more observers asserting that Kyoto is a very, very small step forward at best (a dismal failure at worst), it is fair to question how effective the IPCC has actually been in supporting decision making on climate. Positive statements from people responsible for implementation of the Convention are valuable of course, but not definitive.

Armstrong calls for internal and external reviews of intelligence activities, which is something that the IPCC and its supporters have openly and vigorously resisted.

"Use alternative analysis. Single-line analysis entails selectivity in the use of evidence and argumentation and, therefore, results in a relatively narrow interpretation of US interests. Explorations of alternative possibilities are more intellectually honest, prejudge policy preferences less, and have a longer shelf life. Reinterpreting evidence based on a recognition that the assumptions, drivers, and implications in our main line of analysis may be wrong or skewed can force us to recognize the legitimacy of different perspectives and keep us from getting too close to one policy thrust or another."

The IPCC is focused on developing a "consensus" view on climate science. However, evidence exists that in some areas the IPCC's consensus may not accurately reflect scientific opinion among relevant experts. For example, this forthcoming paper by Granger Morgan and colleagues finds that the consensus view on uncertainties associated with aerosol forcing reported by the IPCC dramatically underestimates the uncertainties actually held by the relevant experts, they conclude, "The range of uncertainty that a number of experts associated with their estimates, especially those for total aerosol forcing and for surface forcing, was often much larger than that suggested in 2001 by the IPCC Working Group 1 summary figure." It may very well be that policymaking is better support by a presentation of the full ranges of uncertainty rather than through idealized constructs of consensus, (see this essay in PDF). The great irony here is that the best way to deflate the efforts of legitimate skeptics of any sort is to invite them into the fold and have them present their views as part of the diversity of perspectives on complex, contested scientific issues. Not allowing them to participate enhances their legitimacy and credibility, particularly in situations like that documented by Morgan et al. where the assessment report understates the uncertainties as view by the relevant community.

"Merely to warn is somewhat extortionary; it tells policymakers that we see circumstances harmful to national interests according to a single interpretation of them. It covers our rear ends-we can always say we "told you so"-but it leaves the policymakers exposed, often without providing actionable intelligence that would help them develop a viable remedy. Good opportunity analysis, on the other hand, provides the policy community with an inclusive assessment of how various US interests are affected by evolving circumstances. Done right, opportunity analysis reflects the complex array of interests that policymakers are trying to juggle. If a foreign government is headed toward a decision harmful to a US interest, analysts may see opportunity to promote other interests, perhaps as a quid pro quo. Foreign policy does not follow a straight line; analysis should not either."

I interpret "opportunity analysis" here to be equivalent to a discussion of policy options. The IPCC in seeking to describe a problem requiring action short changes politicians when it fails to follow through with a wide-ranging discussion of specific policy options (i.e., taken by who, how, where, at what costs?) rather than broad hand waving at best and stealth policy advocacy at worst.

The Armstrong essay provides lots to think about and discuss. Read the whole thing "here".

Posted on January 4, 2006 01:28 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

December 30, 2005

David Keith on Air Capture

David Keith sends in this thoughtful response to my recent post on air capture.

Author: David Keith

While Roger raises some interesting points, I think the original post overstates the near-term importance of air capture. In speculating about the potential importance of air capture, I find myself caught between two very different possible futures.

In one future, which we might call the linear future, I assume that we live in a world in which carbon prices/constraints are (roughly) equal across economic sectors and in which they increase gradually, and in which they gradually apply to a larger and larger set of countries. This world is the subject of most economic models of the climate problem. In this world, it will be a very long time before air capture technologies become economically competitive, if indeed they ever do.

There is however, an alternative, nonlinear future. It has been 40 years since the climate problem was first brought to the attention of policymakers (the first report to a US president that stated the climate problem in modern terms was to Johnson in 1965). We have done very little. Despite the best efforts of many of us, it seems to me plausible that little but talk will be achieved in the next few decades. This may be particularly likely if some other major problem (e.g., a global pandemic) helps to keep climate off the front burner. When the world finally ask seriously to manage the climate problem, it may do so in a climate of crisis. Perhaps spurred on by scientific findings such as evidence of impending ice sheet collapse and rapid sea level rise. In such a world we might manage the climate problem by spending 5% or 10% of world GDP for a decade or two rather than addressing the problem slowly and smoothly at a rate of 1% of GDP over most of the century as is typically assumed in climate policy discussions. In such a world, options like air capture might be useful because they could be implemented comparatively quickly precisely because they are partially decoupled from the worlds energy infrastructure.

While I, of course, prefer the first world. The second seems plausible, however, given that governments often find themselves able to manage only a few problems at once and operate by ignoring problems until some combination of circumstances puts them at the top of the policy agenda.

Such a world might well consider not only air capture but more radical approaches such as albedo geoengineering. I think geoengineering is among the more credible claimants to the title of "the third rail of climate policy"

Roger: thanks for getting this discussion started.

Cheers, David

N.B., Our Air Capture paper is now available on the Climatic Change website.

For some thoughts on geoengineering see: 37. D. W. Keith (2001). Geoengineering. Nature, 409, p. 420. PDF 26. David W. Keith (2000). Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect. Annual Review of Energy and Environment, 25, p. 245-284. PDF here.

Posted on December 30, 2005 06:52 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 22, 2005

Responses to Emanuel in Nature

Chris Landsea and I each have brief comments on Emanuel (2005) in this week's Nature. Emanuel offers a response. We'll have more to say on these soon, but for now, please have a look at the exchange here in PDF.

Posted on December 22, 2005 10:20 AM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 15, 2005

Get Ready for Air Capture

I have often joked that the solution to increasing greenhouse gases was simple: simply invent a tabletop device (solar powered of course) that turns the CO2 in ambient air into diamonds and releases oxygen. While I am still awaiting this invention, the issue of "air capture" of CO2 is becoming less and less far-fetched. Whether or not air capture proves technologically, economically, or politically feasible in the long run, the technology, or more precisely the idea of the technology, has the potential to fundamentally transform debate on climate change.

The idea of air capture of CO2 is simple in principle: ambient air is taken in, CO2 is taken out, and air is released. (Those interested in an introduction to the technical details should see this PDF by David Keith and Minh Ha-Duong. For a look at a a prototype system see this PDF.)

Currently air capture of CO2 is a political third rail of climate policy. Here is why:

For most of those people opposed to greenhouse gas regulation advocating air capture would require first admitting that greenhouse gases ought to be reduced in the first place, an admission that most on this side of the debate have avoided. When so-called climate skeptics start advocating air capture (which I have to believe can't be too far off), then you will have a sign that the climate debate is really changing.

If such a transformation occurs, then we have the irony of seeing the climate skeptics become the technology advocates and the greenhouse gas regulation advocates become technology skeptics. Why? For most of those people who support greenhouse gas regulations, even admitting the possibility of air capture is anathema, because it would undercut the entire structure of the contemporary climate enterprise. Consider that the Kyoto Protocol and all of its complex mechanisms would largely be rendered irrelevant. So too would be most research on carbon sequestration (though point source sequestration would likely remain of interest) and management, as well as much of research on reducing emissions in autos, homes, cities, etc.. As well, because among many much of the motivation for climate mitigation lies in changing peoples lifestyles, securing advantages in international economics, and changing energy policies, air capture represents a tremendous threat to such agendas. As a 2002 Los Alamos National Laboratory press release trumpets, "Imagine no restrictions on fossil-fuel usage and no global warming!"

Now for a moment imagine that the technological, economic, and political obstacles to air capture could be successfully overcome. For the record, I have no idea if this is in fact the case, however some very prominent researchers think that it is possible, see e.g., this PDF. What would this mean?

This would mean that policy makers could then tune the atmosphere to whatever concentration of CO2 that they desired, and people around the world could continue to consume fossil fuels with abandon. (The entire prospect of geoengineering would of course require some very, very careful thought that I am obviously overlooking for the moment.) Now of course, this argument presumes that the climate problem is one of stabilizing CO2 concentrations at a particular level, such as described in the Climate Convention, a framing that I have critiqued (e.g., here in PDF), but let's go with it for purposes of discussion. The problem of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would then simply be turned into a technical exercise in scrubbing the atmosphere clean, of course, at some cost.

Critics of air capture that I have spoken to dismiss air capture almost reflexively as undoubtedly forever remaining too costly and technologically infeasible. But given its potential to reshape the climate debate, I am amazed that air capture has not captured more attention from researchers and, especially, policy makers. For example, the recent IPCC report on Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage discusses capture from point sources, like power plants, but not from air. Should air capture start getting attention you can just about predict who will argue against it as being infeasible and work to keep it off of technology research agendas. (Question: Does anyone know how much research money is currently devoted to air capture?)

According to estimates by David Keith and colleagues, the costs of air capture are about one order of magnitude higher than the price that carbon trades for in the European carbon exchange. In the history of technological innovation, this is really not very far apart (think computers). Imagine if governments around the world set up a $50 billion prize for the first technology that demonstrated economic viability for air capture of carbon dioxide at, for instance, $20 per ton, $5 per ton or $1 per ton. The resulting investment in innovation would be massive. To scale the cost of awarding such a prize, it is a fraction of some projections of the annual costs of implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, which would deal with about 99% less of the problem than cost-effective air capture.

Can air capture solve the problem of increasing greenhouse gas emissions? I don't know. But if scientists and policy makers frame the climate problem as one of stabilizing concentrations of atmospheric CO2, then given the potential payoff, air capture deserves to be at the center of international climate policy debate. Presently it is not, but I'd bet that it will be soon.

(Note: Thanks to David Keith for providing useful background information on air capture!)

Posted on December 15, 2005 05:49 PM View this article | Comments (24) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Environment

December 13, 2005

Hurricanes and Global Warming FAQ

We've set up a very basic "Hurricanes and Global Warming FAQ" here. It is designed to be updated as interests request and events warrant. So if you'd like to suggest a question or comment on an answer please do so and we'll continue to update it as readers find it useful. We'd welcome suggestions for other topics for which a similar FAQ might be of interest.

Posted on December 13, 2005 10:28 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 09, 2005

Exchange in Today's Science

I have a letter in Science this week reacting to an article by Evan Mills in the 12 August 2005 issue of Science, which I comprehensively critiqued here. My letter is accompanied by a lengthy response from Mills. You can find both my letter and the response here in PDF.

I wrote the letter is in response to claims made by Mills (2005) about the role of climate change in the increasing losses related do disasters. Mills stated in the August paper that "climate change has played a role in the rising costs of natural disasters," and on the "relative weights of anthropogenic climate change and increased exposure" in the loss trend Mills concludes "quantification is premature." My letter concludes, "Presently, there is simply no scientific basis for claims that the escalating cost of disasters is the result of anything other than increasing societal vulnerability." Mills response does nothing to question this statement about the current state of the science.

Mills' lengthy and rambling response to my letter essentially confirms this assertion by discussing many things, but avoids engaging the points that I raised in my letter. Here are a few reactions.

1. First, Science for some reason did not include my page proof changes to the letter. This is not a terribly big deal. But I did update the letter to reflect some more recent literature on hurricanes, and a citation that was "in press" but is now published. I've emailed to see where things broke down. You'd think they wouldn't at Science.

2. Mills writes, "The disaster attribution literature upon which such assertions are based is fraught with data and measurement uncertainties and is decidedly incomplete, especially concerning events outside the United States (1)." To support this claim, he once again cites a paper that has no relevance to the point being made, referencing a study that does not discuss trends in disasters or their attribution (here). Mills seems unaware of actual work that seeks to quantify measurement uncertainties in disaster loss data, like this paper: Downton, M. and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. How Accurate are Disaster Loss Data? The Case of U.S. Flood Damage, Natural Hazards, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 211-228. (PDF). He doesn't seem to realize that if the data are really as bad as he suggests they are, that this doesn't support his claim to be able to identify a greenhouse gas signal in the loss record.

3. Mills goes on an on about issues that are far removed from his original claims about natural disasters or my reaction to those claims. He discusses "noncatastrophic processes such as small storms, lightning, soil subsidence, permafrost melt, the effects of mold and airborne aeroallergens on human health, coral reef decline, coastal erosion, or crop diseases." He also mentions "energy prices" and "changes in temperature and precipitation extremes, continental drying, and a range of associated impacts on physical and biological systems." He also discusses "atmospheric and ocean circulation and elevated ocean heat content, as well as sea-level rise and associated coastal erosion." Wow, neat stuff. But what do these things have to do with natural disasters or the clear focus of my letter? Nothing.

4. Mills raises some questions, "Why are losses from weather-related events rising faster than those from nonweather events? What are the offsetting effects of human efforts to curb losses (building codes, early warning systems, f ire protection, flood defenses, land-use planning, crop irrigation, etc.)? How do we explain rising economic losses (e.g., those to crops in the heartland or physical infrastructure built on melting permafrost) that are only weakly linked to oft-cited demographic factors such as populations clustering around coastlines? Lastly, why would rising numbers of events not translate into rising costs?" My reaction to this laundry list of uncertainties is to wonder how it can be that in the face of such unanswered questions Mills can so confidently conclude that greenhouse gases are responsible for some part of the historical trend in economic losses from disasters.

5. Mills mischaracterizes one of my papers when he cites a paper of ours to support the following, "Assuming that only socioeconomic factors-rather than rising emissions-influence losses may yield ill-founded policy recommendations that focus exclusively on adapting to climate change while dismissing energy policy as a legitimate part of the toolkit for responding (11)." Here is what our paper (PDF) actually said about energy policy, "Recognizing that climate impacts are best address through adaptation rather than prevention need not undercut he goals of increased energy efficiency and reduced greenhouse emissions." Dismissing energy policy? Hardly.

I could go on (but I won't!). Mills concludes with a line that I might have written, "Rather than "proof " by vigorous assertion, the constructive approach is to better understand the compounding roles of increasing vulnerability and climate change, and take affordable precautionary steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the changes rather than waiting for unaffordable consequences." Given that Mills cites essentially none of the relevant literature and once again engages in unfounded assertions, misdirected citations and far-reaching distractions, I am confident that for the thoughtful reader this exchange will go a long way toward clarifying where the state of science lies on this issue.

Posted on December 9, 2005 06:01 AM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

December 05, 2005

A Report from Montreal

Author: Marilyn Averill

Andy Revkin’s Dec. 4 article in the NYTimes presents a discouraging picture of the climate negotiations in Montreal. No country wants to take on the economic injuries expected to accompany a reduction in use of fossil fuels, making an effective international agreement on climate change difficult or impossible.

The Kyoto Protocol was intended to be a first step rather than an adequate response in coping with climate change. If nothing else, it has demonstrated the difficulties the countries of the world face in agreeing on and complying with standards for greenhouse gas emissions. Many are discouraged at the lack of will to continue the fight for voluntary international agreements.

But wait, there is hope! We can rely on science and technology to rescue us, as they have so often in the past! As Revkin says, the emphasis on technological solutions is growing. China is calling for development of carbon capture and storage methods while others emphasize the discovery of alternative energy sources. Many stress the value of nuclear energy, at least as an interim measure, although several environmental groups loudly oppose any nuclear talk, and clearly have done homework on the dangers of nuclear energy sources. Again, S&T is expected to save us from nuclear disaster by developing ways to reduce accident risks and to deal with nuclear waste issues, especially the dangers associated with reprocessing waste to produce weapons grade materials.

Revkin says some science groups here are asking for more R&D money. They wisely warn, however, that much of the research will be unsuccessful. While some stress the huge magnitude of the problem and the difficulty of developing adequate solutions, possible unintended consequences are rarely mentioned except in the context of nuclear power.

The COP spotlights the extensive adaptation work currently underway. Some presenters are calling for more adaptation science as well as mitigation science, although specific needs are rarely described. Adaptation may require as much research in social science as in natural science or engineering, as adaptation will require a better understanding of how social systems can be encouraged to adjust to changing climatic conditions. Of course, the same can be said of mitigation, where behavioral change is required to reduce dependence on greenhouse gas emitting energy sources. Better understanding of social, political, and economic realities is required before the world can hope to respond adequately to the challenges of climate change.

Science and technology have always played a critical role in climate change. What is a little scary here in Montreal is the increasing reliance the entire world seems to place on S&T to bail us out of a difficult situation by developing a silver bullet. Let’s hope that S&T are up to the challenge.

Posted on December 5, 2005 11:36 AM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Climate Change

November 29, 2005

The US Climate Change Science Program and Decision Support

A few weeks ago, the US Climate Change Science Program held a large public workshop with the stated goal of “serving as a forum to address the Program’s progress and future plans regarding its three decision support approaches.” In the Strategic plan, these three approaches are broken down into producing synthesis and assessment reports, developing adaptive management approaches and developing methods to support climate change policy making. This conference was organized around only the first two topics, not explicitly discussing the third.

I attended the workshop, along with about 800 other people. The breakdown of attendees was not given, but among presenters the statistics were clear—scientists and government participants dominated. The paucity of attendance of true “decisionmakers” who might be using the information generated by the program was readily apparent. If taking time to attend a three-day meeting is any indication of who the stakeholders of the CCSP are, the message is obvious: scientists and scientific agencies.

This poses a real problem for a program determined to make its research support decision making, in whatever topic. How can one hope to make a product that is useful to someone without some sense of the market, if you will, for that product? How can a workshop hope to provide useful feedback to program direction if the intended beneficiaries are largely absent? And how does feedback from such a workshop affect agency direction, compared with say, agency steering committees or panels of scientific peer reviewers? As Dr. Mahoney stated quite clearly at the conclusion of the conference, agencies themselves are responsible for the content of the CCSP: as to the funding-- “everything has to go that way” i.e. through the agencies. He acknowledged the limited influence that CSPO (the office that coordinates the CCSP) has in directing the work of the CCSP.

In another clear statement, Dr. Mahoney stated that the mandate of the CCSP is to do “research and observations,” not to be providing decision support. In fact, however, the Global Change Research Program Act specifically states that the program should “provide usable information on which to base policy decisions relating to global change.” This provides plenty of legal authority for program activities, including research and observations, being “usable” for decision making. And while the CSPO may not have the power to ensure the program is usable, the Committee (i.e. the agency managers) overseeing the program certainly does have the mandate to “consult with actual and potential users of the results of the Program to ensure that such results are useful in developing national and international policy responses to global change.”

Which brings me to my final observation. The final session of the meeting was devoted to setting priorities for the future. One of the discussion questions was “What information do we need to better support decision makers and refine CCSP’s future decision support priorities?” Several of the speakers presented interesting and thoughtful ideas for the future evolution of the program, including the need for evaluation of the use of information with respect to outcomes, the need for a dialogue on the appropriateness of CCSP activities to the public need, and the need to pay attention to scales and decision makers beyond the national governmental level. The response of Dr. Mahoney was to emphasize the limited influence of CSPO (his office that coordinates the CCSP), restate the focus of CCSP on research and observations, and to highlight the zero-growth budget prospects for the program, very frank although not very optimistic responses.

Although I certainly enjoyed aspects of the conference, and was pleased to see so many scientists earnestly working at this interface of creating scientific information that is usable to society, I ultimately left feeling that an opportunity had been lost. The amount of funding spent on the types of research highlighted at the conference such as regional integrated sciences and assessments, applications programs and the like is quite small, probably less than 5%, and that would be a generous estimate. The work relating to decision support is that is going on is often marginalized, and institutional structures and incentives for researchers are not well-aligned with providing usable science to improve societal outcomes. It is not clear that the CCSP has seriously taken on the challenge of decision support and how it relates to the current program structure and priorities. The optimist in me hopes that this type of transformation is possible, but it will take more than good intentions and words on a page. It will take leadership, prioritization, planning and political will.

Posted on November 29, 2005 02:15 PM View this article | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Dilling, L. | Climate Change

November 21, 2005

Reflections on the Challenge

A few weeks ago we posed a challenge to both parties involved in the so-called "hockey stick" debate to explain why the rest of us ought to care about the debate. We asked, "so what?" We received responses from Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick while everyone on the other side declined to participate, though a few showed up in the comments. Here I'd like to offer a few assorted reflections on the responses and the subsequent discussion.

1. First, thanks to Steve McIntyre (SM) and Ross McKitrick (RM) for providing thoughtful responses. The responses motivated a healthy discussion and for me provided some greater insight into the dynamics of the ongoing debate within the climate community not just over the hockey stick, but broader issues as well.

2. Interestingly enough, the response from SM is completely in agreement with RealClimate contributors Stefan Rahmsdorf (SR) and William Connelley (WC) that the "hockey stick" debate is pretty much irrelevant to the scientific question of whether or not greenhouse gases will affect the future climate. Consider:

SR: "The discussions about the past millennium are not discussions about whether humans are changing climate; neither do they affect our projections for the future."

WC: "Why is this fight important to the rest of us? the answer is: you shouldn't. It isn't.."

SM: "I'm inclined to agree that, for the most part, the Hockey Stick does not matter to the great issue of the impact of 2xCO2."

This agreement is interesting because it means we can move beyond the often invoked assertion that the hockey stick is the keystone supporting the entire scientific basis of climate science. Others may assert that the hockey stick is a scientific keystone, but apparently not the principals involved in this debate.

3. But the agreement among the parties raises a very interesting set of questions that have much more to do with climate science policy than climate policy. First among these questions is a very good point raised by both SM and RM, if the hockey stick doesn't matter to the case for greenhouse gas effects on climate, why was it included and featured in the Summary for Policy Makers in the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? SM provides a compelling answer to this question, "So even if the Hockey Stick did not "matter" to the scientific case, it mattered to the promotion of the scientific case." The role of the SPM and the "promotion" of science by IPCC officials is a fair subject for discussion, independent of the answers to the technical questions M&M are debating with Mann et al.. Ultimately, the hockey stick debate is relevant to policy questions, but these questions have more to do with how we think about and organize science for policy, than any particular questions of climate policy itself.

4. RM suggests that the hockey stick is a symbol of the fidelity of journal peer review, the credibility and legitimacy of the IPCC, and how governments (in this case Canada) use scientific symbols to promote particular policies. It seems to me that MM sure could have made these points a lot more prominently early on. I am more convinced about the importance of the IPCC and journal peer review than the argument about the influence of the hockey stick on Canadian climate policies, but I am open to the case being made. I see that MM briefly raise the issue of journal peer review in their 2005 publication in Energy and Environment (PDF) and nothing comes up in their GRL publication (PDF). SM did raise some of these issues on his blog last February and in a related op-ed. RM raises some of these issues in this conference paper (PDF). But these are pretty hard-to-find nooks and crannies. My unsolicited advice to SM and RM is to spend more time (a lot more time) talking about the "so what?" questions as they pursue the obscure technical details. (By all means pursue the obscure and technical, but if indeed you care about the broader issues, then it is the broader issues that matter most.) They might find themselves with some allies if they talk more about peer review in science and international assessments, for which there are many people with interests and concerns. Pretty much all I do is "so what?" related to climate science, and I did not understand the positions of M&M until they wrote these essays. All of us are more likely a tool of those seeking to use our work for their purposes if we do not clearly and repeatedly (ad nausem) stake out your claim to the "so what?" ground. Perhaps, one reason that the folks on the other side chose not to participate may be their desire to leave the "so what?" ground open for occupation.

5. The concerns raised by SM and RM about the IPCC are part of a much broader set of experiences that raise questions about the credibility, legitimacy and salience of the IPCC. SM is perfectly justified in asking questions about the IPCC. We are all stakeholders in the IPCC process, and there appears to be no independent venue for raising issues about the IPCC process. The reception of the paleo climate community to M&M, regardless of the merits of their claims, is a good reason why such an independent venue makes sense. Certainly M&M could have been more tactful and diplomatically astute in their efforts, but still, the IPCC is the international organization responsible for bringing climate science and economics to policy makers, it can't afford to be petty or aloof. I'd contrast the reception that Wentz and Mears received upon bursting on the scene with evidence that the Spencer/Christy satellite data was flawed. The dynamics here are easy to understand, and they can be found in all sorts of places, but it is the job of the IPCC to treat science and scientists fairly, not to protect a consensus or political symbols.

6. Finally a few comments about the discussion that followed. I continue to be amazed at the degree of tribal behavior that the climate community generates. Different camps give themselves and their opponents cute names -- "hockey team," "skeptics," "contrarians, "mainstream". They meet in club houses like RealClimate and ClimateAudit where they talk amongst themselves. A telling comment appeared early in the exchange when some one asked me if I was "embarrassed" to be providing a forum for RM. This tells me that some folks are less interested in resolving the climate debate than perpetuating it. I suppose the fight is good sport. But if progress is ever going to be made on the issue then people on different sides will have to meet, discuss and compromise. If I were a proprietor of RealClimate or ClimateAudit I would have some very real concerns about creating an "echo chamber". Sometimes I wonder if these sites do less to educate their self-selected visitors than make their proprietors more strident and extreme in their own views, a la Cass Sunstein.

7. Finally, I found it amusing to find myself being attacked simultaneously on both the RealClimate website and the ClimateAudit website for being in the camp of the other. As one post said, "if you are not with us you are against us". This perspective, which is held not only among anonymous blog commentators, but some scientists, issue advocates and politicians helps to explain why the climate debate is locked in stalemate, and everyone chooses to fight about science instead.

Thanks all for participating. If you have any suggestions for topics and contributors that we might invite in the future to engage one another, please send them along.

Posted on November 21, 2005 03:29 PM View this article | Comments (54) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Hurricanes and Global Warming

It has been called, "absurd," "shameful," and "crazy." Now it can be called something else -- published. Here is our assessment of the current state of the literature on hurricanes and global warming.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, 2005. Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 86:1571-1575. PDF)

Comments on the substance of the paper are welcomed.

Posted on November 21, 2005 07:47 AM View this article | Comments (23) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 18, 2005

IPCC and Policy Neutrality?

I have received comments from two scientists, one very high up in the IPCC and strongly worded, complaining about the following short passage I wrote in a book review (PDF) in Nature earlier this year:

"the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has the temerity to claim that it is "policy neutral", yet its website trumpets its success in advocating the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change. As science policy has changed, these actions show signs of schizoid behaviour - the result of efforts to keep science both part of and separate from politics at a time of fundamental change in science policy."

The scientists both asked for evidence that the IPCC was not "policy neutral" as it claims to be, clearly finding my assertion jarring in some way. The evidence is here on the IPCC www site in two documents. The first is titled "16 Years of Scientific Assessment in Support of the Climate Convention" (PDF)and the second is a retrospective (PDF) by Bert Bolin, former IPCC chair, which describes the close relationship of the IPCC and Climate Convention (or FCCC), and how the IPCC shifted its organization in response to the Convention. It does not seem at all controversial to assert that the IPCC has been closely bound to the Climate Convention, and that this stance is difficult to square with the IPCC's formal policy of "policy neutrality."

Indeed, we observed here last December that the Norwegian minister of the environment had raised similar concerns about the politicization of the IPCC because of a too-close relationship with the FCCC. And NASA's James Hansen also has expressed concerns about the policy implications of the "close binding" between the IPCC and FCCC. Further, even definition of the phrase "climate change" can lead to policy non-neutrality (PDF).

But to make the point inescapable, imagine the reaction if the CIA put up on its web site a document titled, "Three Years of Intelligence Gathering in Support of the Iraq War." The IPCC has a very important role to play in climate policy. But it seems that it has yet to figure out exactly what that role ought to be. A good place to start would be to clarify what it means by policy neutrality and act accordingly, rather than come after people who point out its inconsistencies.

Posted on November 18, 2005 09:10 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

IPCC Hockey Stick Matters

At some point over the past couple of years, the motivation behind the hockey stick (HS) battles (played both in journal and blog) in most of its guises slipped from "science for science's sake" to "science for public policy's sake." Where it initially concerned a question of validating the original science for a specific study, it later became a question of validating what we think we know about climate change in general, and how we disseminate that knowledge to the policy-making community. Now the hockey debate has slipped further, becoming almost exclusively about credibility (according to some) legitimacy (according to others, although they are not mutually-exclusive groups). The scientific relevance of the HS is still there, but it has become subsumed by the more interesting and easier-to-follow political debate. I'll go further here and also address questions of salience; the distinctions of all three were highlighted aptly by Roger in comment #57 here and in this paper that Roger summarizes.

Perhaps those engaged in the science debate over the HS have belatedly come to realize the larger political reality that shrouds their debate: nobody in the policy-making world cares (in other words, its salience is gone). This does not completely destroy the relevancy of the debate, but it raises an unfortunate problem for the players: they are engaged in the debate because of its perceived effects on the policy-making world. (If the HS had not been included in the TAR SPM, would we be talking about this?) If the debate is irrelevant in any context other than science, the motivations behind the fight should change to something more academic and pastoral. That it has not yet done so, that it continues to invite personal attacks, invective and name-calling among other more relevant commentary, raises a question: do the players still see political advantage to be gained by keeping up the fight?

Hidden between the lines is a stark reality at the intersection of the policy world and science world: as we move closer and closer to the early 2007 release of IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4), the 3rd Assessment Report (TAR) hockey stick becomes more and more irrelevant. Inaction was the political response to the 2001 SPM presentation of the hockey stick. The hockey stick both as science and icon could not have been more hyped. But They saw it and They didn't care. By that inaction, the HS lost its salience. The next question is, will they care about the 2007 results?

If not salient to the policy consumer, salient to whom? Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntryre posted lengthy justifications of why their participation in the hockey stick debates matters and why the details of the debate should matter to the rest of us. Despite Stefan's post, Mann and RealClimate authors do the same on their blog, even if not directly answering the current question (e.g.). The dialogue has been revealing, and you can glean what the participants in the debate (commenters especially) care about and thus what this debate has really come to signify.

With its salience gone and with a real need to hash out the science for the science's sake questionable at best, the only reason left for continuing the debate is because the debate has become about something else entirely. To address the ways in which it the HS debate is now solely about credibility and legitimacy, moving from the very obvious to the more subtle:

1- The HS debate is about the credibility of Drs. Mann/Bradley/Hughes (but mostly Dr. Mann since as lead author and the stats jockey of the group, he has logically become the focus of procedural science questions). The credibility of Dr. Mann is crucial for his ability to continue to do science, for his ability to defend his original work and for his ability to comment on the work of others. He has fought hard in the pages of RealClimate and elsewhere to maintain his credibility both by engaging in a science debate and calling on more peripheral and even irrelevant issues such as the funding sources of M&M. (Supporters will likely disagree with this, but face it: if the science is right, the science is right, no matter who funded it.)

2- The debate has enshrouded the legitimacy of the process in constructing the IPCC TAR WG1 report and by extension, in constructing the upcoming AR4 chapters. All sides have a compelling interest in swaying the opinion of the general policy-making body toward questioning or accepting the legitimacy of the assessment process. In this both sides are effectively behaving as lobbyists, and blog commenters might be considered the individual constituents lobbying their local representatives for highway bill money.

3- The debate is also about the credibility of the skeptic community. The debate has encompassed the credibility of two outsiders and their ability to enter an esoteric debate as outsiders, but there's something more subtle at play here. The debate does not reflect on the credibility of individuals in the skeptic community and their ability to comment on climate change science as much as the debate has come to highlight the viability of the very existence of a credible skeptic community.

In this debate, the skeptic community found a legitimate science question to argue, and made a point to which not a few experts in the system said, "you have something there." Whether or not in the end there was much there, there, the point raised by Mr. McIntyre and Mr. McKitrick was appropriate to the scientific discussion. This occurred in the context of gradual diminution of credible skeptic science, illustrated starkly by the harsh reaction to publication of the Baliunas/Soon Climate Research paper. As most reasonable people realize, there is no vast conspiracy to block skeptic papers, a conspiracy that would have to span all the various publishers of all the various journals. Skeptic science is not being published because it's either not there or is not publishable. So to find a worthy item to publish is a crucial step toward credibility for the skeptic community.

4- One of Mr. McIntyre's most prominent talking points in the HS debate concerns access to data (e.g.1, e.g.2, e.g.3). There is a perception from those within academic circles and their funding sources, I think, that repeated requests for data sharing by outsiders is annoying and can be ignored. The researcher's attitude on this may not ever change, but what if the attitude does change for the NSF program manager? Or when will a PM's decision on how far to push his PIs to allow open access shift from his hands to a higher-level directive? This is also a credibility question. If the outsider and/or politically-loud skeptic community gains credibility as capable of solid science, it becomes harder to justify denying either access to data.

This also invites politics back into science from on high: although NSF is largely insulated from election cycle politics, NOAA and NASA, two other major funders of climate change science, as well as other federal agencies with more minor roles, are headed by political appointees. A greater positive collective sense of the credibility of the outsider/skeptic community will give political appointees, should they decide to go in this direction for political reasons, more justification for throwing the doors open to "skeptic science" (whatever that means).

5- It is clear that willingly or unwillingly, the hockey science players on both sides have become political pawns used by sides who have fixed policy positions in mind that will not be swayed by scientific results. It can be said with some confidence that Senator Inhofe and Representative Barton care little what the science says, and one must assume that left-side politicians who have also already staked out a position on climate change (Lieberman and others) would also be loath to switch positions based on murkiness of the science. Because the positions are set for many, the political players now must troll for evidence to support their positions. To do so with a straight face, they must also address the credibility of the science they are citing in Senate/House floor speeches and hearing statements. In this case, the credibility of both sides of the hockey stick debate affects the credibility of politicians engaged in a policy debate.

6- Interestingly, this debate has now produced downchain effects, influencing members of the science community quite removed from the direct hockey debate. Questions raised about the legitimacy of the TAR WGI and SPM writing process have amplified questions about the political or value statements by people closely involved with IPCC, such as Drs. Trenberth and Pachauri. Roger has, quite appropriately, warned Dr. Pachauri here and here and discussed Dr. Trenberth in these posts. At stake is the legitimacy of a product for policy-makers which is supposed to be policy and value neutral.

7- The science always moves on, but its use by non-scientists cycles, filters and percolates its way through the aquifer of public policy. Perhaps grasping this concept consciously or intuitively, all players seem to be trying to position themselves favorably to influence the process in the future. How they do in this debate affects that outcome.

To finish: Intuitively, the players in the game know that their battle is a battle for credibility and that in science, as well as in politics, credibility is the most important requirement to being heard and included. Secondarily, in examining the credibility of the HS, Steve McIntryre has found that there are questions to be raised about the legitimacy of an IPCC process that highlighted the HS so brightly. This is why what began as a technical fight over the meaning of esoteric statistical tests has become so important to so many. Unfortunately, that "many" does not include the audience for which the SPM and the use of the HS therein was originally intended.

Posted on November 18, 2005 08:36 AM View this article | Comments (33) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

Final Version of Paper

The final version of the following paper is now online:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2005. Misdefining Climate Change: Consequences for Science and Action, Environmental Science and Policy, 8:548-561. PDF)

Posted on November 18, 2005 08:18 AM View this article | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Spinning Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data

In a press release issued today the United Nations tries to put a positive spin on data that tells a far different story. The release states:

"Developed countries, taken as a group, have achieved sizable reductions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but further efforts are needed to sustain these reductions in gases blamed for global warming and cut them further, a United Nations climate body warned today. The acting head of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Richard Kinley, emphasized that a large part of the reductions was achieved in the early 1990s in countries of Eastern and Central Europe undergoing transition to a market economy. "

The release should have said that all of the so-called "reductions" are the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union which led to a one-time accounting quirk based only on the date used as the baseline for measuring reductions (1990). The press release spins off into fantasy land when it states,

""National efforts to implement the Climate Change Convention and to prepare for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol have already resulted in emission reductions," [Kinley] said of the pact that requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent by the year 2012. Compared to 1990 levels, their GHG emissions were down 5.9 per cent in 2003."

Let's take a look at the data in the report. Russia's decrease in emissions alone accounts for more that the alleged decrease of all 35 countries taken as a group. In other words, if we look at 34 countries rather than 35 (i.e., the 35 minus Russia) there is in fact a net increase in emissions. Perhaps the press release should have said, "Russia Reduces GHG Emissions, Other 34 Taken as a Group See Increases." It gets worse if you include states formerly part of the Soviet Union. If we also remove Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine then the remaining 29 states see an increase in greenhouse gas emissions of 4.7%.

There are other one-time accounting issues. If we also remove Germany, which as a result of reunification saw the dramatic reduction of GHGs from the former East Germany, and the United Kingdom which saw its economy transition due to changes in its economy due to policies put in place under Margaret Thatcher, then the remaining 27 countries see an increase in GHGs of 8.2%.

If we also take the United States out of the mix (in 24th place out of 35 countries), then the remaining 26 countries, which still include a number of eastern European countries affected by the end of the cold war, still see an increase in GHG emissions of 1.5%.

The real story here is not the success of the Kyoto Protocol, but quite the opposite. Emissions "reductions" that have occurred have been the result of one-time events that have nothing to do with climate policy, most notably the economic effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also changing economic policies in the United Kingdom. And even taking the United States out of the mix, the remaining countries have still seen emissions increase. There may indeed be a signal of the Kyoto Protocol in this data, but I sure can't see it. The UN is misleading us all by suggesting otherwise.

Posted on November 18, 2005 07:46 AM View this article | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 14, 2005

Why Does the Hockey Stick Debate Matter?

Post by Ross McKitrick

Roger Pielke Jr. has posed a challenge to Michael Mann and us to briefly explain why each of us thinks the ongoing hockey stick debate matters. The technical content of the debate is summarized elsewhere (here and here; Our papers are linked under the heading “articles” (right hand column), and an overview paper by Ross McKitrick is here) and I won’t re-cap it here. That it matters is demonstrated by the enormous traffic on blog sites, the volume of comments to science journals, the opening of a Congressional investigation, etc. Obviously a lot of people find that it matters.

So: why does it matter?

1. It matters because it concerns the validity of an influential scientific paper. Mann’s 1998 and 1999 papers (which I’ll call “MBH”) have been heavily cited and highly influential. The paleoclimate field seems to have organized itself around them: other papers since then have gained prominence in proportion as they appear to back up MBH, whereas papers that contradict it have little prospect of being published or are relegated to lower-profile outlets. A popular icon in paleoclimate circles these days is what can be called a “spaghetti graph,” showing a pastiche of climate reconstructions from a small group of authors who call themselves the “Hockey Team”. They agree on few details, other than that the Medieval Warm Period is not as warm as the 20th Century.

Yet MBH turns out to have major flaws that fundamentally undermine its conclusions. These issues are interesting in their own right because MBH is a famous paper. But they also have wider scientific implications. MBH was “helped” along to its conclusions by some very convenient decisions about small changes to methodology, small edits to data series and not-so-small decisions about using contaminated bristlecone data. Maybe some of the other studies that appear to confirm MBH were also “helped” along so they would appear to agree with it. Efforts to evaluate the whole spaghetti graph has encountered maddening secrecy by the other authors concerning their data and methods, just as with MBH. But enough has been discovered to support a couple of assertions.

(a) The other spaghetti graph diagrams lack robustness. They all depend on delicate editing of weak data and just-so methodology. None are al dente: these are very soft noodles, and a plateful of weak results does not add up to a strong conclusion.

(b) There is an unexamined problem of spurious statistics in multiproxy constructions. Hockey team methods mine autocorrelated proxy data for simple correlations with autocorrelated temperature data. It is a classic recipe for spurious results, as has long been known in econometrics following the seminar studies of Granger, Engle and Phillips. What was predictable on theoretical grounds is now emerging empirically: proxies that extend past 1980 have no explanatory power for recent temperatures. And by implication, the existing corpus of multiproxy studies provides spurious information about the historical climate. Despite occasional claims of technical rigour, none of the spaghetti graph lines come from papers where the spurious regression problem was dealt with.

2. It matters because it exposes the uncomfortable reality about journal peer review. MBH(98) was published in Nature, considered by some the world’s “leading” scientific journal. Nature never verified that data were correctly listed: as it happens they weren’t. Nature never verified that data archiving rules were followed: they weren’t. Nature never verified that methods were accurately stated: they weren’t. Nature never verified that stated methods yield the stated results: they don’t. Nature undertook only minimal corrections to its publication record after notification of these things, and even allowed authors to falsely claim that their omissions on these things didn’t affect their published results.

In light of this, it is far past time for a wide-ranging discussion on what ‘peer review’ actually is. Policymakers routinely appeal to it as some kind of quality assurance guarantee. But obviously it isn’t. It serves some purpose internal to the world of scientific publishing, but policymakers’ beliefs about what peer review guarantees are for the most part sheer fantasy.

3. It matters because it exposes the uncomfortable reality about the IPCC. The IPCC’s use of the hockey stick was not incidental: it is prominent throughout the 2001 report. Yet they did not subject it to any independent checking: revealing an astonishingly cavalier attitude to the quality of their case. This raises the question of whether anything in the report was subject to serious, independent checking. They allowed chapter authors to heavily promote their own work with little or no oversight. They published false claims about the hockey stick’s statistical robustness and have never made any effort to retract them. On the basis of the MBH claims, their 2001 report reversed their 1990 conclusions about the MWP, and over-rode their 1995 warnings about not relying on bristlecone data, in order to promote the conclusions implied by the hockey stick. They encouraged governments around the world to rely heavily on a graph they themselves had not independently checked. One reason the hockey stick debate matters is because it exposes as worthless the guarantees given up to now about why the world should rely on the IPCC.

In this light I have no patience for the reaction by scientists to the Barton investigation. Why shouldn’t legislators begin asking questions about how the IPCC (and its allies in the science community) produce their reports? Policymakers have strong evidence that the IPCC process did not actually involve the rigorous checks and balances that they boasted of when releasing their 2001 report. It would be negligent of lawmakers not to open a wide-ranging investigation of this. Anyone who thinks the Barton investigation is unnecessary must think that IPCC reports don’t really matter: but they do, which is one reason why the hockey stick debate also does.

4. It matters because it exposes the uncomfortable reality about how governments use scientific information Canada (and many other countries) used the hockey stick heavily in their promotion of the Kyoto Accord. It is still prominent in government publications. Canada boasts of having spent $3 billion on climate change initiatives, much of it going to research. Yet for all the billions of dollars spent, and for all the proliferation of staff working on the matter, no one in government checked the hockey stick. Even when Canada’s chief climate science advisor and the Prime Minister’s own scientific advisor were personally informed about flaws in the hockey stick, no effort was made to remedy the government’s error. We have never been contacted by a single federal government scientist or other staff member for information on this topic, even though Environment Canada has in the past made heavy use of the hockey stick and more recently has issued communications supposedly providing “expert” commentary on my work, commentary that is predictably fallacious. Governments apparently use science when it suits them, as a promotional policy tool, with little regard to the facts of the matter. Perhaps it is naïve of me to have expected otherwise, but the realization still disappoints.

5. It matters because it exposes an uncomfortable reality about the culture of climate science. It took two outsiders to do all this work. Climate scientists in the field ignored the glaring problems in MBH for five years, and only seemed to get engaged after Stephen McIntyre and I began publishing our work. Since then the “engagement” of climate scientists has primarily consisted of ridicule, nitpicking, obstruction and catcalls from prominent scientists, especially those involved with the IPCC and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research on Colorado. The few who have offered support tend to do so privately or anonymously.

We have tried to get data and methods from a long list of IPCC scientists who published prominent papers. The near-universal response is a hostile refusal to disclose, followed by stonewalling, delay and excuses. Lately a few have taken to publishing gripes and grievances about me in Eos. They complain that they don’t have time to archive their data sets, yet they seem to have lots of time to write editorials complaining about my inquiries.

These climate scientists seem to want to have things both ways. They are demanding that society set costly policy based on their work, yet they refuse to allow scrutiny of it. As a resident alien in IPCC-land, I have found it to be a culture of secrecy and conformity, to a degree that is incompatible with a healthy, vigorous intellectual culture. They can’t escape external investigation forever, and when it happens I believe a lot more skeletons will fall out of the closets.

And I do not believe I am alone in drawing such conclusions. The opening of the Barton investigation is the tip of the iceberg. The big scientific organizations that hyperventilated about it failed to note the ridiculous contradiction in their position. They insist that the scientific community should be left alone to handle the task of reviewing and critiquing influential studies, yet they not only failed to do it when it was needed, but routinely acquiesce in the widespread culture of secrecy that effectively prevents it from happening. It was only a matter of time before these issues got put on the table and subject to a top-to-bottom examination. The hockey stick debate seems to have been a catalyst, one more reason it matters to so many.

Posted on November 14, 2005 06:03 AM View this article | Comments (77) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

Does the hockey stick "matter"?

Post by Steve McIntryre

Stefan Rahmsdorf and others (including Roger Pielke, the proprietor of this site) have taken the position that the Hockey Stick is irrelevant to the great issue of the impact of 2xCO2 on global climate. Even the originator of the Hockey Stick, Michael Mann, who received many awards and honors for its construction, ironically has taken the position that it doesn’t “matter”. (I do not believe that he has not returned any of the honors.) I’m inclined to agree that, for the most part, the Hockey Stick does not matter to the great issue of the impact of 2xCO2. However, I believe that it matters (or should matter) to IPCC, to governments that relied on IPCC and to climate scientists who contributed to and supported IPCC and to people who may wish to rely on IPCC in the future.

The Hockey Stick was not, as sometimes portrayed, an incidental graphic, buried in IPCC TAR. Nor was it an icon resurrected by sceptics purely to torment poor Michael Mann. It could almost characterized as the logo for IPCC TAR. Figure 1 below shows Sir John Houghton, at the press conference releasing IPCC TAR, standing in front of the Hockey Stick. The graphic was used repeatedly in IPCC TAR and was one of the most prominent graphics in the Summary for Policymakers. Some governments (and, the Canadian government in particular) relied upon it in their promotion of Kyoto policy even more than IPCC. In the lead-up to adopting Kyoto policy, Canadians were told by their Minister of the Environment that “1998 was the warmest year of the millennium and 1990s the warmest decade”. So even if the Hockey Stick did not “matter” to the scientific case, it mattered to the promotion of the scientific case. Scientists may want to “move on”, but institutions cannot, if they want to maintain any credibility. If the Hockey Stick was wrong, it would be as embarrassing as the failure to find WMD in Iraq. In both cases, the policy might well be justified on alternative grounds, but the existence of the alternative grounds does not mean that responsible agencies should not try to isolate the causes of intelligence failure and try to avoid similar failures in the future.

The issues surrounding the MBH Hockey Stick are complicated by IPCC TAR statements and decisions, which, in retrospect, seem misguided, although there is little to suggest that IPCC AR4 is taking to steps to avoid similar potential problems. The most questionable IPCC statement about the Hockey Stick is that the MBH98 reconstruction had “significant skill in independent cross-validation tests”. I added bold to highlight the plural—a second level to the misrepresentation contained in this claim. The statement appears to have been written by Michael Mann about his own work. It is now known that the MBH98 reconstruction in the controversial 15th century portion failed the majority of cross-validation tests, including the standard R2 test [McIntyre and McKitrick, 2005a]; the source code provided to the Barton Committee shows that the adverse cross-validation R2 statistics were calculated, but not reported. It is also now known that the MBH98 reconstruction does not live up to its warranty that it is robust to the presence/absence of all dendroclimatic indicators, as the reconstruction depends on the inclusion of bristlecones, a series known to be potentially contaminated as a temperature proxy. Again, this adverse information was known to the authors and not reported.

If I were in Houghton’s shoes, I would be mad as a boil about all this. Since Houghton has a sincere belief that the impact of 2xCO2 is the great issue of our times, then, if I were Houghton, I would be particularly angry at being placed in a position where I used this logo and wasn’t fully informed about adverse information pertaining to it. I also wouldn’t be leaving it up to some probably adversarial committee like the Barton Committee to sort this out. I’d be all over the problem so that my community, the community of climate scientists, was not further embarrassed and so that government institutions would be able to rely confidently on the opinions of IPCC.

If I were Houghton, one line of argument that I would not accept is that the other “independent” studies all say similar things. It was the Mann study that I stood in front of. If there are serious problems in it, which were known ahead of time and I didn’t know about them, I would carve everyone involved a new you-know-what. Now for public purposes, I’d feel a lot happier if I could at least retreat to the safe haven of other studies that showed something at least similar to the Mann study. But I’d be pretty worried about them on a couple of counts and I’d want them torn through from top to bottom. The first thing that would worry me is that the studies were not really “independent”. The coauthors all seem to swap places: you see Mann, Jones, Briffa, Bradley, Cook, Schweingruber – all well-known scientists, but all having coauthored together. I’d be worried about a monoculture and want a fresh set of eyes. The second thing that would worry me is that the same proxies are used over and over – the bristlecones, the Polar Urals etc. I’d be worried about systemic problems. I’d be worried that no one seemed to have gone through these other studies like M&M had gone through the MBH studies. Maybe there are more time-bombs. I wouldn’t just passively wait for them to go off.

If I were Houghton, I would be enraged at the public refusal by IPCC authors to show their data and methods. When I read in the Wall Street Journal that Mann had said that he would not be “intimidated” into showing his algorithm, I’d have taken immediate action; I’d have told Mann to stop acting like a prima donna, to archive every line of code and data used in MBH98 and stop fighting a pointless battle that simply embarrassed IPCC and the entire field of climate science. I’d have done more than that. I’d have notified everyone contributing to IPCC that we did not expect the same kind of nonsense any more, that anyone contributing to IPCC would have to ensure that their archives of data and methodology were complete or else we couldn’t use their articles. I’d have done so before I heard from some redneck Republicans.

I would also review how we were checking studies in IPCC AR4. If our very logo for IPCC TAR blew up on us, then something was wrong with our procedures for review. I wouldn’t go around patting ourselves on the back and telling everyone that this was the most “rigorous” review procedure in the history of science, since we’d goofed on such a prominent issue. I’d want to know why we goofed and how to avoid it in the future, or at least, how to minimize the chances of a recurrence. So when some redneck tried to use the Hockey Stick fiasco against IPCC, I’d at least have an answer.

A final thing that I’d ask myself: if this damn chart is “irrelevant” to the great issue of 2xCO2, why did we use it at all? And why did we rely on it so much in our sales presentations? Why didn’t we just talk about the issues that were important and stay away from little irrelevant stuff? Maybe I’d find out, when I investigated, that someone had decided that this was merely for sales promotion – the climate equivalent of a sexy girl sitting on a car. If that were the case, I wouldn’t necessarily be happy about it, but at least I’d understand it. Then I’d want to make sure that we were also selling steak as well as sizzle. I’d sure want to make sure that we’d really done a good job on the issue which Ramsdorff and others now say was the “real” issue: climate sensitivity to 2xCO2.

Here I’d be bothered by how little guidance we actually gave to policymakers interested in an intermediate-complexity analysis of whether 2xC02 will lead to a temperature increase of 0.6 deg C or 2.6 deg C or 5.6 deg C. When I re-examined the TAR, I’d notice that we’d virtually skipped over these matters. I’d think: it’s not enough just to list all the results of different models; let’s try to figure out why one model differs from another, what are the circumstances under which a model gives a low sensitivity and what are the circumstances that a model has high sensitivity – if that’s the “real issue”. When I saw that we’d barely touched this sort of analysis in IPCC TAR, I’d be pretty embarrassed. I would certainly vow that in AR4, we would not repeat the mistake of ignoring the “real issues” in favor of hood ornaments.

The other thing that I wouldn’t do is simply ignore the problem and hope that it goes away of its own accord. I wouldn’t rely on the assurances of Mann and similar protagonists that the various alleged defects do not “matter”. No corporation would do so in similar circumstances and IPCC shouldn’t either. I would long ago have got some independent statistician to see if there really was a problem that I should be worried about. I wouldn’t have stood still for this water torture. I’d tell Mann to co-operate with the investigator and request McIntyre to cooperate. I’d try to get the parties to sign off on an exact statement of points and issues that everyone agreed on and ones that were in dispute. Once I saw what was in dispute, I’d ask for what would be involved to determine once and for all who was right on specific issues. I would long ago have gotten tired of barrages from both sides, where I couldn’t be sure that they were not at cross-purposes.

So does the Hockey Stick matter? Yes, if you’re a climate scientist that believes that the IPCC is an important institution whose opinions should be valued. Mann now thinks that the Hockey Stick does not matter. As so often, life is full of ironies.

Posted on November 14, 2005 05:57 AM View this article | Comments (19) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

November 09, 2005

Avoiding the Painfully Obvious

Over at RealClimate Gavin Schmidt has written a post defending the IPCC against a critique by Nigel Lawson, a member of the British House of Lords and former chancellor of the exchequer. An exchange I had with Gavin in the comments aptly illustrates why some people agree with Lawson when he claims, "the IPCC's apparent determination to suppress or ignore dissenting views, which has become little short of a scandal, is part of a wider problem."

Lawson has some strong things to say, "The IPCC process is so flawed, and the institution so closed to reason, that it would be far better to thank it for the work it has done, close it down, and transfer all future international collaboration on the issue of climate change to the established Bretton Woods institutions." For his part Schmidt, gives no ground in his defense, "The IPCC makes its assessments in a very thorough writing and review process involving hundreds of scientists, open to critics, with transparent and predefined procedures. That it makes no proclamations in between the full assessments is not a 'scandal', it simply is sticking to its sound and transparent procedures." An open discussion on the IPCC is worth having. But here I'd like to focus in on how an exchange I had with Gavin reinforces one of Lawson's main complaints about the IPCC and the climate science community, an inability to admit error.

Lawson points to those making connections of global warming and hurricanes Katrina and Rita as an indication of scientific excess. Schmidt responds as follows:

"Just how much of an error is revealed by Lawson's last paragraphs in which he, ironically, he uses the notion of a scientific consensus to combat (admittedly widespread) popular claims of a direct link between the individual impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and global warming. Since no scientists have made a claim of direct cause and effect (see our recent post on potential statistical links between hurricane intensity and tropical warming), any scientific assessment (such as the next IPCC report) will certainly not do so either. It is precisely because such anecdotal 'science' is not a balanced picture of the state-of-the-art that IPCC exists in the first place."

I agree with Schmidt's general comments. But I pointed out to Schmidt that he was simply wrong is his assertion that no scientist has made a claim of direct cause and effect. In fact, Kevin Trenberth who, ironically enough, is the lead author of the IPCC chapter on hurricanes, made an explicit connection between global warming and hurricane Katrina just last week in a congressional briefing organized by the American Meteorological Society. In one of Trenberth's slides (PDF), reproduced below, he asks, "how big is the effect from global warming?" and answers, "Implies 1" extra rain near New Orleans" right next to a picture of flooding and damage.

Let's state the obvious. Trenberth is making a clear attribution between global warming and hurricane Katrina, and is suggesting a connection to the flooding. This is troubling because, as I pointed out on RealClimate, "Perhaps there are good scientific reasons for making such a claim, but they probably should go through peer review before being announced as fact (with no sense of uncertainty!) before policy makers. Especially when other scientists, like Kerry Emannuel, assert that such precise attribution is not possible. And further, given that the IADWG has published in JOC May 2005 that attribution of trends in precipitation to GHGs has not yet occurred, it stretches the credulity of this non-climate scientist to think that such precise attribution is possible for specific events." Yet when I pointed this out to Schmidt, instead of admitting the obvious, he says the following:

"... you appear to be putting words into Trenberth's mouth. He does not claim that Katrina was caused by global warming, and I'm surprised that you continue to interpret his words now and last year to conclude this. He has claimed that global warming is changing the background in which hurricanes form (which is clearly true), but that can in no way be construed as arguing that Katrina can be directly attributed to global warming. Trenberth is as aware as we are that individual events are not attributable in the sense that Lawson implies, and any consensus statement on the issue will agree. Let's not be distracted by semantics."

I find this response amazing because Schmidt is telling me not to believe my own eyes. When pressed Schmidt himself falls back on semantics, "I read the slide, and frankly, even if the context in which Trenberth placed the comment is as you assume, it is still not a direct attribution of a specific hurricane to global warming. To keep belabouring this point, it is quite clearly not what Lawson is referring to." Can Schmidt think that such parsing will be taken seriously? How about simply stating that Trenberth is a bit forward on his skis here? Why the denial?

This is exactly the sort of behavior that Lawson has concerns about (and incidently which was cited as a factor in Chris Landsea's resignation from the IPCC.). It is no wonder that some people are losing faith in the IPCC, its leaders and defenders seem to be incapable of admitting the validity of any dissenting views, even when those dissenting views are obviously correct right before your eyes.

Posted on November 9, 2005 08:47 AM View this article | Comments (38) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 08, 2005

The Abdication of Oversight

Last summer we took issue with Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) when he sought to gain political advantage by taking on some climate scientists. I'd bet that the loud reaction to his "investigation" was one factor in Rep. Barton's apparent decision not to follow up as yet. Such external oversight of science and politics can play a positive role in limiting the politicization of science and its negative effects on policy making. Now we have a case of Democrats playing politics through climate science, and a similarly loud reaction would seem to be appropriate from informed observers. Will we see a similar reaction?

Providing ample evidence that the politicization of science by politicians is a bipartisan pastime, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and 150 fellow Democrats have introduced a rarely used "resolution of inquiry" to explore whether the Bush Administration has been hiding evidence that the current hurricane season has been caused by global warming. Kucinich said in press release last week:

""The American public deserve to know what the President knew about the effects climate change would have, and will continue to have, on our coasts. This Administration, and Congress, can no longer afford to overlook the overwhelming evidence of the devastating effect of global climate change. It is essential for our preparedness that we understand global climate change and take serious and immediate actions to slow its effects."

According to an InsideEPA.com news story, which Rep. Kucinich introduced to the Congressional Record (PDF), the "Resolution of Inquiry" is part of a strategy to try to divide moderate Congressional Republicans from the party. According to InsideEPA.com,

"A novel effort by 150 House Democrats to require that the White House turn over documents showing what it knows about climate change effects on U.S. coastal regions may force key Republican moderates to choose party loyalty over their environmental records, or risk leaving themselves open to attacks from conservative opponents in upcoming primaries, sources say... Kucinich's resolution does not specifically mention hurricanes, but congressional staffers familiar with the effort say Congress is growing more concerned that climate change may have increased hurricane severity in light of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. ''This has been a brutal hurricane season and many think climate change will be the defining problem of our generation. We want to know what [President Bush] knew,'' according to one staffer."

InsideEPA.com describes the Democrats strategy as one that seeks to place a few congressional Republicans in a tight spot,

"Observers say the ROI will present House Science Committee Chairman SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R-NY), Rep. VERNON EHLERS (R-MI) and Rep. WAYNE GILCHREST (R-MD) with a critical choice between siding with their party in deflecting attention from the president's climate policies and their environmental records, which have won them praise and endorsements from environmental groups. Their decisions on the matter may prove crucial during their 2006 primaries, where at least one is expected to face a tough fight against a more conservative GOP candidate."

The InsideEPA.com article goes into some details about why it is that Congressmen Boehlert, Ehlers and Gilchrest are ripe for a squeeze.

What to make of this? Congressional Democrats are playing politics, trying to gain some advantage in the upcoming congressional election, which is what they are supposed to do. With respect to the climate issue, because the Democrats are the minority party they don't have the power to call hearings or otherwise set the agenda, so it might be appropriate to use the "Resolution of Inquiry" to access information. (For details on the congressional "Resolution of Inquiry" see this report (PDF) from the Congressional Research Service at the Federation of American Scientists website.)

No matter where one comes out on the climate issue, it is obvious that the Democrats are playing their politics through science. The tone of his inquiry smacks of black helicopters and the trilateral commission. As a close observer of the hurricane research community in NSF, Navy, and NOAA over the past 10 years, I know that there is no hidden smoking gun waiting to be discovered in the bureaucracy that shows that the Bush Administration had forewarning that this year's hurricane season would be particularly bad, and kept that information under wraps to appease their oil and gas friends. Perhaps the Bush Administration would do such a thing, but in this case it did not, for the simple reason that such information does not exist. It doesn't.

The playing of partisan politics by Democrats through the science of climate change and hurricanes may come at a price in policy effectiveness. As we have stated here many times, there is simply no evidence to suggest that policy makers can modulate hurricane behavior, much less their impacts for the foreseeable future through energy policies. Representative Kucinich and his 150 colleagues risk focusing attention on bad hurricane policies and, as a consequence, overlooking good ones.

This would be a good time for leaders in the scientific community to discuss the policy issues associated with hurricanes and climate change. Is there a smoking gun on the science of hurricanes in the bureaucracy? Can energy policies be an effective tool of disaster mitigation? This would also be a good time for the "war on science" crowd to burnish their alleged bipartisan credentials. Call me a jaded cynic, but my guess is that both groups will be stony silent, reflecting their own committed partisanship. If so, then you will be seeing a very real consequence of the politicization of science - the abdication of oversight.

Posted on November 8, 2005 01:44 AM View this article | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 04, 2005

Presentation on Hurricanes and Global Warming

Yesterday I participated in a panel session of the Board on Atmospheric Science and Climate of the National Research Council. Also on the panel were Kerry Emanuel (MIT), Greg Holland (UCAR, and co-author of the recent Webster et al. 2005 paper in Science), and Rick Anthes (UCAR). It was an interesting panel with good questions from the BASC and others who attended.

If you'd like to see what I presented, basically a summary of our forthcoming BAMS paper, you can downoad it is PDF here.

Posted on November 4, 2005 12:06 PM View this article | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 03, 2005

Old Wine in New Bottles

Earlier this week the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment issued a report titled, "Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological, and Economic Dimensions" (PDF). Reports on climate change in the "grey literature" are a dime a dozen, but this one is worth singling out.

The report includes a section (pp. 21-25) focused on "Trend Analyses: Extreme Weather Events and Costs," a subject that we have discussed here in some detail. The Harvard Report repeats some of the same old inaccuracies. The report states, "With weather-related losses on the rise and extreme events more frequent, can we look back on historical data and draw conclusions about the likely impact of climate change on future losses? Can we tease out the role of climate from other factors when looking at specific events? The consequences are due to the combination of inflation, rising real estate values, the growth in coastal settlements and the increasing frequency and intensity of weather extremes... Climate signals in rising costs from "natural" disasters are evident in many aspects of the data."

This statement is simply inconsistent with the current state of scientific literature on this subject, which we summarized in a recent letter (PDF) in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), "Future research may yet reveal a connection between climate change and trends in disaster costs, but at present it is premature to attribute trends in disaster costs to anything other than characteristics of and changes in societal vulnerability."

OK, so far, pretty dull stuff, exaggerated, sloppy science in a report outside the scientific literature, yadda yadda yadda. But here is where it gets interesting. The people responsible for editing this report are none other than Paul Epstein and Evan Mills, two people whose work we have discussed here before in this exact same context. We took issue with a paper on this same subject Mills had in Science not too long ago for its poor scholarship, such as making assertions that were not supported by evidence and citing references for support that were unrelated to the claims being made. We contacted Mills and offered him a chance to respond and he declined. Many of these same claims resurface in the Harvard report. Epstein is the lead author of the BAMS paper that originally motivated our letter to BAMS taking issue with similar exaggerated claims about the role of the factors responsible for increasing disasters related to extreme weather events. Similar claims reappear in the Harvard report.

There is a body of peer-reviewed literature and views of a number of scholars that directly contradicts claims that Mills and Epstein have been making. Oddly enough the Harvard report includes our exchange in BAMS in the bibliography, but it does not appear in the text. While I have absolutely no problem with people holding different views on complicated subjects and debating the differences and their significance for policy actions, what strikes me as odd is that even after being called on this, Mills and Epstein have proceeded as if this literature does not exist, and are still making the same, unsupportable claims. This can only be for one reason.

Such cherry picking and sloppy work not only reflects poorly on the funders of the report, Swiss Reinsurance and the U.N. Development Program, but also on the people who are identified as peer reviewers of the report (a list which includes the current head of the IPCC). It is baffling to me that Mills and Epstein cannot see that their frequent and repeated mischaracterization of the state of the science on climate impacts will only work against their interests, which are apparently to motivate changes to energy policies. I too would like to see changes to energy policies, so their misguided efforts are problematic. And for those who are interested in practical, effective steps to deal with disasters, repeated promises that the solution to increasing disaster losses lies in energy policies offer false hopes of better outcomes.

Posted on November 3, 2005 09:02 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 01, 2005

Challenge Update 2

Michael Mann has written me a thoughtful email declining the invitation to contribute. He writes, “However, the issues you raise have already been dealt with already in some detail on RealClimate.org. A good place to start would be the post by my colleague Stefan Rahmstorf at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=114. I'm sure you will find this, and the other materials there quite relevant to the issues you raise.”

While I regret that Michael Mann won't be participating, the invitation to contribute remains open to any other member of the RealClimate team, or other relevant collaborators.

Posted on November 1, 2005 01:51 PM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Interesting Report on my Work

A group called the Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP) has produced a report (PDF) on disaster trends and climate change that relies heavily on my work. A few weeks ago, I was approached by CSPP with a draft of the report and asked to read it over for accuracy, an opportunity which I appreciate. The report is an accurate summary of peer-reviewed work that I have been involved in and some of my blog postings on this subject.

The CSPP notes on its webpage that it is a "non-partisan public policy organization" but then I see that it is part of the highly conservative group called Frontiers of Freedom. It is difficult to reconcile the claim of "non-partisanship" with the partisan zeal seen on the Frontiers of Freedom website.

I see also that the CSPP report on my work is cited in a press release by the Free Enterprise Action Fund which is led by Steven Milloy, who is also known as the proprieter of the www.junkscience.com website. The press release states:

"Action Fund Management LLC (AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund (www.FreeEnterpriseActionFund.com), asked five insurance companies that it owns to conduct independent analyses of allegations that global warming will increase weather-related losses. We believe environmental activists and their Left-leaning institutional investor allies are trying to take advantage of recent natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma to pressure insurance companies into supporting the Kyoto Protocol and other mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gases," said AFMs Steve Milloy... FEAFs request was spurred by a new report by the Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP) that concludes global warming is not responsible for increases in weather-related economic losses."

I have two responses to this:

1. The use of my work by Mr. Milloy to argue against Kyoto and greenhouse gas emissions controls was made possible by those who have exaggerated the state of the science of attribution of trends in disaster losses to climate change. There is simply no reason to believe that disaster losses can be modulated intentionally through energy policies. Furture research may yet overturn this conclusion, but to assert otherwise opens the door for legitimate criticism of policy advocacy that asserts the contrary.

2. My views on the role of the United States in international climate negotiations is available on my blog and in my writings. See, for example this post. I think that the United States has an obligation to participate in international climate negotiations. And as I've discussed here on numerous occasions, I also think that reducing greenhouse gases makes good sense, but not as a tool of disaster management. Ironically enough, given the current state of knowledge, suggestions that greenhouse gas controls can be used to manage future disasters probably works against the likelihood that greenhouse gas emissions will actually be reduced.

Bottom line - my work is accurately reported by CSPP and AFM. Policy advocacy, from whatever perspective, ought to be grounded in an expectation that the actions being advocated can actually have their promised effects.

Posted on November 1, 2005 10:15 AM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Challenge Update

In spite of my less-than-complementary characterization of the hockey stick debate, Steve McIntyre has graciously agreed to provide his thoughts on "so what?", characterizing it as a "fair question." He has even opened up a discussion forum on his blog related to this "challenge", and has already received much advice on how he might craft his reponse.

A couple members of the RealClimate team have weighed in with comments under my original post, and that is appreciated. But as yet, I've received no response to the "challenge." I remain hopeful that one of the team will respond formally to the opportunity to answer the "so what?" question. Many of us are curious about the answer.

Stay tuned!

Posted on November 1, 2005 07:18 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 31, 2005

Invitation to McIntyre and Mann - So What?

Over the weekend I read with mild amusement and increasing frustration the latest exchange in the "hockey stick" battle. Given that the "hockey stick" has occupied the attention of climate researchers in professional journals, been discussed on the pages of leading newspapers, and been the subject of a Congressional investigation, you might think that the latest exchange would be over something important. If you happen to be thinking along these lines, you'd be wrong.

Increasingly the back-and-forth over hockey sticks is beginning to look like a testosterone-fueled fight between different cliques of pimple-faced junior high school boys, egged on by a loud group of close observers who for various reasons want to see a brawl. And just like those boys on the playground, these guys are too wrapped up in their own vanity to see that they are making us all look bad, and are risking having our recess cancelled. From my perspective -- that is, one focused on decisions about climate policies or climate science -- the continuing pettiness of the debate on the "hockey stick" suggests that the time might be appropriate for the participants to explain to the rest of us why we should care about their continuing smarminess, else they should all be sent to detention where they can continue their bickering while the rest of us stay on the playground.

So what was the latest exchange about anyway? Given the attention devoted to this subject, perhaps it was about the future of world's energy policies? Perhaps it was about policies for data archiving and peer review of climate research? Maybe even the technical details of using bristlecone pines in paleoclimate temperature reconstructions? The role of politics in climate science? Nope, none of these things. It was about who gets to post comments on whose website. To get a sense of this juvenile exchange, see this post and comments at ClimateAudit and this post and comments at RealClimate. You'll see a lot of finger pointing, chest-thumping and pique over claims back-and-forth over issues like "dishonesty" and deeply wounded egos. And the folks chiming in from the sidelines are just having a ball.

I have written previously here that "I think that the debate over the so-called "hockey stick" temperature reconstruction is a distraction from the development and promulgation of climate policy." But perhaps I am missing something. So I'd like to issue an invitation to both Steve McIntyre and Michael Mann (or another member of his team) to each prepare a short commentary (<1,500 words) which we will post here at Prometheus explaining why those of us not involved in the hockey stick fight should care about the continuing battles. Let me be clear, I am not asking why each of *you* are engaged in this battle. And we don't want to hear about any of the technical issues involved, all of that stuff is readily available. I want to know why *others* should continue to care about it, from your perspective. Why is this fight important to the rest of us?

We will publish both pieces on November 14, 2005, which means we'll need your pieces by November 11, 2005. If you would like to participate but would like more time, simply email me (pielke@colorado.edu) saying as much and we'll extend the deadline. If you don't respond (and so there is no doubt that you'll each get this, as I'll also email this invitation to each of you), we'll take that as a clear indication that there is not in fact a compelling reason that you can offer for us outsiders to care about this debate. And given the way that you've been spending your collective time of late, a response of "too busy" or "over-committed" just won't fly, particularly given our willingness to extend the deadline in a way that suits your schedules.

Please view this as an opportunity to clearly explain the significance of this debate that you've both invested so heavily in. And please apply prisoner's dilemma logic to our request, and assume that the other has accepted our invitation. I am sure that there are others who are looking forward to each of you engaging on this issue - hockey sticks, so what?

Posted on October 31, 2005 10:55 AM View this article | Comments (25) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 26, 2005

Exchange in BAMS on Climate Impacts Attribution, Part 2

Earlier this week I described an exchange in the October, 2005 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) on the subject of the attribution of the impacts of recent disasters to climate change. Our letter (PDF), which was prepared in response to a December 2004 paper by Epstein and McCarthy (EM), concluded, "Future research may yet reveal a connection between climate change and trends in disaster costs, but at present it is premature to attribute trends in disaster costs to anything other than characteristics of and changes in societal vulnerability."

EM prepared a reply to our letter (PDF) which also appears in the October BAMS. Here I offer a point-by-point rejoinder to their reply.

1. Let's start on where we agree. EM conclude, "The task is to harmonize adaptation with mitigation and do it in such a way as to stimulate the global economy."

Response: Sounds good to me.

2. EM restate their original argument as, "We wrote that both increasing coastal populations and real estate prices have increased exposure to weather-related disasters and that the number of extreme weather events has risen worldwide... We do not attempt to quantify the relative importance of these factors in the well-documented increase in insured and uninsured losses from weather-related disasters. We believe our statement is balanced and true to the current literature."

Response: Where is the evidence that the number of extreme weather events has risen worldwide? The IPCC disagrees (with only one exception). Further, there is a literature that has sought to tease out a climate signal in the disaster record, which is simply ignored by EM. Their statement is in fact contrary to the current literature, including that in the most recent IPCC. Saying otherwise doesn't make it so.

3. EM assert that the IPCC has identified (with various levels of confidence) trends in extreme related to global precipitation and temperature, which is true. In the case of temperature there is no evidence that such increases, e.g., in diurnal temperature ranges, have any relationship to disaster costs. And we have discussed precipitation and floods here in some detail (e.g., see this post). The trends that EM point to in the IPCC are simply off point, and a distraction to this discussion.

4. EM engage in some misdirection when they state, "The World Meteorological Organization (2004) made explicit the connection between an energized climate system and more extreme weather."

First, they cite the wrong reference here, pointing in their references to the 2003 WMO report instead of the 2004 report. Second, and more importantly, the 2004 report (here in PDF) actually has conclusions contrary to those suggested by EM.

"According to the third IPCC Assessment Report the duration, location and frequency of extreme weather and climate events are likely to change, and would result in mostly adverse impacts on biophysical systems. The IPCC also notes that for certain extreme phenomena there is currently insufficient information to assess recent trends, and climate models currently lack the spatial detail required to make confident projections. Therefore the linkages between climate variability and climate change and patterns of natural hazards remain a research topic that needs to be further investigated by the scientific community."

I continue to be amazed to see in this area scholarly citations misused to support otherwise unsupportable assertions.

5. EM then get out on some very thin ice when they cite Mills (2005). We discussed Mills (2005) at length, so no need to revisit that critique. However, this is a good example of how a poor analysis is used to carry weight that it cannot support.

6. EM raise the issue of "the costs of biological sequelae of weather extremes." These costs have not be explored in detail in the literature and I agree with EM that more attention should be paid to them

7. EM state, "We attempt no rank ordering of social vulnerabilities versus climate variability and severity because we think it premature." Premature? Numerous scholars have been actively studying this issue, (I've been involved for close to 10 years), and a robust, peer-reviewed literature has resulted. Clearly, more work should be done in this area, and given its importance, it is hardly premature. It may be that "premature" in this case is just a synonym for "inconvenient."

Bottom line: There is nothing in the EM response to alter our conclusion that "Future research may yet reveal a connection between climate change and trends in disaster costs, but at present it is premature to attribute trends in disaster costs to anything other than characteristics of and changes in societal vulnerability."

Posted on October 26, 2005 08:55 AM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 25, 2005

Ideology, Public Opinion, Hurricanes and Global Warming

According to a CNN/Gallup poll released today, a majority of Americans, and a majority of both Republicans and Democrats, “believe that global warming has been at least a minor cause of the number and strength of hurricanes in recent years.” The poll asked, “Thinking about the increase in the number and strength of hurricanes in recent years, do you think global warming has been a major cause, a minor cause, or not a cause of the increase in hurricanes?”

Specifically, the poll found that 60% of respondents believe that global warming was either a major or minor cause of “the increase in hurricanes,” -- 53% of Republicans, 60% of Independents and 82% of Democrats. Clearly, ideology shapes how one views the science.

Interestingly, 36% of respondents think that global warming is a “major cause”, 25% of Republicans, 34% of Independents, and 48% of Democrats. On the flip side, 30% of respondents to the poll believe that global warming was “not a cause,” 44% Republicans, 34% Independents and 12% Democrats. Let’s assume that the most up-to-date state of the science is presented in the recent work of Emanuel and Webster et al. (and, yes, yes, I know that there are responses to these papers in the pipeline, but they are not published yet, and this poll was taken just recently, for a full assessment of the current state of the literature see this paper (PDF)). These works are suggestive that global warming has had at best, only a minor influence on the storms of the Atlantic in recent years (i.e., no one has asserted effects on frequency, and Emanuel claims that an intensity signal at landfall has not been seen, and Webster et al. claim that attribution has not yet been achieved). As Kerry Emanuel, who has asserted that a global warming signal exists in the data on hurricane intensity, notes, “There has been a large upswing in the frequency of Atlantic hurricanes, beginning in 1995. This is owing to natural cycles in North Atlantic climate that we have observed for many decades and, to the best of our ability to discern, has nothing obvious to do with global warming.”

So it is fair to conclude that 66% of respondents to this poll misunderstand the science as reflected in the recent peer reviewed literature – that is, the 36% who assert a that global warming has been a “major cause” and the 30% who assert that global warming is “not a cause.” The ones whose views are consistent with the most recent science on this subject are the 29% who asserted a “minor cause” – 28% Republican, 26% Independent and 34% Democrat.

There numbers raise some interesting questions about the positions that scientists take in public on the relationship of global warming and hurricanes. Some statements by prominent scientists go well beyond what the peer reviewed literature can support; some vehemently assert no linkage, while others claim that global warming is a major factor. With scientists themselves going to extremes, it is no wonder that the public has misunderstandings. In this environment of dueling experts we should expect that the public tends to align their views of science in ways fit best with their ideological predispositions.

Because slightly more people appear to overstate the linkage than underplay it – at least as indicated in this poll – it is logical for those with an interest in the public understanding of science to devote just as much (or slightly more) attention to reigning in some of the exaggerations of the science as to correcting those who underplay the issue. But such balanced perspectives are few and far between. Nuanced messages about the complexities and realities are lost in the fray. It is “global warming: yes or no” with little room for other perspectives.

To be fair, it may be that some the scientists who are claiming no linkage or a strong linkage are simply arguing in public about what they expect future research will show, perhaps motivated a bit by ego considerations. But of course, science is (usually) not decided in the media or by public opinion, but rather on the pages of peer reviewed journals, and these scientists surely know this. So perhaps there are other motivations here.

Could it be that the views of many scientists about the science of hurricanes and climate change are colored by their own political preferences, just like those of the public? Specifically, perhaps those scientists who are asserting loudly in public that global warming is “not a cause” are focusing their message on the 48% of Democrats who believe that global warming is a “major cause.” And similarly, perhaps those scientists who are asserting a “major cause” are focusing their attention on the 44% of Republicans who think that global warming is “not a cause.” Could it be that some scientists, and even professional societies, show little concern about public misunderstandings of science when they are politically convenient, and work to correct them only when the opposite is true? Is concern among scientists about the public misunderstanding of science selective? Shocking if true.

Of course, the entire debate about global warming and hurricanes is a huge distraction from what needs to be done in a practical sense to better prepare for hurricanes and to mitigate climate change. They are two separate problems. (Before you write in, please consider the following homework assignment: Assume that human-caused greenhouse gases are cut by 80% on Jan 1, 2006, describe the effects on hurricane damages in 2050. This is not to diminish GHG reductions, but to make the point that they are not a tool of hurricane policy.) But the debate sure makes for an interesting new playing field for playing out our left-right political battles. It’s just too bad that it is politicizing the scientific enterprise in the process.

For further reading:

Pielke, Jr., R.A. and D. Sarewitz, 2005. Managing the next disaster, Los Angeles Times, September 23. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, 2005 (in press). Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, December. (PDF)

Posted on October 25, 2005 06:56 PM View this article | Comments (17) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 24, 2005

Exchange in BAMS on Climate Impacts Attribution, Part 1

The October issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) has an exchange of letters on trends in climate impacts and the attribution of those trends to human-caused climate change. Our letter was prepared in response to a December paper in BAMS by Paul Epstein and John McCarthy (EM04). EM have a reply (PDF) to our letter which I will discuss in detail in a subsequent post. Here is a list of the authors of our letter.

-ROGER A. PIELKE JR. University of Colorado/CIRES, Boulder, Colorado
-SHARDUL AGRAWALA OECD Environmental Directorate, Paris, France
-LAURENS M. BOUWER Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
-IAN BURTON University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
-STANLEY CHANGNON University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois
-MICHAEL H. GLANTZ Environmental and Societal Impacts Group, NCAR, Boulder, Colorado
-WILLIAM H. HOOKE Atmospheric Policy Program, AMS, Washington, D.C.
-RICHARD J. T. KLEIN Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam, Germany
-KENNETH KUNKEL Center for Atmospheric Science, Illinois State Water Survey, Champaign, Illinois
-DENNIS MILETI Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
-DANIEL SAREWITZ Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
-EMMA L. TOMPKINS Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
-NICO STEHR Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany
-HANS VON STORCH Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center, Geesthacht, Germany

Here is the opening paragraph of our letter (PDF):

"The December 2004 issue of BAMS contains an article warning of the threats of abrupt climate change (Epstein and McCarthy 2004, hereafter EM04). The article seeks to raise awareness of the risks of an abrupt change in climate related to human influences on the climate system, but, in doing so it repeats a common factual error. Specifically, it identifies the recent growth in economic damages associated with weather and climate events, such as Hurricanes Mitch and Jeanne and tornadoes in the United States, as evidence of trends in extreme events, arguing "the rising costs associated with weather volatility provide another derived indicator of the state of the climate system . . . the economic costs related to more severe and volatile weather deserves mention as an integral indicator of volatility." Although the attribution of increasing damages to climate changes is but one of many assertions made by EM04, the repetition of this erroneous claim is worth correcting because it is not consistent with current scientific understandings."

Our concluding paragraph is as follows:

"Concern about the possibility of abrupt climate change, whether human caused or not, is well justified (Alley et al. 2003). However, to connect the economic and other human impacts of disasters that have occurred in recent years and decades to climate changes (human caused or not) is not supported by the robust peer-reviewed literature in this area. Advancing such unsupported connections not only can create inefficiencies in disaster policy (Sarewitz and Pielke 2005), but can also open the door to an "overselling" of climate science and a resulting criticism of advocacy efforts regarding climate change (e.g., von Storch and Stehr 2005). Both science and policy will be better served by aligning the justifications advanced for action with current scientific understandings. Future research may yet reveal a connection between climate change and trends in disaster costs, but at present it is premature to attribute trends in disaster costs to anything other than characteristics of and changes in societal vulnerability."

Please read the whole letter here (PDF).

Posted on October 24, 2005 12:02 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 23, 2005

Response from Judy Curry

Judy Curry has taken us up on our offer to respond to my crticism of her comments reported in an online interview. I appreciate the response and accept her apology. Here is what she sent by email:

Roger,

Thanks for pointing this out to me, I've been so busy i hadn't even read the Thacker article (or most of the others). The words in the article attributed to me are not inaccurate, although excerpted and taken out of context. In my interview, on the contrary, I did not have negative things to say about you, I said you did good policy work in atmospheric science (the "prolific writer was intended to be a compliment), although I said that I didn't like your BAMS article. I apologize if it comes across as a personal attack, that was not my intent.

The issue I was trying to make in the interview with Thacker was that there are three different sub groups here: the hurricane forecasters, the climate researchers, and policy scientists. The hurricane-climate change issue is very complex and needs the perspectives of all three. Each has a different perspective, and has the deep understanding of their own area, while having some knowledge of the other areas relevant to this issue. In this whole debate, there has been too much discounting by individuals of the other areas of expertise. To state that you do not have a degree in atmospheric science is not an ad hominem attack. I have stated that I am not an expert on hurricane dynamics. These are facts. Of course, if you put this in a certain context, it can look like an ad hominem attack.

We all have more important things to do than quarrel about the media, like doing more research, publishing papers, and educating the public.

Thanks for the opportunity to reply to this.

Judy

p.s. please feel free to post this wherever

Posted on October 23, 2005 09:44 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 22, 2005

Tag Team Hit Job

It can only be a good sign that one's views are having some influence when your critics begin to focus on ad hominem attacks and cartoonish mischaracterizations of your work. This has happened to me in, of all places, an interview of Georgia Tech's Judy Curry by journalist Paul Thacker of Environmental Science & Technology. Here we can set the record straight with respect to some egregious errors and misrepresentations.

Thacker says to Curry, "Another apparent rising media star is Roger Pielke, Jr. I noticed that in a recent news story in Science he was listed as a "climatologist", and he made no attempt to correct that." In fact, I emailed Richard Kerr September 15, 2005 immediately after the Science article came out correcting the mistake. Had Thacker just called me up, I could have easily confirmed this; instead he has tried to suggest something that is not. I have sent to Thacker my email to Kerr and asked Thacker to issue a correction.

Curry responds to Thacker by trying to diminish my academic background, "Well, he's a prolific writer, but he is really a policy person [who] has a qualitative understanding of climate science. He is not a climatologist. I don't know that he's ever even taken a class in atmospheric science. In fact, he got his degree at the University of Colorado, where I used to teach, well before we instituted the program in atmospheric and ocean sciences." I am pretty comfortable with my academic background and publishing record, and feel absolutely no need to defend it here. I simply don't understand Curry's motivation for the ad hom criticism.

Curry then goes on to demonstrate that she has never really read any of my work when she writes, "So he has no formal training in atmospheric science. His mantra, if you will, is, "Let's not worry about why we have climate change; let's look at what we can do to adapt." This is not bad, but in the situation of hurricanes, it's been taken to an absurd position." As I have stated here and in peer-reviewed papers numerous times, climate change is a problem worth worrying about. We have to adapt and mitigate at the same time. Exactly what to do, when, by whom and at what costs are difficult policy questions. Even a cursory reading of my work will show these points. On hurricanes, I simply don't know what Curry is referring to, since she relies on inflammatory language ("mantra" and "absurd") rather than engaging in anything close to substantive debate.

So let's make it easy for Judy, here is a very short op-ed (PDF) on hurricanes in the context of climate change and climate policy that places our views in a nutshell. I am offering an open invitation to Judy Curry to prepare a response of similar length, which we will gladly publish here, to offer a different perspective. Let's talk about the issues, shall we?

Posted on October 22, 2005 07:15 AM View this article | Comments (14) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 07, 2005

Preprint Available

A forthcoming paper of mine in Environmental Science and Policy is available as a PDF. Here is the title and abstract.

Misdefining ''climate change'': consequences for science and action

Abstract

The restricted definition of ''climate change'' used by the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) has profoundly affected the science, politics, and policy processes associated with the international response to the climate issue. Specifically, the FCCC definition has contributed to the gridlock and ineffectiveness of the global response to the challenge of climate change. This paper argues that the consequences of misdefining ''climate change'' create a bias against adaptation policies and set the stage for the politicization of climate science. The paper discusses options for bringing science, policy and politics in line with a more appropriate definition of climate change such as the more comprehensive perspective used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Posted on October 7, 2005 07:08 AM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 03, 2005

Another Misattribution, Climate Scientists Silent

On 28 September 2005 the New York Times ran an editorial titled "Time to Connect the Dots" that argued from attention to greenhouse gas reductions in order to address the threats of global warming on hurricane damages. Here is an excerpt:

"The scientists who have studied the issue have not detected any increase in the number of hurricanes. Yet these same scientists - in research reports appearing in reputable journals like Science, Nature and The Journal of Climate - have detected increases of up to 70 percent in hurricane intensity, a measure that combines the power of a hurricane and its duration. There has been a commensurate increase in damage, mainly because more and more people have stubbornly put themselves at risk by moving to low-lying coastal areas. But the hurricanes' added strength has clearly contributed to the ever-higher toll in lives and property damage."

This last statement is scientifically unsupportable (stay tuned, new peer-reviewed publication on this coming very soon!). The observed changes in the characteristics of storms have not been detected in statistics on loss of lives or property damages. This Times is correct to point to the role of demographics, but goes too far when alleging a relationship of changes in storm characteristics and societal impacts with no science to back up such an allegation.

We could spend all of our time here correcting inaccurate statements from those linking the observed increase in economic damages related to extreme events with changes in climate. Current science (PDF) simply does not support such a linkage. What is more surprising to me is not that such claims are being made (it is an easy error to make, I'll admit, because it seems logical), but that the broad climate science community, which so vigorously argues in public about issues like the temperature of the 15th century and satellite versus temperature records, adopts a stoney silence when it comes to the frequent and highly visible scientific misstatements on the attribution of increasing economic losses. And in fact the climate science community often is guilty of such misstatements empowering others who rely on the statements of scientists to compound the mistaken attribution. Climate scientists should know better. I have frequently wondered why this is so, given that the attribution of factors underlying increasing societal impacts has far more policy relevance (PDF) that the arguments over temperature records, which are really just political symbols in an ideological battle. But perhaps I have just answered my own question.

Posted on October 3, 2005 12:30 AM View this article | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 29, 2005

Stehr and von Storch on Climate Policy

Nico Stehr and Hans von Storch have collaborated on another brilliant essay on climate policy. (Longtime Prometheus readers will recall their earlier essay on the danagers of overselling climate science, here.) We are happy to provide an English translation of their most recent collaboration below, which first appeared in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 21 September 2005. Your comments are encouraged. Read the whole thing.

The Sluggishness of Politics and Nature

Nico Stehr and Hans von Storch

Even before 11 September 2001, the American Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - of which little good has been spoken in the past days - published a list of the three most probable catastrophes threatening the US: a terrorist attack on the city of New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a direct hit by a hurricane on the city of New Orleans. The Houston Chronicle asserted in that the hurricane is the deadliest danger. There are not many similar examples of accurate predictions. And yet there was a criminal lack of precautions taken in New Orleans.

The disastrous results of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and in the surrounding states are a perfect example of a failed climate policy. The failure, however, does not lie in the Bush administration's refusal to agree to the Kyoto Protocol, as German Environment Minister Trittin has claimed.

It simply makes no sense, after the catastrophic force of Hurricane Katrina, to resort to new superlatives and to claim that this extreme weather event is proof that the force and duration of tropical cyclones will increase in the future. The first order of business should not be to wonder whether Katrina is an indicator that anthropogenic global warming is the immediate cause of the devastation in New Orleans. We can do without these debates, or we can happily leave them in the hands of science.

Climate researchers should be asked, however: Assuming for a moment that the US, as well as China, Russia and India, were radically to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases to a hitherto quite improbable degree, when might we be able to discern the fruits of this climate policy, when will the consequences of hurricanes such as Katrina be less grave, and exactly how large will these lesser damages be? Interesting questions. For our society and for others, however, it is much more important to ask: How can we protect ourselves in the coming decades from extremes of weather like Hurricane Katrina, heat waves, floods and other extremes; and what should a climate policy that takes just this as its goal look like? And how is it that climate policy up to now, particularly in Germany, has been almost exclusively devoted to the reduction of greenhouse gases, and thus can only comment on catastrophes like the one that occurred in New Orleans with an air of smug superiority?

In answering this question, we first come face to face with several interesting characteristics shared by environmental, education and research policy alike.

The gains or losses in these policy areas are difficult to calculate; their successes and failures become apparent, if at all, only after decades; coming generations reap their rewards or suffer from their mistakes. The voters, reinforced and fostered by politics, have a short-term memory. They will only pay for what affects them at first hand.

Environmental policy, however, like the other two policy areas, is something whose effects, in many cases, are only apparent in the long term. Because this is the case, it is at the mercy of current events. Extreme weather events wash the topic of climate policy to the surface. And there is one more common characteristic: Environmental, research and education policy are crucial policy areas in terms of power. Anyone who can make a name for himself or herself in these areas assumes one of the better positions in the future economic and political pecking order. This is power, and power is what interests politics. How, then, do we find solutions in spite of these difficulties? Let us examine climate policy.

The consensus on climate change that has prevailed up to now and the policy measures that have been drawn from this consensus lead to a dead end. The alternative to this way of thinking is called adaptation. This entails political measures devoted - not exclusively, indeed, but certainly primarily - to the question of adapting to the expected climate changes.

What is the crucial difference? The present consensus on the cause of climate change always leads to one and the same result in terms of policy: reduce greenhouse gases, particularly emissions of carbon dioxide. CO2 is bad. This point is stressed incessantly. This mantra has little to do with the practical problem of protecting the environment and avoiding the dangerous results of environmental changes. It does explain, however, why the measures taken up to now have been so unsuccessful. They are strategies of moderation. The proper strategy, however, as New Orleans could hardly demonstrate more clearly, is one of adaptation.

Survival by adaptation means taking precautions by means of a multitude of concrete measures, with the goal of meeting past and expected weather extremes without massive damages in the future. The Dutch reaction to the devastating storm tide in a cold winter night in 1953 is exemplary. The Thames Barrier, which prevents flooding in London, England, is an obvious further example of the power of precautions.

Precautionary measures extend from the simplest provisions - where were the thousands of buses to evacuate poor, sick and old people from New Orleans before the storm hit? - to adaptive strategies effective in the long term; for instance, building codes, forbidding settlement in endangered areas, innovations such as intelligent dykes, the renaturalization of rivers, education and information campaigns regarding what to do in an emergency, etc.

Accommodation and precaution - in other word, adaptive measures - are essentially easier politically to enforce and to legitimize. And they have one enormous advantage compared to all strategies of moderation, whose success may (or may not) become apparent in the distant future: Adaptive processes have a relatively brief planning interval. When solutions to a problem must be found by means of innovations in science and technology, they can be produced much more easily if they are conceived as adaptive measures. The knowledge-based economy makes possible something that was long unimaginable: the reconciliation of ecological and economic aims. If, for example, the traditional objectives of entrepreneurial trade - that is, maximizing returns - are to be retained in the future, the resources of the old economy will be handled more sparingly, more efficiently and more productively. Accommodations will be made. The dynamic of social transformation has expanded, and so too have the opportunities to adapt to novelties and to dangers.

Adaptive strategies also allow several goals at once to be achieved more easily: improving quality of life, reducing social inequity and increasing political participation are not mutually exclusive. The risks and dangers associated with uncertainties - new technology, for instance - are fewer in the case of adaptive measures. Adaptive processes can become the motor of what we call sustainable management. Adaptation can lead to the reduction of greenhouse gases, because adaptation and moderation are not mutually exclusive. However: reduction does not necessarily lead to adaptation. Any form of sustainability is local.

We must learn to think in a new way. Nature is sluggish. The modest, politically enforceable forms of moderating greenhouse gases discussed up to now have hardly any influence on climate change, despite claims to the contrary. The reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases needed to "stop" climate change amounts to about 70 percent.

How such a reduction is to be achieved without ignoring the hopes and expectations of more than 80 percent of the world's population is not currently a topic of discussion. If these contradictions are resolved by stressing what is feasible, then it quickly becomes evident: the majority of politically realistic measures tend in any case to be adaptive strategies.

These strategies describe what is possible. One only has to consider the warnings that climate change will result in catastrophic famines and epidemics. In other words, it is health that is at stake here. But personal modes of behavior are much more crucial determinants of health than climatic conditions. And people can influence their own behavior more easily and sustainably than any attempt purposefully to change the global climate. Adaptation, then, means giving every individual the chance to be able to react to changes.

And yet: the fear of catastrophes, prompted by extreme weather events, is used to win public support for plans of moderation. This, however, is a very dubious strategy. In politically relevant timeframes, the measures of moderation propagated by science and sanctioned by policy have no effect on the probability and the force of extreme events. Thus it is imaginable that the public will rebel against the burdens imposed on it. The climatic dynamic demands politically enforceable adaptive strategies that will remain stable over much longer time periods. This degree of consistency can hardly be reached on the basis of fear of extreme events.

Paradoxically, the fact is: to the extent that our knowledge about the part human activity plays in global warming improves and expands, the opportunities in modern societies to negotiate sustainable and planned reductions of greenhouse gases actually diminish - to say nothing of the question of who should cover the costs and how the benefit should be divided.

Adaptation, by contrast, works. Precautionary and preventative measures are effective in preventing fatalities from heat, for example. While a tragedy occurred in Chicago in mid-July 1995, with more than 700 "heat deaths," in the same summer the so-called "hot weather health warning watch system" saved the lives of about 300 people in the city of Philadelphia. The occurrence of extremely high temperatures in Philadelphia in 1993 and 1994 prompted the development of an efficient warning system and social networks that benefited the elderly and other persons at risk. What does this mean? In reality, it was the isolation of elderly people in Chicago who did not know how to help themselves, or the poverty (and thus also: helplessness), which was much worse in this region ten years ago, that led to the high number of fatalities.

This is also the chief factor at the global scale: Anyone who battles poverty creates the basic conditions to ensure that climate change will not entail the catastrophes that politicians continue to invoke in promoting moderation. Adaptation means: disseminating knowledge nd creating new opportunities. Wherever people are completely at the mercy of changes, there will always be catastrophes - including those caused by climate change.

An environmental policy that has comprehended this would truly be of lasting effect. And enforceable. It would prevent another New Orleans from happening.

Professor Nico Stehr is Karl Mannheim Professor for Cultural Studies at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen. Hans von Storch is a director of the Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center and a Professor of Meteorology at the University of Hamburg.

Posted on September 29, 2005 08:03 AM View this article | Comments (18) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

September 28, 2005

Mr. Crichton Goes to Washington

Today Michael Crichton is scheduled to testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. We'll discuss when we learn more and if we deem it worth commenting on. Meantime, it seems clear that Michael Crichton tends to drive climate scientists to froth at the mouth. NASA's Jim Hansen, cited in Crichton's latest book, State of Fear, sent out by email a preemptive attack (PDF) on Crichton. Hansen picks the eve of Crichton's Congressional testimony to take issue with Crichton's characterization of his work in State of Fear. Here is an excerpt from Hansen's fusillade:

"Michael Crichton's latest fictional novel, "State of Fear", designed to discredit concerns about global warming, purports to use the scientific method. The book is sprinkled with references to scientific papers, and Crichton intones in the introduction that his "footnotes are real". But does Crichton really use the scientific method? Or is it something closer to scientific fraud? I have not read Crichton's book ... Crichton writes fiction and seems to make up things as he goes along. He doesn't seem to have the foggiest notion about the science that he writes about. Perhaps that is o.k. for a science fiction writer. However, I recently heard that, in considering the global warming issue, a United States Senator is treating words from Crichton as if they had scientific or practical validity. If so, wow -- Houston, we have a problem!"

For his testimony-eve efforts Hansen may have contributed to the impression among some that Crichton's non-fictional arguments about the role of politics in climate science have some validity. Here is what Crichton said last year on science and politics:

"I'm concerned that science, having ascended to a phenomenal position of power within our society, has provided a temptation for some highly intelligent individuals to join in the political fray, where they really don't belong, where they do it really badly, and where they don't acknowledge they are damaging science as an enterprise. Because science needs to be kept separate from politics And it can be phenomenally dangerous when you start to take as policy something you want to happen and begin to claim it's science-based. Science has to stay independent, it has to stay focused on the data and it cannot be involved in where this is going to lead. In those days it was immigration policy and the "gene pool." Now it's something else. But it's a dangerous, dangerous gangplank to walk down and I hope we don't go further. We need science. Keep the politics out of it."

Lest any new reader to Prometheus think that I support Crichton's views on politics and science, I have often written about the impossibility of cleanly separating science and politics (e.g., here in PDF) -- instead the challenge is to manage the inevitable overlaps. It seems that Crichton's testimony and Jim Hansen's preemptive attack underscore the reality of the inevitable interconnections of science and politics.

Posted on September 28, 2005 06:48 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 23, 2005

Op-ed in the LA Times

Dan Sarewitz and I have an op-ed on hurricanes, climate change and disasters in today's Los Angeles Times. Here is the opening:

"LIKE A BAD horror movie in which the villain keeps coming back, Hurricane Rita, the 18th storm of the season, is spinning toward an inevitable rendezvous with the Gulf Coast. We've already seen more death and destruction than the last 35 hurricane seasons combined. And many people, including some European and U.S. politicians, are hoping that the carnage - represented most poignantly by the destruction in New Orleans - will help bring this country to its senses on dealing with global warming.

But understanding what this hurricane season is really telling us about why we're so vulnerable to climate-related catastrophes means facing up to an unavoidable fact: Efforts to slow global warming will have no discernible effect on hurricanes for the foreseeable future. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adequately preparing for future disasters are essentially separate problems."

Read the whole thing here.

Posted on September 23, 2005 06:48 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

September 22, 2005

Column in Bridges

My latest column in Bridges, the quarterly publication of Office of Science & Technology at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC, is now online. It is titled, "Making Sense of Trends in Disaster Losses," and starts out like this:

"Record rainfall and over a thousand dead in Mumbai. Devastating floods in central Europe. A record hurricane season in the Atlantic, including more than $100 billion dollars in damage from Hurricane Katrina. The summer of 2005 seems to have witnessed more than its fair share of weather-related disasters. And, perhaps understandably, no weather-related disaster occurs without someone linking it to the issue of global warming... But as logical and enticing as it may seem to connect the ever-growing toll of disasters with global warming, the current state of science simply does not support making such a connection."

Read the rest here. Comments welcomed.

If you are interested in science and technology policy, then the entire issue of Bridges is worth your attention.

Posted on September 22, 2005 12:33 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

Correcting Pat Michaels

Posted by Roger A. Pielke, Jr. (RP) and Kerry Emanuel (KE)

In a column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch Pat Michaels mischaracterizes the role of KE in a paper RP is lead author on forthcoming in BAMS (PDF). Michaels writes,

"A heavily cited paper, published recently in Nature by Kerry Emanuel, claims that hurricanes have doubled in power in the past half-century. It has been the basis for much of the association of Katrina with planetary warming. However, there are three manuscripts in review at Nature disputing this, as well as a recently published paper by Roger Pielke, Jr., in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, downplaying the notion. (As a measure of the acrimony among leading scientists on this subject, Emanuel removed his name as a co-author of this paper shortly before publication.)"

This is incorrect on two counts.

First, KE withdrew with no acrimony. Here is what the two of us jointly wrote on this a few weeks ago:

"The reason that KE decided to withdraw amicably from co-authorship had nothing to do with the paper's summary of research on the societal impacts of hurricanes, as implied here, but instead, a change in KE's views on the significance of global warming in observed and projected hurricane behavior. It is misleading to use KE's withdrawal to dismiss the entire paper. Here is how KE characterized his withdrawal to RP in an email:

"The awkward situation we find ourselves in is bound to occur when research is in rapid flux. Working with both data and models, I see a large global warming signal in hurricanes. But it remains for me to persuade you and other of my colleagues of this, and it is entirely reasonable for you all to be skeptical...it is, after all, very new. It is not surprising, therefore, that what I have come to believe is at odds with any reasonable consensus. The problem for me is that I cannot sign on to a paper which makes statements I no longer believe are true, even though the consensus is comfortable with them."

We remain close, collegial colleagues who are seeking to advance science by challenging each others ideas in the traditional fora of scientific discourse. We hope that the media will recognize that science is complex and legitimate, differing perspectives often co-exist simultaneously. This diversity of perspective is one feature that motivates the advancement of knowledge."

Second, the BAMS paper (PDF) does not "downplay" the relationship of hurricanes and global warming. The paper is an assessment of the authors' best judgments about what can and cannot be said about the relationship based on the peer-reviewed literature. Here is what the paper says about Emanuel (2005):

"Emanuel (2005) reports a very substantial upward trend in power dissipation (i.e., the sum over the lifetime of the storm of the maximum wind speed cubed) in the north Atlantic and western North Pacific, with a near doubling over the past 50 years. The precise causation for this trend is not yet clear. Moreover, in the North Atlantic, much of the recent upward trend in Atlantic storm frequency and intensity can be attributed to large multi-decadal fluctuations. Emanuel (2005) is just published as of this writing, and is certain to motivate a healthy and robust debate in the community."

There will be a place for debating and discussing Emanuel (2005) and its possible implications and that is in the peer reviewed literature.

Posted on September 22, 2005 12:25 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 21, 2005

Revkin on Katrina, Climate Science, Policy

Andy Revkin is one of the nation's most influential and widely respected journalists covering climate (and other environmental) issues. In a news release, the AAAS provides a rare look at the views of someone who plays a significant role in shaping public and policy debate over climate. Here are some interesting excerpts from the AAAS news story:

""We have to understand, and society has to become comfortable with, making decisions in uncertainty," Revkin said in the Robert C. Barnard Environmental Lecture at AAAS headquarters in Washington, D.C. He spoke to an audience of AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows and others ...

In his lecture, Revkin said that after covering global warming for almost 20 years, he is convinced that there will never be a time when he can write a story that states clearly that global warming "happened today." "It is never going to be the kind of story that will give you the level of certainty that everyone seems to crave," he said. "We are assaulted with complexity and uncertainty. Somehow, we need to convey that in all that information, with those question marks, there is a trajectory to knowledge." American society is uneasy with the equivocal answers that often are the best environmental scientists can provide, said Revkin. Newspapers are uncomfortable with "murk," and politicians and Congress "hate it," he said. Yet, despite the lack of crystal clarity, "you can still make decisions. Uncertainties don't let you off the hook," he said, even though some people in politics have used the uncertainties for that purpose...

The effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans is an example of how society has responded to a risky situation, he said. Since 1969, when Hurricane Camille churned ashore nearby, it was known that New Orleans "was designed to survive a hit from a Category 3 hurricane, but was now living in a Category 5 world," said Revkin. "We were willing to live with that gamble in all of the years since then, and now many people are paying the cost." In the wake of Katrina, he said, Americans must decide how to deal with risks. He said society can either make greater use of science in planning for long-term risks or "we can just hunker down and weather each storm as it comes. I am not sure which way we are going to go yet." ...

Revkin said he finds comfort in the fact that there are still scientists and other people who are trying "in an open-minded and transparent way" to understand how the environment can be preserved and who are "braving the landscape of policy." "It is very easy to be a scientist and just do your work and try to avoid (policy questions)," he said, "but it is getting harder and harder and it is also getting less and less responsible not to get into that landscape.""

Read the full AAAS news story here.

Posted on September 21, 2005 08:02 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

On Burying the Lead

The Webster/Holland/Curry/Chang work in Science this week received a load of press coverage. Little of it was intelligent. (Roger slammed one piece last Friday here.)

In my experience, often one of the most important sections of any Science or Nature paper is the last two paragraphs. Here's what the last two paragraphs say in Webster et al.:

"We deliberately limited this study to the satellite era because of the known biases before this period (28), which means that a comprehensive analysis of longer-period oscillations and trends has not been attempted. There is evidence of a minimum of intense cyclones occurring in the 1970s (11), which could indicate that our observed trend toward more intense cyclones is a reflection of a long-period oscillation. However, the sustained increase over a period of 30 years in the proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes indicates that the related oscillation would have to be on a period substantially longer than that observed in previous studies.
"We conclude that global data indicate a 30-year trend toward more frequent and intense hurricanes, corroborated by the results of the recent regional assessment (29). This trend is not inconsistent with recent climate model simulations that a doubling of CO2 may increase the frequency of the most intense cyclones (18, 30), although attribution of the 30-year trends to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state."

Among many crucial caveats in both paragraphs, the second half of the last sentence is especially crucial to how this paper was covered. Not only is 35 years of data in an ocean-atmosphere climatology context is too short to say much of anything, 35 years effectively becomes zero years placed in the context of the multi-decadal cycling of the Tropical Atlantic Variability (itself interacting with the North Atlantic Oscillation and Meridional Overturning Circulation). This crucial caveat is obvious to Webster and his colleagues and so was mentioned in their paper, but it was not discussed in any popular media coverage that I could find. Instead, all popular media accounts picked up the message of abstract, which had no such caveats:

"We examined the number of tropical cyclones and cyclone days as well as tropical cyclone intensity over the past 35 years, in an environment of increasing sea surface temperature. A large increase was seen in the number and proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 and 5. The largest increase occurred in the North Pacific, Indian, and Southwest Pacific Oceans, and the smallest percentage increase occurred in the North Atlantic Ocean. These increases have taken place while the number of cyclones and cyclone days has decreased in all basins except the North Atlantic during the past decade."

And so the media coverage went, even while briefly interviewing dissenters, not examining the whole paper. The NY Times picked up the AP story which reports controversy according to Roger's formula but does not discuss the real issue: does 35 years of data in an environment with strong multi-decadal variability say anything? Roger highlighted the 9/16 Juliet Eilperin Washington Post story, which similarly missed the issue. Newsday wrote their own story here.

The climatology community will easily discern for themselves how much or little importance to place on the Webster et al. study, but the public and policy-making communities rely on somebody else for that kind of insight. Invariably the non-expert community relies upon media coverage to form their opinion. And in this case, instead of giving a complete picture, reporting both on the abstract and the last paragraph, the media has portrayed all abstract. In this they do a great disservice, deemphasizing the big picture in order to make a printable story.

Where does the fault lie? With Webster et al. for not mentioning the caveat more prominently, or with journalists for being too lazy to read and absorb the entire study? In my opinion, both.

The journalists are an easy target, so I'll forgo that discussion. As for researchers, they ordinarily get a free pass when simply reporting research while keeping their political opinions mostly to themselves. But this is not an ordinary case. Webster, Holland and Curry have been in this game for years. They know they are publishing compelling research in the U.S.'s most prominent science journal on a very sensitive topic with heightened current relevance, within a larger controversial political context. They would have anticipated the interest their article received, and should have anticipated the likelihood of their main results being parroted without the special caveat any climatologist would immediate recognize and accept. To write a paper with such a charged backstory while burying its most important caveat is in my opinion irresponsible.

Posted on September 21, 2005 07:53 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

September 16, 2005

Generic News Story at Work

It is good to see my generic news story on global warming from May, 2004 being put to good use by the Washington Post in a story today on the new Webster et al. paper in Science. (For those wanting to see an excellent news story on Webster et al. see Richard Kerr in Science.)

Here is the generic news story in full from Prometheus in May, 2004:

Generic News Story on Climate Change

Instructions to editor: Please repeat the below every 3-4 weeks ad infinitum.

This week the journal [Science/Nature] published a study by a team of scientists led by a [university/government lab/international group] [challenging/confirming] that the earth is warming. The new study looks at [temperature/sea level/the arctic] and finds evidence of trends that [support/challenge] the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Scientist [A, B, C], a [participant in, reviewer of] the study observed that the study, ["should bring to a close debate over global warming," "provides irrefutable evidence that global warming is [real/overstated] today," "demonstrates the value of climate science"]. Scientist [D, E, F], who has long been [critical/supportive] of the theory of global warming rebutted that the study, ["underscores that changes in [temperature/sea level/the arctic] will likely be [modest/significant]," "ignores considerable literature inconvenient to their central hypothesis," "commits a basic mistake"]. Scientist [A, B, C or D, E, F] has been criticized by [advocacy groups, reporters, scientific colleagues] for receiving funding from [industry groups, conservative think tanks]. It is unclear what the study means for U.S. participation the Kyoto Protocol, which the Bush Administration has refused to participate in. All agreed that more research is necessary.

Here is a tightly edited version of the Washington Post story:

"A new study concludes that warming sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes, adding fuel to an international debate over whether global warming contributed to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The study, published today in the journal Science ... Georgia Tech atmospheric scientist Judith A. Curry -- co-author of the study with colleagues Peter J. Webster and Hai-Ru Chang, and NCAR's Greg J. Holland -- said ... "There is increasing confidence, as the result of our study, that there's some level of greenhouse warming in what we're seeing," ... Florida State University meteorology and oceanography professor James O'Brien, who writes for the online free-market journal Tech Central Station, said his survey of government data on Atlantic storms between 1850 and 2005 shows that "there's no indication of an increase in intensity." ... Katrina reanimated a transatlantic argument over global warming policy as critics of the Bush administration have seized on it to promote mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions... Arguing that the science of global warming remains uncertain, President Bush in 2001 disavowed the Kyoto treaty that sets mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and he has pursued policies calling for more research and voluntary efforts to limit emissions."

Posted on September 16, 2005 08:16 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Kerr on Hurricanes and Climate Change

In Science this week, Richard Kerr has the best summary I've seen of recent scientific studies of hurricanes and climate. The occasion for Kerr's article is a study by Webster et al. on trends in strom frequencies and intensities. Here is the summary of Kerr's article, "Mounting evidence suggests that tropical cyclones around the world are intensifying, perhaps driven by greenhouse warming, but humans still have themselves to blame for rising damage." These articles are freely available here.

Posted on September 16, 2005 08:14 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 13, 2005

Of Blinders and Innumeracy

Elizabeth Kolbert has an article in the New Yorker on everyone’s favorite topic these days, hurricanes and global warming. The article is amazing because even though the data is staring Kolbert right in the face, she apparently cannot bring herself to grasp its implications for her argument.

Kolbert describes the problem: “In June, the Association of British Insurers issued a report forecasting that, owing to climate change, losses from hurricanes in the U.S., typhoons in Japan, and windstorms in Europe were likely to increase by more than sixty per cent in the coming decades. (The report calculated that insured losses from extreme storms—those expected to occur only once every hundred to two hundred and fifty years—could rise to as much as a hundred and fifty billion dollars.) The figures did not take into account the expected increase in the number and wealth of people living in storm-prone areas; correcting for such increases, the losses are likely to be several hundred per cent higher.”

Let’s first do some fact checking and take a look at what the Association of British Insurers report (PDF) actually says. Table 6.4 on p. 25 indicates that the ABI analysis shows a current total loss baseline of $16.5 billion for U.S. hurricanes, Japanese typhoons and European windstorms. And on p. 23 it notes that “If carbon dioxide concentrations doubled, total average annual damages from US hurricanes, Japanese typhoons and European windstorms combined could increase by up to $10.5 bn (¥1140 bn, €8.5 bn) from a baseline of about $16.5 bn today, representing an increase of around 65%.” So this is where she gets the more than sixty percent figure. So far so good, although the projected date for these changes in into the 2080s, a little bit further on than “coming decades.” But let’s move on.

But where does the number come from for the effects of societal changes, which she describes as likely to be “several hundred percent higher”? One has to go to the supplementary information to the report (PDF) to find this information. At p. 41 tables 3.8 and 3.9 one finds the data on projected wealth and population growth. Based on the numbers here, the combined effects of population and wealth on storm damages, independent of climate changes, would result in 2085 in total damages of $81.8 billion for U.S. hurricanes, Japanese typhoons and European windstorms, or an increase of $65.3 billion over the 2004 baseline. This is an increase of more than 600%, quite a bit larger than the “several hundred percent” reported by Kolbert.

Now, I do have some questions about the ABI study, which would be worth revisiting in the future, such as why it projects a combined annual rate of increase in wealth and population of only 2% for these regions. (The ABI seems unfazed by the apparent contradictory information it presents: “If Hurricane Andrew had hit Florida in 2002 rather than 1992, the losses would have been double, due to increased coastal development and rising asset values.” This represents about an 8% annual increase.) Also, The ABI’s estimates for increasing damages related to wind storms is roughly an order of magnitude larger than projected by the IPCC in its SAR. Reports such as those produced by the ABI can be extremely valuable, but they’d be more readily understood and placed into context if their analyses were submitted to the peer-reviewed literature.

But let’s press ahead. Kolbert’s column understates what the report actually says about the effects of growing population and wealth by a factor of 3. The ABI finds that future losses to wind storms are about 10 times more sensitive to societal factors than to climate factors. Yet even using the wrong numbers Kolbert writes a paragraph that clearly acknowledges the dominant role of societal changes in shaping future windstorm damages. And yet, when it comes to discussing policy options she focuses exclusively on the less significant factor:

“As the rest of the world has adopted Kyoto—earlier this year, the treaty became binding on the hundred and forty nations that had ratified it—these arguments have become increasingly indefensible, and the President has fallen back on what one suspects was his real objection all along: complying with the agreement would be expensive. “The Kyoto treaty didn’t suit our needs,” Bush blurted out during a British-television interview a couple of months ago. As Katrina indicates, this argument, too, is empty. It’s not acting to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that’s likely to prove too costly; it’s doing nothing.”

I do think that there is more than just political opportunism at work here. I simply don’t think that people are prepared to see the numbers right before their eyes. Part of this dynamic must be the effects of starting with a solution (greenhouse gas reductions) and searching for justifications, but part also must be related to the lure of silver bullet policy solutions rather than the difficult, yet mundane challenges of addressing the day-to-day decisions that cumulatively result in a tremendous increase in vulnerability to disasters. But if we are to address the ever-growing vulnerability of society to weather disasters we cannot continue to ignore the obvious.

Posted on September 13, 2005 07:41 PM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 08, 2005

Manufactured Controversy: Comments on Today's Chronicle Article

Richard Monastersky has a lengthy article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that discusses at length our forthcoming paper in BAMS on hurricanes and global warming. Monasterky's article includes some very good reporting, particularly at the end, but it also contains some very significant errors and mischaracterizations in the early sections that I address below. The article is most accurate beginning with the Section titled "Hot Air." My main complaint with the article is that it seeks to create the appearance of a conflict where, at least from the text of our BAMS paper, one does not exist.

1. Monastersky starts the article by saying, "When it came to global warming and hurricanes, Kerry A. Emanuel used to be a skeptic." This is an odd choice of words. Emanuel, in his own words is outside the current scientific consensus on this subject, writing of his recent study, "It is not surprising, therefore, that what I have come to believe is at odds with any reasonable consensus." It seems to me that the term "skeptic" should be reserved for those who are challenging a current consensus, rather than as Monastersky would have it, anyone who doesn't believe that global warming affects (fill in the blank). Otherwise, the term "skeptic" becomes a political label. On hurricanes and global warming it is Emanuel who has described himself skeptical of the current consensus.

2. Monastersky characterizes our BAMS paper as "dismissing the idea that climate change would make hurricanes significantly more dangerous." This is a significant misrepresentation of our paper. Our abstract is considerably more nuanced than this, "Looking to the future, until scientists conclude (a) that there will be changes to storms that are significantly larger than observed in the past, (b) that such changes are correlated to measures of societal impact, and (c) that the effects of such changes are significant in the context of inexorable growth in population and property at risk, then it is reasonable to conclude that the significance of any connection of human-caused climate change to hurricane impacts necessarily has been and will continue to be exceedingly small." This is not a dismissal but a frank acknowledgement of the conditions under which we would expect to see a larger significance of the connections of hurricanes and climate change. Monastersky has grossly misrepresented our paper.

3. Monastersky writes, "He withdrew his name from the forthcoming paper that plays down global warming's influence on hurricanes. Then he published a new study in Nature last month, proclaiming the opposite conclusion." No. No. No. Emanuel's paper is not "opposite" of our BAMS paper. We acknowledge the Emanuel paper in our paper and write that Emanuel (2005) is "suggestive" of a connection between hurricanes and global warming. That is hardly opposite. Monasterky is creating a conflict where none exists. Our paper does not "play down" the effect of global warming and hurricanes; it is an accurate assessment of the current literature. Monastersky is creating a straw man.

4. Monastersky contradicts himself in trying to create a conflict where none exists. He writes,

"On one side stand Mr. Emanuel and other researchers who use computer models to predict storm behavior. They see signs that a hotter climate will brew more-damaging storms. On the other side, Mr. Emanuel's former co-authors argue that global warming will have little or no influence on storms. "It seems pretty clear, looking back in time from the perspective of damages, we're not going to find a large change in the behavior of storms," says Roger A. Pielke Jr., an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the lead author of the paper that Mr. Emanuel had once supported."

There are two points here. One is that our paper does not (!) say that global warming will have "little or no influence on storms". Again this is a gross mischaracterization of what we have written. We cite the exact same literature that Emanuel does to describe current projections for future effects of climate change on storms (e.g., Knutson and Tuleya). There is agreement on this point. Second, on the relative effects of climate changes versus societal changes on future damages Emanuel agrees completely with our assessment. Here is what Monasterky writes later in the article, "Nonetheless, [Emanuel] agrees with his former co-authors that the most important factor for increased damage in the near term is coastal development, along with related societal forces." Also, here is what Emanuel says on his WWW page, "There is a huge upward trend in hurricane damage in the U.S., but all or almost all of this is due to increasing coastal population and building in hurricane-prone areas. When this increase in population and wealth is accounted for, there is no discernible trend left in the hurricane damage data." Monastersky is trying to play "one side" against the "other side" but this is simply inaccurate. Both "sides," such as they are, agree that climate change may affect hurricanes and also that societal changes will continue to dominate the damage record decades into the future. This represents a consensus, not conflict. (Also, a small error, I am a full professor, not associate professor.) Emanuel and Landsea may disagree with the merits of Emanuel (2005) and they can play that out in the peer-reviewed literature in the future. None of their disagreement appears in our BAMS paper, because it doesn't appear in the peer-reviewed literature.

5. We submitted the paper originally Nature, not Science as Monastersky reports, and the paper was not sent out for review as being "too specialized" and more appropriate for the disciplinary literature.

Overall, I am disappointed by this piece because it reports this issue in terms of a conflict that doesn't exist. The real story here is one of consensus on important issues. But I guess that just isn't as sexy a story.

Posted on September 8, 2005 10:21 AM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 07, 2005

Correction of Misquote in AP Story

It has been called to my attention that a widely-circulated AP story article from September 1, 2005 by Joe Verrengia has this statement:

"Roger Pielke Jr., who studies the social impacts of natural disasters and climate change at the University of Colorado, said any link between the intensity of Katrina and other recent hurricanes and global warming is "premature.""

This not quite accurate - the difference here is between "hurricanes" and "hurricane impacts". Here is what we say in our BAMS paper (PDF) on this, and presumably where the reference to "premature" comes from:

"To summarize, claims of linkages between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature for three reasons. First, no connection has been established between greenhouse gas emissions and the observed behavior of hurricanes (IPCC 2001; Walsh 2004). Emanuel (2005) is suggestive of such a connection, but is by no means definitive. In the future, such a connection may be established (e.g., in the case of the observations of Emanuel 2005 or the projections of Knutson and Tuleya 2004) or made in the context of other metrics of tropical cyclone intensity and duration that remain to be closely examined. Second, the peer-reviewed literature reflects a scientific consensus exists that any future changes in hurricane intensities will likely be small in the context of observed variability (Knutson and Tuleya 2004, Henderson-Sellers et al 1998), while the scientific problem of tropical cyclogenesis is so far from being solved that little can be said about possible changes in frequency. And third, under the assumptions of the IPCC, expected future damages to society of its projected changes in the behavior of hurricanes are dwarfed by the influence of its own projections of growing wealth and population (Pielke at al. 2000). While future research or experience may yet overturn these conclusions, the state of knowledge today is such that while there are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term."

And Kerry Emanuel says something quite similar on this subject:

"There is a huge upward trend in hurricane damage in the U.S., but all or almost all of this is due to increasing coastal population and building in hurricane-prone areas. When this increase in population and wealth is accounted for, there is no discernible trend left in the hurricane damage data. Nor would we expect to see any, in spite of the increase in global hurricane power. The reason is a simple matter of statistics: There are far too few hurricane landfalls to be able to discern any trend. Consider that, up until Katrina, Hurricane Andrew was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. But it occurred in an inactive year; there were only 7 hurricanes and tropical storms. Data on U.S. landfalling storms is only about 2 tenths of one percent of data we have on global hurricanes over their whole lifetimes. Thus while we can already detect trends in data for global hurricane activity considering the whole life of each storm, we estimate that it would take at least another 50 years to detect any long-term trend in U.S. landfalling hurricane statistics, so powerful is the role of chance in these numbers."

Posted on September 7, 2005 11:02 AM View this article | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 31, 2005

Unsolicited Media Advice

As I read about many instances of the immoral exploitation of Katrina's impacts to advance a political agenda, it seems to me that there is a good opportunity for the media to contribute constructively to this issue. So Prometheus-reading reporters, by all means ask your experts if Katrina is a result of global warming. But don't stop there. Please also ask the following question:

"If the US (or the world) were to begin taking more aggressive actions on emissions reductions, when could we expect to see the effects of such policies in the impacts of future hurricanes, and how large would those effects be?"

The question of hurricanes and global warming is interesting scientifically, of course, but for society broadly the question is important for the actions that we might take in the future. So please, go ahead and ask the above question and take the question of hurricanes/global warming to its logical conclusion.

Finally, the considerable misuse of science in the case of Katrina should give serious pause to anyone who thinks that the politicization of science is mainly a US or conservative phenomena. It is not.

Posted on August 31, 2005 08:37 AM View this article | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 30, 2005

Tough Questions on Hurricanes and Global Warming?

Over at GristMill Dave Roberts discusses hurricanes and global warming and asks some "tough questions." The first of these questions focus on whether or not greens should misuse science to achieve their political goals:

"In the end, greens concerned about global warming face a choice. Do they stick to scrupulous standards of scientific accuracy, with all the hedging and qualifying that entails, at the risk of being boring and losing an opportunity to galvanize action? Or do they fudge a bit, propagandize a bit, indulge in a little bit of theater and showmanship?"

Let's take a look at the reasons that Roberts gives for why fudging science might be worth doing (and to be clear, I don't think that Roberts is calling for a misuse of science, but instead suggesting that there is a complicated calculus underlying why one might choose to do so).

First, Roberts states, "arguably the urgency of generating a large-scale response is great enough to warrant some fudging on strict rules of accuracy and precision. Many, many lives are at stake." Surely this is the exact same logic that motivates anti-abortion groups to advance that false claim that abortion causes breast cancer. If the righteousness of a cause dictates when it is appropriate to misuse science, then this is a pretty slippery-sloped end-justify-the-means approach to science.

Second, Roberts notes that the complexity of the climate systems makes it exceedingly difficult to make a scientifically sound linkage between global warming and a particular hurricane, perhaps suggesting that there is some wiggle room in there to assert a linkage, as no one can disprove such an assertion. Undoubtedly this is the exact same logic that underlies the repeated exagerrated claims by some that adult stem cells can be used instead of embryonic stem cells. After all, scientists are pretty smart people and who knows what they might discover in the future? Who is to say that one day they won't be able to replace embryonic stem cells with adult stem cells? To quote Donald Rumsfeld, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Anything goes!

Third, Roberts correctly asserts that a big event opens the door for policy change, "It opens up a cultural space for dialogue and action at a time when getting the collective attention of the American public is extraordinarily difficult." Without a doubt similar words were spoken by Bush Administration officials in the days after September 11 to justify invading Iraq based on false claims of a linkage between 9/11 and Iraq.

Roberts suggests that the question of fudging science is a tough one. Not for me. I'm pretty much all for scrupulous standards of scientific accuracy. Fudging science can certainly lead to some short term political gains, but in the end it is not good for science and certainly not good for democracy.

Posted on August 30, 2005 12:01 AM View this article | Comments (16) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 29, 2005

Final Version of "Hurricanes and Global Warming" for BAMS

The final version of our paper, "Hurricanes and Global Warming (PDF)" is now online. Here is the complete citation:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, in press, 2005. December. Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Two things to note. First, if you have the earlier version, toss it out as we have updated the present version to accomodate some recent literature. Second, you'll see that Kerry Emanuel has dropped off as a co-author, for reasons I understand and respect. The publication date is December, 2005 which is just under the wire for inclusion in the next IPCC reports. We welcome all comments and reactions to the paper.

Posted on August 29, 2005 04:47 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 25, 2005

A Piece of the Action

There is a lot of attention being paid to public bets about the future these days. For example, a climate scientist in Japan, James Annan, has bet two Russian solar physicists, Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, $10,000 that the earth will warm over the next decade, as measured by the U.S. NCDC over two different 6-year periods. At this point, such bets are little more than political stunts, but if they move us in the direction of actual futures markets on climate forecasts, then I'm all for it.

Just yesterday I read about a $5,000 bet between New York Times columnist John Tierney and energy industry consultant Matthew Simmons (described here) over whether or not the price of oil in 2010 would be over $200 in 2005 dollars. Tierney is taking Simmons to the cleaners. There is already a futures market for oil, and Simmons can get all the action he wants there at a price of $62.39 for Dec 2010. Anyone who thinks oil prices are going up dramatically can purchase futures and then make a killing if they are proven right. Tierney can simply hedge his side of the bet by, for example, buying $5,000 worth of 2010 futures at $62.39. If the price goes down by as much as 50% he is still in the black as he would win the bet. If the price if over $200 he comes out far ahead as he can pay the bet off from the proceeds of his gains. And the best case scenario for him is a price higher than $62.39 and less than $200, in which he collects on the investment and the bet. There are of course more complicated hedges that would involve a smaller outlay than $5000. From a financial perspective he can't lose, which is obviously why he states that he will "consider bets from anyone else convinced that our way of life is "unsustainable." If you think the price of oil or some other natural resource is going to soar, show me the money." (As an aside, all of this raises some questions for me about the thinking behind Simmons' analyses about economics and oil, but that is a subject for another time.)

With all of this excitement going on about betting, I'd like to get a piece of the action. I'd consider a bet along the lines of the following:

a) whether global concentrations of CO2 will be lower than 2005 values at any point over the next 30 years;

b) whether the rate of change in global CO2 concentrations will be negative (i.e., decreasing year over year) over any 3-year period over the next 30 years;

c) whether (b) will occur before atmospheric concentrations reach 400, 450, or 550 ppm.

I'm not no much interested in a bet per se, so mostly this is to see who out there is optimistic about the current approach to climate mitigation. Who out there thinks that the current policy trajectory will be effective from the standpoint of atmospheric concentrations? The three options above are set up to allow for various levels of optimism. Feel free to discuss in the comments. I'll be happy to summarize in a week or so. Any takers?

Posted on August 25, 2005 04:20 PM View this article | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 24, 2005

Roger Pielke, Sr.

For those of you following the latest climate science/politics tempest involving my father, Roger Pielke, Sr., here is a link to his blog where you can read his unfiltered perspectives on this and other matters. I may be a bit biased, but his site is worth a visit.

For those of you who may not have known that there are two Roger Pielke’s (Sr., him at Colorado State an atmospheric scientist, Jr., me at Colorado studying science policy) and are here by mistake, please feel free to come back to Prometheus after visiting his site.

Posted on August 24, 2005 02:27 PM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 22, 2005

The Other Hockey Stick

Disaster losses have increased dramatically in recent decades. Yet as discussed here frequently there is no scientific evidence showing that any part of this increase can be attributed to changes in climate, whether anthropogenic in origin or not. This is a long post on this subject. It contains a lot of gory detail on what I consider to be a major misuse of science in the climate debate, viewed through the lens of a recent paper in Science. I focus on this issue mainly because this is an area where I have considerable expertise, and in this context my work is often mis-cited or ignored. This misuse of science is pretty much overlooked by scientists (here is one exception) advocates on either side of the debate, and the media (here is one exception). A number of colleagues and I have a letter on this subject coming out in the November Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (I'll post a pre-publication version of this soon). Also, in partnership with Munich Re we are organizing a major workshop on attribution of causes underlying the observed trend of ever-escalating disaster damages. Munich Re seems very supportive of rigorous science on this topic. So clearly, I intend to pursue this subject.

Some important things to say before proceeding -- As I have written often on these pages, I accept the IPCC WGI consensus position on climate change and I am a strong advocate for policy action on climate change. I am also quite concerned by the role of science and scientists in the highly politicized context of climate.

I have titled this post "The Other Hockey Stick" drawing on some comments made by Hans von Storch in a talk at NCAR last month. The "other hockey stick" refers to the graph used by the IPCC based on Munich re data to show increasing disaster costs and has been widely used to argue for evidence of a climate change signal in disasters. Such claims are made by prominent scientists (such as Rajendra Pachauri and John Houghton) and can be found frequently in the scientific literature. The motivation for the present discussion is a paper in the 12 August 2005 issue of Science. Evan Mills, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Wrote in the essay,

"According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment, climate change has played a role in the rising costs of natural disasters." And on the "relative weights of anthropogenic climate change and increased exposure" in the loss trend Mills concludes "quantification is premature." Mills uncritically accepts the IPCC statement, which as I show below is based on a pretty weak source and he is simply wrong on the latter point. Mills either ignores or is unaware of a robust literature on this subject (see here and here and here). Mills' analysis rests on a very thin basis of support. For reasons discussed below, it is amazing to me that Mills' paper survived peer review at Science. It should not have. Whether Science has a quality control problem or an inability to question analyses that may be politically inconvenient, the publication of Mills' paper sure does raise some questions.

Mills has a section of his paper focused on attribution of causes explaining recent trends in disaster losses. Let's take a close look at ten of the sources he cites in that section to support claims of a climate change signal in the damage record:

Kunkel et al. 1999. Mills cites this paper, (on which I am a co-author) to support this claim, "Socioeconomic and demographic trends clearly play important-and likely dominant-roles in the observed upward loss trends." Here is what Kunkel et al. concluded, "the results of the review strongly suggest that the increasing financial losses from weather extremes are primarily due to a variety of societal changes." Perhaps a slightly different characterization than the paper suggests, but lets move on.

Changnon and Demissie, 1996. This paper says nothing about trends in flood damage. What it does say is that in a comparison of urbanizing and rural river basins, there were large societal influences on streamflow in the urbanizing basins. This paper provides no basis for asserting anything related to flood damages.

Zhang et al. 2005. This paper is about the relationship of coastal erosion and sea level rise. It says nothing about trends in disaster losses.

Easterling et al. 2000. This paper states, "Most of the increase has been due to societal shifts and not to major increases in weather extremes. The growth of population, demographic shifts to more storm-prone locations, and the growth of wealth have collectively made the nation more vulnerable to climate extremes." This paper originated in a workshop held in Aspen that I participated in and I was originally a co-author on early drafts of this paper. I dropped off because I thought that the paper's conclusions were not supported by the evidence. In this case, there is an important difference in the cited sentence between the words "Most" and "All". "Most" happens to be grammatically correct, but in this case is synonymous with "All". My concern was that the paper would be mis-cited to assert an attribution when none was found. Here is a good example.

Karl and Trenberth 2003. This paper calls for the development of a global observing system. It says nothing about trends in disasters.

Next the paper asserts that "Global weather-related losses in recent years have been trending upward much faster than population, inflation, or insurance penetration, and faster than non-weather-related events (Fig. 2D). By some estimates, losses have increased by a factor of 2, after accounting for these factors plus increased density of insured values."

It cites 2 references to make this claim. The first reference is to a talk by Howard Kunreuther. I have known Howard for a while and respect him and his work a great deal. I emailed him to ask his source for this claim and interestingly he referred me to the second source cited by Mills. So Mills is citing the same source twice, using two apparently different sources. Not good.

The second source is a 2000 report by Munich Re on catastrophes. The relevant sections of the report can be found at pp. 79-81. Here Munich Re accurately cites my work to correctly argue for the normalization of historical loss data to account for societal changes. Then Munich Re provides some summary data following a black box calculation of changes in disaster damages after normalizing for societal changes. Munich Re finds that global disasters cost an adjusted $636 billion in the 1990s compared with $315 billion in the 1970s, and concludes, " Mills "factor of 2" comes from this calculation (i.e., 636/315).

Methodologically the calculation is suspect for a number of reasons. First, Munich Re provides neither their methods nor data. Second, Munich Re admits that data on changes in wealth are not available around the world and changes in GDP are not always a good proxy for data on wealth. Third, Munich Re's data apparently includes weather and non-weather events (e.g., see figure "d" on page 81, which refers to earthquake damages).

But let's assume that all of these issues raised above can be overcome and in the end there remains a 2 to 1 ratio. The fact is that the large decadal variability in normalized losses makes it quite dodgy to assert a trend between two different ten-year periods over a period of 30 years. Let me illustrate this with an example from our database of normalized hurricane losses. If we adjust the hurricane loss data to 2004 values and then compare decades we see some interesting things. First the ratio of the 1990s:1970s is quite similar to the Munich Re analysis, 2.1 ($91B/$43B). But if we look at other decadal comparisons, the picture looks quite different, 1990s:1940s = 1.0 ($91B/$90B) and 1990s:1920s = 0.6 ($91B/$154B). Bottom line: The Munich Re analysis tells us nothing about attribution.

The Munich Re analysis may prove correct in the end from the standpoint of disasters in the 1970s compared to the 1990s. But all that it would allows us to say is that the 1990s had more costly disasters than the 1970s, and provides absolutely no basis for attribution of the causes of the differences. At a minimum analyses such as Minuch Re's should be submitted for peer review in the scientific literature to allow for an open discussion of data and methods.

Back to the papers cited by Mills:

Association of British Insurers, 2004. Mills cites this report as follows, "The Association of British Insurers states that changes in weather could already be driving UK property losses up 2 to 4% per year (7) owing to increasing extreme weather events."

The executive summary of the AIb report does claim, "Weather risks are already increasing by 2 - 4 % per year on the household and property accounts due to changing weather." But if you read down just a bit further (on p. 8) the executive summary says something a little different "On reasonable projections of extreme events, the pure risk rate for weather catastrophes is already rising at an unseen rate of 2 - 4 % per year." It has now raised the issue of projections. And if you take a look at the Technical Annex to the report, you find something different still, "Thus on the basis of the Foresight Programme view of future flood risk, realistically the risk of flood damage is projected to increase by between 2.1% and 3.9% per annum, or a range of two to four percent per year."

There are two important points here. First, the 2%-4% per year increase in damages is a projection made out over the next 80 years. Second, we discussed the Foresight project quite favorable here last year. The Foresight project was notable because it considered both climate and societal factors in its projections. The 2%-4% number is not based on climate factors alone. Mills' statement is thus incorrect in two ways - the increase in damage is projected, not observed, and it is the consequence of societal and climate factors, not an observed increase in extreme events.

Mills next cites the IPCC WGII, Chapter 8 to justify the claim "According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment, climate change has played a role in the rising costs of natural disasters." If you go to the IPCC you see that the single basis for this claim is the Munich Re 2000 report discussed above. This is the third different reference to the same analysis. At best this is sloppy citing. At worst it appears as if there is an attenmpt to portray a broader intellectual base of support for these claims than there actually is.

Lastly in this section, Mills et al. 2002 discuss the relationship of lightning claims and temperature, which makes sense as lightning tends to be associated with thunderstorms and thunderstorms occur in summer not winter. As they state "An additional issue is that peak lightning periods occur in summer, when electricity reliability problems are likely to cause other business interruption losses, as suggested by the illustration." There is no data here relevant to understanding historical trends in disasters (or insurance claims).

So here is my tally:

3 sources are each traced back to a single non-peer reviewed source, Munich Re 2000, that raises some serious questions of methods and interpretation.

4 papers are cited but are not at all relevant to the issue of disaster losses or attribution.

1 paper (AIB) is mis-cited, which is easy to see if you actually look beyond the first page of its executive summary. (Ironically, the Foresight report which forms the basis for the AIB claims actually makes a good case for the overwhelming dominance of societal factors in future flood losses in the UK.)

1 paper is cited accurately, Easterling et al., but in my opinion this paper plays fast and lose with language to allow a mis-interpretation of its results.

1 paper Kunkel et al. is cited accurately, though I might take issue with the spin, it is probably within the bounds of appropriateness.

Of 10 citations, 9 are highly questionable. And this is Science magazine.

The bottom line is that the issue of attribution of trends in disaster losses rests on the thin reed of a single citation in the IPCC WG2 Chapter 8 to a 2000 Munich Re report that seems to be cited over and over again. Through citing this report several times via different secondary sources, the citing of multiple irrelevant sources and the careful parsing of two papers, Mills comes to the conclusion that climate change is responsible for some part of the observed trend in losses. There is a much, much larger literature on this subject that Mills does not cite.

These are not characteristics that one expects to see in a paper in Science, arguably one of the two most influential publications on science in the world. I have submitted a brief comment in the form of a letter to Science on this paper referencing some of this broader literature. Let's see what happens.

In the end, scientific research may yet prove that anthropogenic climate change plays a observable role in disaster losses. But today, August 22, 2005, shoddy science, bad peer review and a failure of the science community to demand high standards is not the best recipe for helping science to contribute effectively to policy.

Posted on August 22, 2005 09:21 AM View this article | Comments (20) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Reader Request: Comments on Michaels and Gray

A Prometheus reader asked if I might read an article by Pat Michaels, affiliate of the conservative Cato Institute and Virginia State Climatologist and an interview with Bill Gray of Colorado State University and offer a critique. Specifically, the reader asked if I might comment on Gray's allegations of funding being cut and whether or not Michaels misrepresented the work of me or Emanuel. So here are some reactions.

Michaels is no stranger to over-the-top rhetoric, and there is some of this here. But in this essay he accurately characterizes my work and quotes me accurately. I'd say more about the relationship of my work and Kerry's recent paper, but I have a comment on Kerry's recent paper submitted to Nature and they require no discussion of finding prior to publication. When that is either published or rejected I'll be happy to say more in this subject. Michaels is correct to call out both Kevin Trenberth and Bill Gray for comments unbecoming a leading scientist. I agree in both cases that the comments are inappropriate.

Michaels does make one important mistake. He mischaracterizes the total funding for climate research citing a total of $4.2 billion. This number surely includes investments in technology which have nothing to do with climate science research. And of the $1.8 billion on climate science the vast majority is spent on satellites. He is correct to suggest that such large funding creates a constituency, but I disagree with him when he argues that climate scientists make decisions on papers based on funding. There are important sociological factors at play, but they are subtle and perhaps not even recognized by many climate scientists.

Bill Gray is by all accounts simply a genius. I've known him for about 10 years and have a lot of respect for him. I like him too; he is a nice guy. I've heard comments to the effect that every scientist studying hurricanes today is a product of Bill Gray's work in one manner or another.

His interview in Discover magazine accurately reflects what I've heard Dr. Gray say in other fora. Gray states, "Our feeling is that the United States is going to be seeing hurricane damage over the next decade or so on a scale way beyond what we have seen in the past." There seems to be a pretty robust consensus on this point among all hurricane scientists.

It is a fact that his funding has been cut in his later years as compared to his earlier years. I'd venture that this has much more to do with changing preferences for model-based research over statistical-based research rather than anything to do with the politics of climate change. Dr. Gray has most likely be the victim of generational change in climate research and the corresponding changes in scientific preferences.

Dr. Gray comments, "Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing." This is a very accurate comment. My colleague Myanna Lahsen, an anthropologist, studied the "tribe" of climate modelers for her 1998 dissertation and found a pronounced generational influence on how scientists view the climate debate. Dr. Gray is a great example of this skepticism of some senior scientists. My reading of Myanna's work suggests that the views of some of these senior scientists have much less to do with partisan politics than generational differences.

Dr. Gray says, "So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing-all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more. Now that the cold war is over, we have to generate a common enemy to support science, and what better common enemy for the globe than greenhouse gases?"

Just like with Michaels I disagree with this overly simplistic interpretation of what is going on. There are without a doubt strong influences on climate researchers, but they are more subtle and behind-the-scenes than acknowledged here.

Posted on August 22, 2005 09:12 AM View this article | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 04, 2005

Flood Damage and Climate Change: Update

Earlier this year I wrote several essays (here and here) that discussed whether or not, and to what degree, climate change (human caused or not) was responsible for the growing costs of disasters around the world. Here is what I concluded:

"1. Anyone making assertions that changes in climate (whether human caused or not) are responsible for any part of the global trend of increasing disaster losses had better provide some new scientific evidence to back up such claims. Future research may tell a different story, but my reading of the current state of science is that, today, such claims are groundless.

2. This series should be viewed as an intellectual challenge to the IPCC WG2 and the climate impacts community. I propose that we in this community first begin with a hypothesis, namely, "All trends observed in recent decades indicating growing damage related to weather and climate can be explained through the growth of societal vulnerability to those trends." Then, the second step is to conduct research that seeks to falsify this hypothesis."

A May paper in the Journal of Climate adds considerable more support for these conclusions, focused on floods. Specifically, the paper by the International Ad Hoc Detection and Attribution Group (Detecting and Attributing External Influences on the Climate System: A Review of Recent Advances, Journal of Climate: Vol. 18, No. 9, pp. 1291_1314, available to subscribers here) is unable to attribute changes in precipitation to a human cause (though they do attribute other changes to the Earth system to a human cause). They write, "because of poor signal-to-noise ratios and model uncertainty, anthropogenic rainfall changes cannot presently be detected even on a global scale."

What does this mean? There is presently no scientific basis for attributing worldwide or regional trends in flood damage to greenhouse gas emissions. None. While scientists may report something different in the future, today it is clearly a misuse of science to allege a connection between greenhouse gases and flood damages. The trend of increasing flood damage is overwhelmingly the result of societal changes. (For a good example of this see this New York Times article on the recent flooding in India.) Prometheus readers: given these new findings, I'd welcome any pointers to claims relating to flood damage and climate change.

Posted on August 4, 2005 01:50 PM View this article | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 01, 2005

Poverty of Options and a Hybrid Hoax

Here we have often made the claim that discussion of climate policy suffers from a poverty of options. And debate over competing bad options leads only to one place. A wonderful example of this impoverished debate can be found in discussion over hybrid vehicles. Yesterday's New York Times had a forthright and eye-opening article on the new Lexus 400 RXh:

"ONE question lingers after driving the 2006 Lexus RX 400h: How did it come to this, that Toyota is now selling a hybrid gas-electric vehicle with no tangible fuel economy benefits? In my test-driving, the Lexus hybrid, which is based on the gasoline-only RX 330, did not achieve better mileage than the 2005 RX 330 that I drove for comparison. My hybrid tester's window sticker did boast a federal mileage rating of 31 miles per gallon in the city and 27 on the highway, compared with just 18 and 24 for the RX without the hybrid drivetrain. But the government's testing procedure has a habit - one that seems to be exaggerated with hybrids - of rendering fuel economy numbers as relevant to the real world as national energy policies have been to actually reducing dependence on foreign oil. Speaking of which, isn't that what hybrids are all about: conservation, improved fuel economy, weaning the nation off its oil habit? Perhaps not any longer."

This comes on the heels of an incongruous partnership between the Sierra Club and Ford to promote - yes, promote - sales of Ford's new hybrid Escape SUV. Here is an excerpt from a Sierra Club press release:

"Sierra Club Applauds Hybrid Ford Escape By Jill Miller Missouri Conservation Organizer Sierra Club-Global Warming & Energy Program

On August 4 near Kansas City, labor and environmental groups joined forces to applaud the new Ford Escape Hybrid as good for jobs and the environment. National, chapter, and group Sierra Club representatives held a press conference with the United Autoworkers, Steelworkers, The Ecology Center, Burroughs Audubon of Kansas City, the Institute for Labor Studies, and the Apollo Alliance to spread the word about the importance of fuel-saving technology. The press conference produced dozens of media hits in Kansas City and around the country, from Hawaii to New York. The new Escape is the first American-made hybrid, and also the first hybrid SUV to reach the market. The 35 mile-per-gallon Escape is rated as a Partial-Zero Emission Vehicle (PZEV) and meets California's strict air pollution standards - something most people never expected to hear about any SUV. It emits a fraction of the air pollution of a regular SUV, and greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically lower as well. Dave Hamilton, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program in Washington, D.C., spoke at the press conference, calling Ford's hybrid "a rolling advertisement for better technology and a cleaner environment." He acknowledged that the Sierra Club has been a long-time critic of the U.S. auto industry's inaction on improving the fuel economy of cars and light trucks, but "you have to give credit where credit is due"... With new hybrid models becoming available in the next 6 to 12 months, more and more Americans will be able to find the kind of hybrid they want to drive. Upcoming models include the hybrid Honda Accord, Toyota Highlander, and Lexus RX 400H. A hybrid version of Honda's Civic, and their two-seat Insight, have been available for a few years."

The Sierra Club claims that the Escape gets 35 MPG, but in a real-world test Car and Driver magazine finds that "the Escape's stay with us produced a fuel-economy average of just 25 mpg over its entire 1600-mile stay." In 2004 the U.S. government reported (here, in PDF) that the U.S fleet average fuel economy was just under 25 MPG. In other words, if the Sierra Club is wildly successful in its campaign with Ford and everyone trades in their vehicle for a Ford Escape, then this would have the effect on U.S. fuel consumption of ... nothing, zero, zilch. Now some might say that every Hummer turned in for a hybrid Escape benefits average national fuel economy, and this is certainly true, but it seems to me just as likely that some might decide to get an Escape rather than, say, an Honda Civic, with the opposite effect on national fuel economy.

When the Sierra Club, one of the nation's proudest and most effective environmental organizations, spends its finite resources on promoting a policy option that has very little demonstrable effects on the environment, and may in fact be counter-productive, this suggests to me that there just are not good options available. If this is the case, then where are the good options going to come from?

Posted on August 1, 2005 08:15 AM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 28, 2005

A Crisis of Allegiance for the IPCC?

While the details of the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate remain to be released, the prospect of a new international agreement on climate change suggests the possibly of competition with the Kyoto Protocol, despite some diplomatic words to the contrary. Some environmental groups, and some UK and Australian officials certainly see the new agreement as an alternative to Kyoto. While there will no doubt be plenty of opportunities to debate the new agreement, its very existence may create a crisis of allegiance for the scientific community. In other words, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) exists to support decision makers on climate change, and has a formal goal of being "policy neutral". We've criticized this charade on numerous occasions (e.g., see this paper). But facing the prospect of two competing international agreements on climate change, can the IPCC maintain the pretension of "policy neutrality"? I don't think so. At long last the IPCC may have to explicitly consider issues of policy, and if so, this would be a very good thing.

Some of the tensions facing the IPCC and its position with respect to international climate politics can be seen in recent contradictory statements of its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri.

Earlier this month he stated that India could not participate in the Kyoto Protocol, "We are not historically responsible for this problem. So the first steps have to be taken by those who are historically responsible -- the developed countries." This statement indicates that he believes that there is no path forward for developing countries under Kyoto, as the justification he gives for India (low per-capita emissions) certainly holds in well-over half the world where emissions are growing fastest. He then subsequently contradicts this statement by criticizing the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APPADC) as an alternative to Kyoto, claiming that, "it should not undermine the Kyoto Protocol that has been agreed the world over as the mechanism to tackle climate change." Obviously, if India has rejected Kyoto then it has not been agreed to "the world over." He then says something else that contradicts this criticism of the APPADC, ""I think [the APPADC] is a good idea because the development of these technologies is important and I've always said there has to be a partnership between North and South in these technologies. This is one way of working together It does not interfere with the Kyoto protocol." These are the statements of a politician walking a tight rope, and not particularly well, I'd say.

The IPCC is of the UN body and so to is the Kyoto Protocol (and its parent, the Climate Convention). Some have argued that the IPCC is in practice a subsidiary body to the Climate Convention, despite its language of neutrality. If there are in fact competing international approaches to climate policy, then the IPCC's leadership will have some important decisions to make: Support Kyoto or the APPADC? Support them both? If so, how? It is well understood that science is not neutral with respect to political and policy debates, the very framing of questions can lends support or opposition to particular political agendas. So there is no "hiding behind science" on this issue. Pachauri's recent conflicting statements indicate the challenges facing the community. But perhaps the best news in all of this, regardless of the merits of the Asia-Pacific agreement, is that at long last the scientific community will have to grapple with its role in the policy process.

Posted on July 28, 2005 08:33 AM View this article | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Trial Balloon from Barton Staffer

Yesterday The Toledo Blade published a letter from Larry Neal, Deputy Staff Director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In the letter Mr. Neal seems to offer a few olive branches, calling MBH "three honest men" and accepting that the world is warming. Read the whole letter here.

My sense is that the letter in a small newspaper by a staffer is a trial ballon. It may represent the possibility of a more conciliatory approach on this issue for Mr. Barton.

Posted on July 28, 2005 07:33 AM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

July 27, 2005

Secret Climate Pact and IPCC Chairman

Several news agencies are reporting today that the United States is involved in a "secret" climate pact with Australia and a few other countries. Reuters reports,

"The world's top polluter, the United States, is set to unveil a pact to combat global warming by developing energy technology aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, officials and diplomats said on Wednesday. China and India, whose burgeoning economies comprise a third of humanity, as well as Australia and South Korea are also part of the agreement to tackle climate change beyond the Kyoto protocol."

While there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the pluses and minuses of the proposal, I find it very interesting and somewhat puzzling to see that the pact has already been endorsed by Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC. Here is how he is quoted by Reuters:

"I think it is a good idea because the development of these technologies is important and I've always said there has to be a partnership between North and South in these technologies. This is one way of working together," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "It does not interfere with the Kyoto protocol," he said."

I'm not sure how he comes to the conclusion that it does not interfere with Kyoto. Of course it doea. Here is how Australia's environment minister characterized the agreement in the same article:

"Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said on Wednesday that the five countries had been quietly working on the pact for months. "It's quite clear the Kyoto protocol won't get the world to where it wants to go ... We have got to find something that works better -- Australia is working on that with partners around the world,""

And the United States is clearly looking to move "post-Kyoto". This new pact is clearly being offered to move beyond Kyoto, and as such presents an alternative strategy to Kyoto going forward.

Irrespective of the merits of the new climate pact, it seems irresponsible at best for the chairman of the IPCC to take a public advocacy position on it, one way or the other. There are plenty of venues for political advocacy on climate, but as we have argued here before, the IPCC ought not be among them.

Posted on July 27, 2005 11:23 AM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 26, 2005

Toledo Blade gets it Right

If the editorial board of the Toledo Blade gets it right on the Hockey Stick, then perhaps there is hope for the WSJ and NYT:

"The real problem is how to depoliticize climate science before matters get worse, and research loses more public credibility. That certainly should be a topic for congressional hearings and funding agencies like the NSF."

Posted on July 26, 2005 11:47 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 25, 2005

The Other Discernable Influence

In his testimony last week NCAR's Jim Hurrell made an interesting comment, "... it should be recognized that mitigation actions taken now mainly have benefits 50 years and beyond now." I wrote here last week that, "This point would seem to be generally appreciated by experts in climate science and policy but is generally lost in the more general debate." But after talking to some folks about my post, it seems that this point is worth some further examination.

So let me pose a few questions to the climate science community. (And in particular, if the RealClimate folks would take a crack at it I'd appreciate it.) These are not economics questions or policy questions, but questions of climate science with relevance to consideration of policy options. And if these questions are dealt with by the IPCC or in the published literature, I am unaware of it, so pointers to references are also appreciated.

(a) If anthropogenic CO2 emissions we instantaneously halted on 31 December 2005, how long would it be before the scientific community could detect and attribute a discernable influence of this policy on the climate system? Specifically, please use the following four variables: atmospheric CO2 concentrations, global average temperature, sea level rise, and extreme weather events (heat waves, hurricanes, floods, etc.).

And there are some obvious permutations also worth considering, such as for example (b) halting CO2 emissions in 2020, (b) cutting CO2 to 1990 levels by 2012, and (c) cutting global CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030.

All replies welcomed, Thanks!

Posted on July 25, 2005 03:08 PM View this article | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 21, 2005

A Few Comments on Today's Climate Hearing

This morning the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on "Climate Change Science and Economics". I have read through the testimonies of Panel 1 and there is little surprising or new to be found. I do have a 3 more or less random comments below.

1. Nobel laureate Mario Molina states, "Recent estimates indicate that stabilizing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the equivalent of twice the pre-industrial value of 280 ppm carbon dioxide provides only a 10-20 per cent chance of limiting global average temperature rise to 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Put another way, this means that the odds that average global temperatures will rise above 4 degrees is 80 to 90 percent. Unless society starts taking some aggressive actions now, we are well on our way to reaching perhaps even a tripling of pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels with far greater adverse economic and environmental consequences. The risks to human society and ecosystems grow significantly if the average global surface temperature increases 5 degrees Fahrenheit or more. Such a large temperature increase might entail, for example, substantial agricultural losses, widespread adverse health impacts and greatly increased risks of water shortages. Furthermore, a very high proportion of the world's coral reefs would be imperiled and many terrestrial ecosystems could suffer irreversible damage. The risk of runaway or abrupt climate change also increases rapidly if the average temperature increases above about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. It is possible, for example, that the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will melt, raising sea levels more than ten meters over the period of a few centuries. It is also possible that the ocean circulation will change abruptly, perhaps shutting down the Gulf Stream."

Comments such as this suggest to me that the international climate policy community is living a lie. Specifically,

Article 2 of the Climate Convention calls for, "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner."

If 4 degrees is set to occur at 80-90% likelihood, then 5 degrees, which Molina clearly views as "dangerous" cannot be far behind. Prevention, simply put is not in the cards. This does not mean that we throw up our hands and do nothing, but it does mean that if we are serious about action that we should start by reopening the objective of the Climate Convention for renegotiation. This observation has been made before. In 1995, Pekka E. Kauppi wrote presciently in Science that the goal of the Framework Convention on Climate Change was either "unattainable or irrelevant If GCM projections are right, the climate will change, there will be dangerous effects and the Convention objective will be unattainable" (Science, 220:1454). It is time to stop living the lie and reconsider Article 2.

2. NCAR's Jim Hurrell observes, "... it should be recognized that mitigation actions taken now mainly have benefits 50 years and beyond now."

This point would seem to be generally appreciated by experts in climate science and policy but is generally lost in the more general debate. Why does this matter? The asymmetry in the timing of costs and benefits makes it incredibly hard to justify action on mitigation - my tongue-in-cheek characterization of this approach to mitigation is "Please bear these costs but you personally will never see any benefits, other than the psychological benefits of aiding future generations." Such arguments don't work for social security and they won't work here. In addition, the reality of the time-lag of benefits illustrates the futility of using current climate events to justify mitigation action. Even if people take action, there can be no scientifically valid argument that such actions will lead to a better climate in their lifetime (warning tongue-in-cheek comment coming) - "Want fewer hurricanes in 2007? Drive a Prius!" Actually, not so-tongue-in-cheek, this exact strategy was tried by Scientists and Engineers for Change and Environment2004.org leading up to the 2004 elections and we all know how Florida turned out. It was a misuse of science to suggest that the 2004 election had any impact on future hurricane frequency. It is similarly a misuse to suggest that climate mitigation should be viewed as an effective policy option for issues such as malaria and disasters.

Again, the point here is not to throw up our hands and do nothing. But the asymmetry is costs and benefits suggest that we might think about different strategies, particular ones that have more of symmetry between the timing of costs and benefits. We've discussed such options frequently here as "no regrets" on both adaptation and mitigation - see these posts (here, here, here. I doubt that much action (i.e., actual emissions reductions, not aspirations) will happen on mitigation until action on decarbonization is framed in terms of its short term costs and benefits.

3. Sir John Houghton, former chairman of the IPCC, states the following, "Data from insurance companies show an increase in economic losses in weather related disasters of a factor of 10 in real terms between the 1950s and the 1990s. Some of this can be attributed to an increase in vulnerability to such disasters. However, a significant part of the trend has also arisen from increased storminess especially in the 1980s and 1990s."

This is simply scientifically incorrect and politically irresponsible. No part of the trend in economic losses related to weather since the 1950s can be attributed to increased storminess (though we'd welcome learning of any research to the contrary). We discussed this in some depth here and here, and even the 2001 IPCC says as much.

If climate scientists want to be believed when they discuss science in highly politicized contexts, then a good place to start would be to be accurate when making scientific claims. It would also be a good idea for scientists to call their colleagues on statements that are unjustified by the scientific literature, even when those colleagues are advocating policies that they themselves may happen to favor. This was the message of Hans von Storch when he visited Boulder a few weeks ago (see this Der Speigel essay). In the long run both science and policy will be better served through candor and community-established norms of scientific rigor, even if there may be short-term political benefits in playing fast and loose with science.

Posted on July 21, 2005 04:21 PM View this article | Comments (21) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 20, 2005

Realism on Climate Change

This week at the XXV International Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, in Tours, France, Tim Dyson of the London School of Economics presented a very interesting paper that presents some refreshingly clear thinking on climate change. Dyson's conference presentation is titled, "Development, population, climate change: some painful conclusions."

Here is the abstract to Dyson's paper prepared for the conference:

"On development, demography and climate change: The end of the world as we know it?

Tim Dyson

London School of Economics

Paper prepared for Session 952 of the XXVth Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Tours, 18-23 July, 2005

Abstract

Adopting a holistic stance, the present paper attempts to provide fresh perspective on global warming and climate change. It does so by considering most major sides of the issue, and, quite consciously, it does so from a distance. Essentially, five main points are made. First, that since about 1800 economic development has been based on the burning of fossil fuels, and this will continue to apply for the foreseeable future. Of course, there will be increases in the efficiency with which they are used, but there is no real alternative to the continued - indeed increasing - use of these fuels for purposes of economic development. Second, due to momentum in economic, demographic, and climate processes, it is inevitable that there will be a major rise in the level of atmospheric CO2 during the twenty-first century. Demographic and CO2 emissions data are presented to substantiate this. Third, available data on global temperatures, which are also presented, suggest strongly that the coming warming of the Earth will be appreciably faster than anything that human populations have experienced in historical times.

The paper shows that a rise in world surface temperature of anywhere between 1.6 and 6.6 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 is quite conceivable - and this is a conclusion that does not require much complex science to appreciate. Furthermore, particularly in a system that is being forced, the chances of an abrupt change in climate happening must be rated as fair. Fourth, while it is impossible to attach precise probabilities to different scenarios, the range of plausible unpleasant climate outcomes seems at least as great as the range of more manageable ones. The agricultural, political, economic, demographic, social and other consequences of future climate change are likely to be considerable - indeed, they could be almost inconceivable. In a world of perhaps nine billion people, adverse changes could well occur on several fronts simultaneously and to cumulative adverse effect. There is a pressing need to improve ways of thinking about what could happen - because current prognostications by environmental and social scientists are often rather restricted and predictable. Finally, the paper argues that human experience of other difficult 'long wave' threats (e.g. HIV/AIDS) reveals a broadly analogous sequence of reactions. In short: (i) scientific understanding advances rapidly, but (ii) avoidance, denial, and reproach characterize the overall societal response, therefore, (iii) there is relatively little behavioral change, until (iv) evidence of damage becomes plain. Apropos carbon emissions and climate change, however, it is argued here that not only is major behavioral change unlikely in the foreseeable future, but it probably wouldn't make much difference even were it to occur. In all likelihood, events are now set to run their course."

This excerpt from the paper is particularly on point:

"Following publication of the IPCC's second report, world leaders met in Kyoto in 1997. But in many respects the ensuing 'Kyoto process' can itself be seen as one chiefly concerned with ways of avoiding making reductions in CO2 emissions. Examples of this tendency include the discussion of 'carbon sequestration' i.e. the planting of trees and other vegetation to help 'neutralize' CO2 emissions. It took considerable time for the limitations of this approach to be appreciated fully - in particular, that over the long run the areas of forest required are incredibly great and that there is no feasible way of stopping the 'respiration' of sequestrated carbon back into the atmosphere (Lohmann 1999). Another approach with a strong element of avoidance - one that has occupied armies of negotiators, lawyers, economists, consultants, etc, the very stuff of Weberian bureaucratization (Prins 2003) - is the construction of 'carbon markets'. The theory is that by enabling 'emissions trading' such markets will allow some countries (usually richer ones, with high emissions) to pay others (usually poorer ones, with low emissions) - essentially as a way of reducing the need to make any reductions at all. The fact is that: None of Kyoto's market measures tackle directly the physical root of global warming: the transfer of fossil fuels from underground, where they are effectively isolated from the atmosphere, to the air. (Lohmann 2001:5).

It was noted above that in the last decade or so virtually all countries have continued to burn greater amounts of fossil fuel. This also applies to those that have arguably been most prominent in supporting the Kyoto process - notably Canada, Japan and those of the EU. Many of these countries are unlikely to meet their CO2 reduction targets agreed under the Kyoto treaty (which finally came into force in 2005). Thus comparing 1990 and 2002, it is estimated that Canada's emissions increased by 22 percent and Japan's by 13. While the CO2 emissions of the EU(15) remained roughly constant, this was mainly due to reductions in Germany and Britain - both of which gained fortuitously from a move away from coaltowards natural gas (which emits less CO2 per unit of energy). Of the remaining countries in the EU(15), only Sweden - which relies heavily on hydro and nuclear - registered a fall in CO2 emissions. Of the 36 'Annex B' countries of the Kyoto treaty (i.e. the industrialized countries, including former eastern bloc nations), only 12 experienced declines in emissions: the three in the EU(15), plus nine former eastern bloc nations. If one excludes these, then CO2 emissions among the remaining 24 Annex B countries rose by 13 percent during 1990-2002 (Zittel and Treber 2003). Of course, the United States, the world's largest emitter of CO2, is not a signatory to the Kyoto treaty. And, to complete the list of predictable social reactions, the 'Kyoto process' has involved no shortage of rather bitter recrimination between representatives of the US and EU countries.

The prospects for an enforceable international agreement to significantly reduce CO2 emissions are very poor. While it may be in the interest of the world as a whole to restrict the burning of fossil fuels, it is in the interest of individual countries to avoid making such changes. Moreover, the enormous complexities involved - many of them created and informed by matters of interest - will also hinder agreement. Doubtless there will be gains in energy use efficiency, shifts towards less carbon intensive fuels, and greater use of renewable energy sources (e.g. solar, wind and tidal power). But except for a massive shift towards nuclear - which has many serious problems attached, and would in any case take decades to bring about - there are limits to what such changes could possibly achieve in terms of CO2 reduction. Other technological ideas - like the development of the so-called 'hydrogen economy', or the extraction of CO2 from coal and its sequestration underground or at sea - are remote, even fanciful ideas as large scale and significant solutions to the problem. Indeed, such notions can themselves be the basis of avoidance inasmuch as they suggest that something is being done. Understandably, poor countries are unlikely to put great effort into constraining their CO2 emissions - especially in the face of massive discrepancies between them and the rich. In sum, for the foreseeable future the basic response to global warming will be one of avoidance and, at most, marginal change. That the absolute amount of CO2 emitted is likely to rise is shown by an examination of basic demographic and emissions data in the next section."

The whole paper is worth reading, and can be found here".

Posted on July 20, 2005 12:46 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 19, 2005

Barton- Boehlert Context

Congress has a history, and history shapes context. One factor underlying the Barton-Boehlert spat is no doubt the fact that in the early 1990s Mr. Boehlert was staunchly against the Super-Conducting Supercollider (SSC), a project that he helped to terminate which would have been built in the district of Rep. Joe Barton.

Here is what Mr. Boelhert said about the project in 1991:

"Whose priority is the SSC, anyway? Not the nation's struggling young scientists, who are starving for individual-investigator grants across a wide variety of fields. Not the nation's scientific societies, who support the SSC only to the extent that other needs are met first. Not the nation's leading corporations, who see the SSC as having fewer industrial spinoffs than any other big-science project. Not the House of Representatives, which voted last year to discontinue the project if it was going to cost the federal government more than $5 billion. The SSC is a priority for only three groups: for Texas officials--and we can all understand that--who obtained a giant public works project for their state; for DOE officials, who would rather continually break promises made to Congress than cancel the project; and for a relatively small group of researchers in an esoteric field, who, understandably, think their research is more important than anyone's."

For his part, Mr. Barton took the loss of the SSC hard, as suggested by this news article in Science:

"Memories of the failed Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) die hard, particularly in Texas. Representative Joe Barton (R), who represents the area that was to be the SSC's home, vowed last week to oppose the $450 million contribution that the Department of Energy (DOE) wants to make to another high-energy physics research project, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. Barton, a member of the House Science Committee but not its energy subcommittee, may not have much control over DOE funding. But his statement will play well with constituents, and it concerns DOE officials. The Europeans "didn't help us, and they went out of their way to stop the SSC," Barton complained in a 6 March hearing of the subcommittee. "I'll be beep-beep-beeped if we'll send a dollar to Europe." Barton said that while he does not oppose U.S. scientists working at CERN, he does take issue with the DOE-CERN agreement, which requires the United States to help build portions of the acceler! ator and its detectors through 2004. (The National Science Foundation would chip in about $80 million.) Barton wants the United States to have more administrative oversight at CERN, and he wants the Europeans to promise to assist in building future U.S. facilities. "One congressman can raise a lot of sand," he warned DOE energy research chief Martha Krebs, who was testifying before the panel. "I know where the bodies are buried, and I intend to dig them up," said Barton, who left immediately after making his statement."

Posted on July 19, 2005 11:05 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Prepackaged News, Scientific Content and Democratic Processes

Last February the Government Accountability Office criticized the Bush Administration for its use of "prepackaged news stories." (See this Washington Post report.). Yesterday's Washington Post had an interesting story on how the Environmental Protection Agency has been paying The Weather Channel to produce prepackaged news stories on environmental issues. The Washington Post reported,

"The Environmental Protection Agency paid the Weather Channel $40,000 to produce and broadcast several videos about ozone depletion, urban heat problems and the dangers of ultraviolet radiation as part of the Bush administration's efforts to inform the public about climate change, agency records show."

This is interesting for several reasons. First, it certainly plays against stereotype to hear that the Bush Administration is engaged in covert propaganda on climate change. In addition, a university professor and NRDC official who looked at the news stories found them to be scientifically accurate. It makes me wonder, only partially tongue-in-cheek, how the UCS folks will handle this situation; I can see the headline in their next report, "Bush Administration Guilty of Covertly Promoting Accurate Science on Climate Change." More realistically, I would expect that this situation involving EPA and TWC will be completely ignored by those involved in the debate over the "integrity of science" even though this situation involves a breach of law by agencies under the Bush Administration. Why? It doesn't fit the larger framing! of the issue of the misuse of science by opponents of the Bush Administration. This situation makes things more complicated and thus will be easier to ignore.

More broadly, this situation illustrates the importance of distinguishing process from content. The Washington Post article and the experts they interviewed emphasized the quality of the content of the prepackaged news releases. Here is one example from the story, _Daniel Lashof, science director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center, said: "I think they are actually a very good use of EPA resources to reach the public on these issues. The science, I think, is presented accurately in all of them."_ But this misses the point of GAO_s objections, and is also representative of the more general conflation of criteria of content and process. We see this conflation frequently when the focus of attention is exclusively on scientific content rather than the processes that are used to produce, disseminate or use that science. Too often judgments on the fidelity of democratic processes are made based on whether or not one agrees with the content of the discuss! ion and not criteria of what constitutes a healthy process (examples include, Iraq war debate, Lomborg debate, scientific appointments, hockey stick, etc.). In this case involving EPA, it is not good enough in the eyes of GAO that prepackaged news stories are accurate.

Here is what the GAO concluded in its February Circular distributed to federal agencies,

_Prepackaged news stories are complete, audio-video presentations that may be included in video news releases, or VNRs. They are intended to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public by independent television news organizations. To help accomplish this goal, these stories include actors or others hired to portray "reporters" and may be accompanied by suggested scripts that television news anchors can use to introduce the story during the broadcast. These practices allow prepackaged news stories to be broadcast, without alteration, as television news While agencies generally have the right to disseminate information about their policies and activities, agencies may not use appropriated funds to produce or distribute prepackaged news stories intended to be viewed by television audiences that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials. It is not enough that the contents of an ag! ency's communication may be unobjectionable. Neither is it enough for an agency to identify itself to the broadcasting organization as the source of the prepackaged news story._

And in May Congressional testimony the GAO explained its reasoning as follows,

"The publicity or propaganda prohibition states, "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress." GAO has long interpreted this provision to prohibit agencies from, among other things, producing materials that are covert as to origin. Our opinions have emphasized that the critical element of covert propaganda is concealment of the government's role in producing the materials. Agencies have violated this law when they used appropriated funds to produce articles and op-ed pieces that were the ostensible position of persons not associated with the government."

GAO concluded that the use of prepackaged news is wrong independent of the merit of the content of the stories. This is a good lesson for those involved in political debates involving science. Sometimes process trumps content.

Posted on July 19, 2005 07:42 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 18, 2005

Letter from Boehlert to Barton

July 14, 2005

The Honorable Joe Barton
Chairman
Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman:

I am writing to express my strenuous objections to what I see as the misguided and illegitimate investigation you have launched concerning Dr. Michael Mann, his co-authors and sponsors.

First, your Committee lacks jurisdiction over this matter. Both the National Science Foundation and climate change research are under the purview of the House Committee on Science. This is in no way my central concern about your investigation, but I raise it at the outset because it may have legal implications as you proceed. Jurisdiction is also relevant because the insensitivity toward the workings of science demonstrated in your investigative letters may reflect your Committee?'s inexperience in the areas you are investigating.

My primary concern about your investigation is that its purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them, and to substitute Congressional political review for scientific peer review. This would be pernicious.

It is certainly appropriate for Congress to try to understand scientific disputes that impinge on public policy. There are many ways for us to do that, including hearings with a balanced set of witnesses, briefings with scientists, and requests for reviews by the National Academy of Sciences or other experts.

But you have taken a decidedly different approach - one that breaks with precedent and raises the specter of politicians opening investigations against any scientist who reaches a conclusion that makes the political elite uncomfortable.

Rather than bringing Dr. Mann and his antagonists together in a public forum to explain their differences, you have sent an investigative letter to Dr. Mann and his colleagues that raises charges that the scientific community has put to rest, and ask for detailed scientific explanations that your Committee undoubtedly lacks the expertise to review.

This is utterly unnecessary given that Dr. Mann's articles have prompted a spirited and appropriate (and often technically complex) debate in the scientific community that has played out in readily available journals. Moreover, the only charge that has been leveled against Dr. Mann that might prompt Congressional notice - that he was refusing to share data - has been soundly rejected by the National Science Foundation, and those who continue to raise the charge are well aware of that.

Therefore, one has to conclude that there is no legitimate reason for your investigation. The investigation is not needed to gain access to data. The investigation is not needed to get balanced information on a scientific debate. The investigation is not needed to prompt scientific discussion of an important issue.

The only conceivable explanation for the investigation is to attempt to intimidate a prominent scientist and to have Congress put its thumbs on the scales of a scientific debate. This is at best foolhardy; when it comes to scientific debates, Congress is "all thumbs."

The precedent your investigation sets is truly chilling. Are scientists now supposed to look over their shoulders to determine if their conclusions might prompt a Congressional inquiry no matter how legitimate their work? If Congress wants public policy to be informed by scientific research, then it has to allow that research to operate outside the political realm. Your inquiry seeks to erase that line between science and politics.

There are numerous scientific debates ongoing about climate change. Data and conclusions get challenged all the time. Are we going to launch biased investigations each time a difference appears in the literature?

I hope you will reconsider the investigation you have launched and allow the scientific community to debate its work as it always has. Seeking scientific truth is too important to be impeded by political expediency. That's a position that Members on all sides of the climate change debate should share.

Sincerely,

SHERWOOD BOEHLERT
Chairman

Posted on July 18, 2005 07:41 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

July 12, 2005

A Positive Side to Controversy?

Hans von Storch’s talk last Friday, titled “Hockey sticks and the sustainability of climate science,” was divided into two parts. The second part of the talk dealt with the politicization of climate science and the possibility of negative effects stemming from this, while the first half focused almost entirely on technical details related to climate reconstruction and the algorithms of Mann, Bradley, and Hughes (MBH) that led to the hockey stick. More than a few people in the audience had no more than a passing interest in climate modeling or climate reconstruction. Their presence, and the presence of a crowd large enough to be standing room only, was indicative of one of von Storch’s major points. This point can be paraphrased as, “The political stakes for climate science are quite high, and thus we must be assiduous in presenting our science accurately and truthfully in order to ensure the science’s credibility and long-term sustainability.” von Storch was able to point to the crowded room as evidence for the amount of controversy and emotional investment surrounding the debate on the hockey stick. This made it easier for him to support one of his major points; overselling scientific results can have large consequences for public perceptions of science.

I agree with von Storch’s statement that how we present science can be important. Both von Storch and Roger Pielke Jr. point out that the prominent use of the hockey stick by the IPCC was the impetus for it’s manifestation as a symbol, which opened the door for the current debate. However, I do think that von Storch’s fear that this is damaging to the enterprise of climate science may be overblown.

Instead, I would assert that the politicization and controversy surrounding the hockey stick and other climate-related questions creates risk, but is beneficial to climate science, provided that your chief concern is the continuation of the scientific venture and the pursuit of knowledge. In his remarks, Warren Washington said that he believes controversy is good for science. He also noted that in the face of controversy, one response from Washington D.C. program managers is to continue funding science. So, controversy and the political heft of the scientific undertaking do create the risks of exaggeration and overstatement, but they also ensure the continuation of the research, and increase the chances of coming closer to an accurate understanding of climate. Whether or not the MBH hockey stick is the result of good science, it would probably not have deserved publication in Nature if it did not concern a topic people care about, and it would probably not have elicited as much scrutiny from both scientists and policy makers if it was not put forth so prominently by the IPCC. This scrutiny has led to enhanced understanding of the hockey stick, other methods for climate reconstruction, and our climatic past. While the political values attached to climate science do raise the stakes and do create risk, they also create opportunities for a more rigorous, iterative scientific process.

Of course, while this increased focus on the science behind the hockey stick may lead to a more nuanced understanding of our climatic past and future, and thus could be healthy for the science, it does not bring us any closer to political resolution. In the discussion that followed the formal session, Roger made the point that one of the reasons that more work had to be done on options for action on climate change is because no politically palatable option has been found to date. Beyond inaction, there is no politically acceptable alternative at this juncture, and thus scientific questions can undergo endless debate without any real consequence for policy. During the panel discussion, Roger made the recommendation that we find strategies to “defuse the hockey stick debate”. There’s a pessimistic part of me that says, “What’s the point?” If this debate and every other debate on the validity of the science in the IPCC were resolved, you could be left with a debate on whether warming would fall closer to 1.4 degrees C or 5.8 degrees C. Even if we had one firm temperature estimate and accurate regional resolution, we could then bring in some economists and infinitely debate the costs and benefits of action. Science is a venture that always leads to more questions, and there is always some uncertainty, so it appears that debate can continue until reasonable options are found. This pessimistic side asks, “Until we do have options that are politically and technically feasible, why worry about moving on from this debate?” However, moving on, or defusing the hockey stick debate would at least make some free time for Representative Barton and his staff to work on legislating, would allow Mann and his colleagues to move on to new scientific questions instead of dealing with old ones, and might bring us marginally closer to discussing something constructive. I’m hoping that I’m underestimating the value of these benefits, or that there are other, larger benefits I’m missing.

Posted on July 12, 2005 12:10 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Logar, N. | Climate Change

Summary of von Storch Talk

The following is a summary of the July 8 Hans von Storch talk and panel discussion, by Erika Engelhaupt, Nat Logar, and Marilyn Averill.
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Hans von Storch presented an analysis of climate reconstruction and climate science politicization titled “Hockeysticks and the sustainability of climate science” at the National Center for Atmospheric Research on Friday, July 8. Dr. von Storch discussed both scientific and political implications of the well-known “hockey stick”, the name given to a reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperature over the past 1,000 years by Dr. Michael Mann and colleagues R.S. Bradley and M.K. Hughes , which displays a long period of relatively stable temperature over most of the past millennium (forming the handle of the hockey stick) followed by an abrupt rise in temperature over the past century (the business end of the hockey stick). The hockey stick was made famous in Mann et al’s 1998 paper in Nature and was featured prominently in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers (TAR, 2001). Since then, the hockey stick has sparked significant controversy among climate scientists and policy makers as an important piece of the case for unprecedented 20th century warming. Dr. von Storch presented a critique of the Mann “hockey stick” curve, and then used his comparative modeling findings to ask more subjective questions about the nature of the scientific enterprise in general and of climate science in particular. A panel of respondents provided comments following his talk.

First, von Storch discussed his work with Eduardo Zorita and others, published in 2004 in Science, on a millennial-scale climate simulation that tested the methods used in constructing Mann’s model. The authors asked whether the hockey stick model is reliable in reconstructing low-frequency variability. In essence, the magnitude of this variability helps determine how dramatic that rise in the past century looks relative to the 900 years before it. Dr. von Storch emphasized that his work represents a critique of Mann’s methods, not of his results. A millennial run with von Storch’s model generates temperature variations considerably larger than Mann’s reconstruction, but similar to some other models (giving a fatter stick, though still showing increased temperatures in the 20th century). For full details, see the paper here (for those with access to Science). Critics have complained that von Storch’s curve may be no more accurate than the hockey stick, but von Storch was quick to point out that his message is not that his curve is the truth and Mann’s is not, but instead says that his curve “could be the truth” and that Mann’s methodology did not stand up to verification. Thus, von Storch says, “Do not believe advanced complex methods when they are advanced as magic bullets.”

The second part of von Storch’s lecture concerned politicization in the field of climate science, with the goal of organizing the science in a more sustainable manner. von Storch began by contrasting the traditional, truth-based perception of science with a climate science that has higher stakes, is more closely intertwined with practical considerations, and that has increased incentives for people to pursue motives other than truth. He then presented evidence of the political nature of climate issues, and of the way this has affected both the science and what is said about the science. Dr. von Storch presented examples in the form of a statement by renewable energy advocates that “Global warming is a more insidious and longer-term danger than Hitlerism”, along with concerns that the House of Lords have about the IPCC’s objectivity, and the letters sent by U.S. Representative Barton to MBH, the IPCC, and the NSF. For more of von Storch’s commentary on the Barton letters, see the Prometheus entry , “Hans von Storch on Barton”. von Storch was attempting to draw attention to “ongoing slight exaggeration [which] results in the formation of significant misinformation in the public realm.” He warns climate scientists that this overselling of scientific results is unsustainable in that it damages the social institution of science, as members of the public perceive that climate scientists have an agenda, whether true or not.

The hockey stick, according to von Storch, has become a symbol so central to the climate change debate that it cannot be challenged without undermining other aspects of climate science. He argued that the climate debate is constrained by a concern for “evil” skeptics, hopes for a successful Kyoto process, the putative infallibility of the IPCC, the idea that any theoretical failure threatens the authority of climate science in general, and the fact that many reject any statement supporting the climate change skeptics. Such constraints undermine climate science in particular, but also damage the social institution of science by eroding trust. Dr. von Storch called for more counseling from the social sciences, a decrease in the power of alarmists, and the engagement of climate skeptics in constructive dialogue.

The talk was followed by a panel discussion with von Storch, several NCAR climate scientists and modelers, and Roger Pielke, Jr. from the Center for Science and Technology Policy. The audience prompted a lively discussion of climate science and its role in policy. In opening statements, Warren Washington (NCAR) expressed faith in the iterative nature of science by contending that science is always helped by controversy, as scientists sort out the truth by finding and fixing flaws in the data. Washington said that if Mann et al. produced a flawed paper, they should admit it and science will move forward. Caspar Ammann (NCAR) discussed his own climate reconstruction work; Ammann has found similar results to von Storch, but with a smaller difference from MBH. Roger Pielke, Jr. spoke about the role of the hockey stick as a condensational symbol, one which evokes emotions and represents more than is held in its data (more here. Doug Nychka (NCAR) pointed out that it is human nature to want a single estimate of something, and we therefore tend to pay attention to the mean and ignore the variability around it. For example, Nychka said that the “hockey stick” refers to a single line, but the grey fuzz around it is the important part, which the IPCC tends to ignore. Others in the audience said that in the case of the hockey stick, the scientific process is working correctly, with continual refinement of models and new ideas. As one audience member noted, even Dr. Mann has moved on to refined techniques that don’t underestimate low-frequency variability as much as his 1998 model did. Dr. von Storch summarized by stating that the inner workings of science are functioning well, but that climate scientists need to think about how to interact with the public and policy in a way that benefits all.

Posted on July 12, 2005 12:04 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

July 11, 2005

You Go Dad!

My father, Roger Pielke, Sr., is a very well-known and widely published professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University. His research group is dipping their toes into the blogging world with Climate Science. Here is their focus:

Welcome to the weblog of the Roger A. Pielke Sr. Research Group.

We are initiating a new blog specifically focused on climate science issues. Among the topics to be presented are views on the science that are not receiving much if any attention in the science community even though the research is appearing in the scientific literature. In addition, this forum provides a venue for the prompt dissemination of new scientific insight, as well as issues with balance in the discussion of the role of human disturbance of the climate system as reported in national and international assessments, and in published papers.

Check it out.

Posted on July 11, 2005 03:12 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

PPT of HVS Talk

For those interested in seeing the powerpoint from Hans von Storch's talk at NCAR last friday, you can download it here:

http://w3g.gkss.de/staff/storch/PPT/paleo/050708.ncar.ppt

Warning: 27.1 MB.

We'll have a summary crafted by several in the audience posted here soon.

Posted on July 11, 2005 08:52 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 08, 2005

Hans von Storch on Barton

Guest posting by Hans von Storch

My reaction to Rep. Barton's requests is split. In his five letters, he is asking for information from two different groups, namely institutions with reviewing responsibilities (IPCC, NSF) and individuals with scientific responsibilities (M, B and H). I find his inquiry of the performance of the institutions IPCC and NSF valid, but the interrogative questioning of the individual scientists is inadequate.

a) Scientists. The scientists have the task to be innovative, creative, to try new avenues of analysis and the like. They have the right to err, the right to suggest explanations and interpretations which may need to be revised at a later time. They should document what they have done, so that others can replicate.

However, this documentation often can not take the form of keeping runnable old codes of the applied algorithms, simply because the software is no longer consistent with quickly replaced hardware. For instance, most of the state-of-the-art coupled AOGCMs used in the mid 1990s are simply no longer available and running at, for instance, the German Climate Computer Center. After replacing a high performance computer with a new system, the standard model codes, including community models, need to be adapted to the requirements and possibilities of the new system, and the old code will often no longer run. This has nothing to do with the norms of the community but simply with technological progress. Also specific commercial libraries of specialized algorithms may no longer be accessible. Data and codes written on old magnetic tapes or even floppies are usually no longer readable.

Therefore the documentation must take the form of a mathematical description of the algorithms used. This is in many if not most cases sufficient for replication. Also, the intention of replicability is not to exactly redo somebody's simulation and analysis, but to find the same result with a similar code and different but statistical equivalent samples. The problem is usually not that the codes contain errors (even if many of the more complex ones likely contain minor, mostly insignificant errors), but that specific elements of implementation and specific aspects of the considered sample of evidence will lead to conclusions, which do not hold if another sample is considered or a different but equally good algorithm is employed. The reason is that we want to learn about the dynamics of the real world, and these insights should not depend on random choices in sampling and implementation. We generally do not expect scientists to manufacture results, or that unintended but significant errors will affect the eventually published conclusions.

Having this situation in mind, I consider Rep. Barton's requests to the three scientists as inadequate and out-of-scale. However, the language used by Rep. Barton makes me perceiving this request as aggressive and on the verge of threatening.

The situation is different with the second groups of recipients, the:

b) "Reviewers". Reviewers have a different role, namely they shall make sure that the standards of scientific reporting are held up. They have to ensure that the proposed explanations are considered by independent experts as to whether the presented analysis seems valid and in principle reproducible. "Independent" means that the reviewers have no vested interests for or against the case presented. In the conventional set-up these interests usually refer to academic schools of thought, but in the unfortunate, post-normal case of climate science independence from the political utility of the case should be established.

In this case, I find the inquiry of Rep. Barton to be valid. The IPCC has failed to ensure that the assessment reports, which shall review the existing published knowledge and knowledge claims, should have been prepared by scientists not significantly involved in the research themselves. Instead, the IPCC has chosen to invite scientists, who dominate the debate about the considered issues, to participate in the assessment. This was already in the Second Assessment Report a contested problem, and the IPCC would have done better in inviting other, considerably more independent scientists for this task. Instead, the IPCC has asked scientists like Professor Mann to review his own work. This does not represent an "independent" review.

The NSF seems to have failed to ensure that sufficient information is provided about work done under its auspices.

Rep. Barton should also have asked the editors of "Nature", why the original manuscript was accepted for publication even though the key aspect of replicability was obviously not met by the MBH manuscript. Actually, MBH could not meet this condition because of the strict length limitation of that journal (nowadays one would ask for extensive Supplementary Online Material). One should ask why the manuscript was accepted nevertheless - and not, as in many other cases, the manuscript was recommended to be published in a "normal" journal without the severe length limitations. I believe the reasons for Nature were the journalistic reasons - namely the expected broad interest in the subject. One should also ask why after the critique von McIntyre and McKitrik only MBH got the opportunity for a correction of his paper, whereas the short manuscript of their opponents was rejected.

To conclude - the requests to M, B and H are not fair but may unfortunately lead to a repressive atmosphere within climate science; the requests to NSF and the IPCC, however, are appropriate, as these institutions may have failed in a primary task, namely to guarantee an open scientific discourse. And, Rep. Barton should have included the editors of Nature in his analysis.

Posted on July 8, 2005 12:02 AM View this article | Comments (22) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

July 07, 2005

How to break the trance?

On his blog the Albuquerque Journal's John Fleck offers an interesting commentary on the reactions to yesterday's hockey stick post:

"[Pielke says] we're all arguing about the hockey stick as a surrogate for what we're really arguing about. In the process, we all just talk past one another without getting anywhere. The funny thing, in terms of my premise, is the resulting comments. It's a whole bunch of people on both sides of the issue who keep rehashing the same old arguments. It's like they're so entrenched in their pre-rehearsed arguments that they paid no attention to what Roger was saying."

It is almost as if people are in a trance, where they can only see arguments about climate science and nothing else, even though they are really arguing about politics and values. I understand why this occurs and have written about it many times. But what is puzzling to me is why it is so difficult for people to see other perspectives and engage them, even if they disagree. I am not sure what to make of this; one might think that it is a function of the self-selected few with motivation to read blogs and comment. But it seems to me that it is a broader characteristic of the climate debate that infuses the media, the blogosphere and political discussion.

With all of the attention being paid to getting George Bush to accept the science of climate change, many are going to be disappointed when they succeed in this task and policies don't change. As Margaret Beckett, the British Environment Secretary, commented on the climate debate, " the theology is less important than action._ From where I sit it seems like most people have their priorities in the opposite order, theology trumps action. How to break the trance? I don't know.

Posted on July 7, 2005 08:56 AM View this article | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 06, 2005

On The Hockey Stick

[Reminder for locals: NCAR MESA Lab, 3PM Friday, talk by Hans von Storch and subsequent panel on hockey stick issues!!]

A while back we commented that here at Prometheus we don’t do hockey sticks. Well, now we do. What follows is an unbearably long post on issues associated with the Hockey Stick. I am sure that it will be of interest only to those with a deep interest in this issue. For others, move along, nothing to see here ...

The “hockey stick” refers to a graph (see figure b here and figure 2.20 here) which shows the results of a reconstruction of global average temperature for 1,000 years. The hockey stick has been the subject of an intensifying debate that now has reach comic/tragic proportions. Last week Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to three scientists who authored the hockey stick studies, as well as the head of the National Science Foundation and the head of the IPCC, asking for a range of information.

From the perspective of climate science or policy Rep. Barton’s inquiry is simply inane. There will be little insight gained on climate or how we might improve policies on climate change through his “investigation.” As Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has written in response to Rep. Barton, “These letters do not appear to be a serious attempt to understand the science of global warming. Some might interpret them as a transparent effort to bully and harrass climate change experts who have reached conclusions with which you disagree.... If the Committee indeed has a genuine interest in the science of global warming, you should withdraw these letters and instead schedule a long-overdue Committee hearing on climate change.”

Of course, it is doubtful that Rep. Barton’s Committee (on Energy and Commerce, I remind you) actually has any real interest in the science of climate change, except as a tool of tactical advantage in the continuing political battle over global warming. Rep. Barton and others opposed to action on climate change will continue to gnaw at the hockey stick like a dog on a bone so long as they perceive that it confers some political benefits. The great irony here is that in many instances the supporters of the hockey stick have often been their own worst enemies and fed the flames of this debate, which now threatens the integrity of all of climate science, and to turn all of climate science into climate politics. The debate also consumes a lot of scarce attention on the climate issue – attention that would be better devoted to debates about policy options.

Can the climate science community do anything about this situation? To understand how the hockey stick issue might be de-emphasized and moved beyond requires understanding the debate and its political context.

The hockey stick is a symbol. It represents much more than the results of two studies by Mann et al.; it represents the integrity of the IPCC, claims of a human influence on climate, demands for action on climate change, and no doubt other things as well. Consider the range of emotions and issues evoked when you think of other examples of symbols that condense a great deal meaning – for example, the United States flag, a swastika, or a religious cross. Symbols serve as a sort of short cut when we try to make sense of a complicated world. The manipulation of symbols is consequently a high political art. As political scientist Murray Edelman wrote in his book The Symbolic Uses of Politics (at pp. 31-32), “It is characteristic of large numbers of people in our society that they see and think in terms of stereotypes, personalization, and oversimplifications, that they cannot recognize or tolerate ambiguous and complex situations, and that they accordingly respond to symbols that oversimplify and distort.” It is important to recognize that symbols take on meaning far beyond the “reality” referred to by the symbol. Edelman writes, “… reality can be irrelevant for persons very strongly committed to an emotionally satisfying symbol… commitment to a belief is likely to be strengthened and reaffirmed in the face of clear disproof of its validity where there is a strong prior commitment … and where there is continuing social support of the commitment by others …” This apparent disconnect helps to explain (for both sides) why the larger symbolic and political debate over the hockey stick won’t be resolved by completing claims to factual correctness made by either side.

The hockey stick became a symbol because of the IPCC. In its 2001 report of Working Group 1 the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) included only 5 graphs. The entire report has probably 100 graphs (perhaps more, I have not counted). So the IPCC was in effect saying, “We’ve looked carefully at all of the evidence of climate change and from all of those studies and reports the best example that we’d like to share with you policy makers of changes in the earth’s climate is represented with this graph.” Of course, most Prometheus readers will know that the case for a human influence on climate is well established through multiple independent lines of research. But remember, we are talking about the hockey stick as a symbol. For the uninformed outsider reading the SPM, none of this richness and context would be apparent. The IPCC offers that not only is the hockey stick the best example that it can provide of climate change, but that it has been peer-reviewed at a level more stringent than normal journal articles. Representative of such claims, the scientists at RealClimate have written, “IPCC reports undergo several additional reviews and revisions involving a large number of independent referees. Thus, the IPCC reports undergo a more stringent review process than common papers in the scientific literature.” The hockey stick is thus a powerful political symbol in the climate debate.

With the hockey stick established as a symbol it is to be expected that it attracted both support and opposition as a tactic of politics. Those advocating particular actions on climate change would, for example, prominently display the hockey stick in talks, no doubt referring to its endorsement by the IPCC. Those opposed to action on climate change (or just generally skeptical) would be drawn to the hockey stick target number one in debate over climate change. The hockey stick is debated because it is a key symbol of a an intense and meaningful political debate.

How should an outsider make sense of the hockey stick debate? The debate is technical, and includes references to all sorts of obscure statistical techniques and paleoclimate proxy methodologies, and thus may seem impenetrable. But the technical debate may be less important than the proponents on either side might claim.

The technical debate centers on the authors of the original two hockey stick studies referenced by the IPCC, Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH) and their primary antagonists, McIntyre and McKitrick (MM). Mann et al. often make their case at www.realclimate.org and McIntyre (and sometimes McKitrick) make their case at www.climateaudit.org.

There are several characterizations of this debate readily available in the blogosphere. One claims that MM are tools of the oil and gas industry, ready to spread misinformation and lies in order to discredit the noble truth-seeking scientists whose work is beyond reproach, all in hopes of derailing action on climate change. Another characterization holds that MM are the proverbial Davids up against the Goliaths of the IPCC and the global warming juggernaut intent on remaking the world in its environmentally-correct image.

While such stories will resonate strongly with black hat/white hat types, from where I sit the reality seems a bit more complicated. Here is how I see it -- MBH conducted several studies that, by the conventional norms of the climate science community, represented excellent work and were published in leading journals in the field. But the norms of the climate science community for peer review and replication are not widely shared in other fields. So when MM were drawn to MBH (indirectly or directly by the IPCC SPM no doubt) from outside the climate science community with an eye to take a close look at the their work I’d venture that MM likely brought along with them a perspective on norms of peer review and replication quite different from MBH. This alone would be enough to generate some push back from MBH. But add the fact that McKitrick had already established himself as a collaborator with the climate skeptics, and this probably was enough to engender some serious opposition from MBH, who no doubt were used to dealing with their traditional climate skeptic opponents with loudness and bluster. MM did not go away or back down.

Now it turns out that science can be messy and scientists can be among the more disorganized people you might meet (I could show you some offices). Perhaps MBH were both unprepared to deal with an outside request to replicate the entirety of their work, and their behind-the-scenes work had enough inelegant shortcuts and ugly warts involved so as to make a full, public replication maybe uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing. To be clear -- I am not suggesting anything close to scientific misconduct or fraud, but the standard messiness and disorganization associated with the scientific research in this particular community where requests for computer codes and inside info rarely are made. For example, when asked about responding to a letter such as that sent by Rep. Barton to MBH Hans von Storch’s reply exemplified such messiness when he replied, “"If I did get such a letter, I would become desperate," he said. His colleagues often write the code for his studies, and he said, "if I asked my colleagues whether they still had the code, I'm not sure they would."” Climate scientist James Annan makes the point more generally on his blog, “I don't know of any scientist who could answer such questions. It's just not the way our work is done - there is far too much pressure for rapid and new results for us to maintain full "audit trails" and answer an unlimited number of questions from any troublemaker with too much time on their hands. By the time 5 years have passed, our work is either irrelevant and forgotten, or else superceded, either because it really was wrong, or because someone else improved on it.” (See the similar comments of Kooiti Matsuda here.) Other disciplines no doubt have different norms of conduct. Undoubtedly part of the dispute between MBH and MM is about norms of scientific inquiry, something that won’t be resolved through the technical arguments.

Bottom line – It seems reasonable to think that while MBH did not engage in scientific misconduct, that a full public replication of their work may prove potentially uncomfortable or embarrassing. (Note that no matter what it is that MBH are not revealing, it could have no consequences for either the scientific consensus on human influence on climate or perspectives on recent temperature trends in historical perspective, as these issues are supported by a larger literature.) So they resisted, and have stood fast. For their part, MM did not give up. MM publish in the peer reviewed literature, giving some credence to their critique, the Wall Street Journal weighs in, a few guys at NCAR claim to vindicate MBH and now the issue has gone all the way to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the long run I am confident that the technical dispute between MBH and MM will be resolved in the peer-reviewed literature. But so what? Already research on paleoclimate modeling and proxies by von Storch et al. and Moberg et al. has superceded the work of MBH.

Resolving the technical dispute will do little to address the larger issues of climate science policy or the symbolic and real political implications of the hockey stick debate. Let me conclude this lengthy post with some unsolicited advice for many of the parties in the science community involved in this messy and ugly debate.

1. For the IPCC. You have a real problem here. If you do anything other than staunchly defend the hockey stick, you run the risk of being perceived as taking a step back on climate science (rightly or wrongly). Given the political agenda advanced by IPCC leadership this will be perceived as damaging. But consider also that a step back can serve to increase your credibility. It was clearly a mistake to use the MBH studies in the SPM (this RealClimate post makes this point abundantly clear enough). The case for human impacts on climate is wide and deep. In the future consider some different options for the SPM such as handing off the job of the SPM to a separate group with expertise in such things, or not even doing an SPM. You have a conflict of interest problem (real or perceptual) as well, given that M of MBH was involved with reviewing his own work as an IPCC lead author. Again, this may be acceptable given the norms of the climate science community, but those are not the norms at play in the larger political world of climate science. Consider getting some good advice on institutional design and public relations. And above all, avoid the hubris that too often characterizes climate scientists in their interactions. What works in the academy often does not in the broader world.

2. For MBH. By all means stop invoking the funding and political agenda of your opponents, which you often offer with fire and vitriol. This only serves to legitimize inquiries into your own funding and political agenda. It is easy for me to say, but I recommend not complying with Rep. Barton’s request. Be respectful, but decline or bury him with paper. Let him subpoena you if he dares (and then watch him then get buried). Add no more fuel to the fire, on RealClimate, in the press, etc. Unless you really have something serious to hide, give the world access to your original computer code and whatever else MM are asking for. Whatever benefits you get from invoking the principle of the matter seem to be dwarfed by the continuing reality of having to deal with this issue. Swallow hard, cut your losses and move on.

3. For MM. Continue to publish your work in the peer reviewed literature. Steer clear of those with political designs on your work, you’ll have more standing if you focus on the substance (M has done better than M in this regard.) Work to understand the norms of the climate science community, and don’t place blame for these norms on MBH. You might have a case to make for changing these norms, but make that case in the right venue. Focus more of your attention on the IPCC and its processes rather than MBH. There are larger issues here. Think about taking on another project. I am confident that the hockey stick issue will very soon resemble a dead horse.

Posted on July 6, 2005 12:14 AM View this article | Comments (42) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 05, 2005

Hurricanes and Global Warming, Another Comment

I’m back from a wonderful vacation, and will have a post on the Barton letters/hockey stick issue very soon, meantime…

Most Prometheus readers will be familiar with the recent publication of two articles on hurricanes and global warming: one a Perspective in Science by NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth and the other a peer-reviewed, collaborative effort that I participated in to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. I've already offered my interpretation on the substance of the two papers here.

I would like to briefly respond to comments made by Kevin in the local Boulder paper a few weeks ago about our paper. Kevin is quoted as saying of our article, '"I think the role of the changing climate is greatly underestimated by Roger Pielke Jr.," Trenberth said Thursday. "I think he should withdraw this article. This is a shameful article."' I find this statement pretty amazing given that the two papers are scientifically consistent with each other.

Upon reading Kevin's strong statements in the press a few weeks ago, I emailed him to ask where specifically he disagreed with our paper and I received no response; apparently he prefers to discuss this issue only through the media. So I'll again extend an invitation to Kevin to respond substantively, rather than simply call our paper 'shameful' and ask for its withdrawal (and I suppose implicitly faulting the peer review process at BAMS): Please identify what statements we made in our paper you disagree with and the scientific basis for your disagreement. If you'd prefer not to respond here, I will eagerly look forward to a letter to BAMS in response to our paper.

Climate change is a big deal. We in the scientific community owe it to the public and policy makers to be open about our debates on science and policy issues. We've offered a peer-reviewed, integrative perspective on hurricanes and global warming. I hold those with different perspectives in high regard -- such diversity makes science strong. But at a minimum it seems only fair to ask those who say publicly that they disagree with our perspective to explain the basis for their disagreement, instead of offering up only incendiary rhetoric for the media. Given that Kevin is the IPCC lead author responsible for evaluating our paper in the context of the IPCC, such transparency of perspective seems particularly appropriate.

Posted on July 5, 2005 11:13 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 03, 2005

Upcoming Talk and Panel This Week

For those of you who are local, we are co-organizing a talk and panel discussion with colleagues at NCAR, to take place at the Mesa Lab main seminar room, 3PM on Friday. Here are the details:

July 8, 2005 -
Joint CGD-ISSE & CIRES Seminar - Panel Discussion

Hockeysticks, the tragedy of the commons and sustainability of climate science.

Hans von Storch - Director of Institute of Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht. Professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg , Germany

Panelists: Warren Washington, Caspar Amman and Doug Nychka, NCAR, and Roger Pielke Jr. (CIRES)
Location

Mesa Lab Main Seminar Room
Time 3:00pm

Abstract

The "hockey stick", elevated to icon-status by the IPCC, plays a crucial role in debate regarding climate change. Yet the methods used to develop it have not been completely explicated. We have tested the method in the artificial laboratory of the output of a global climate model, and found it to significantly underestimate both low-frequency variability and associated uncertainties. Our work focuses on multi-century simulations with two global climate models to generate a realistic mix of natural and externally (greenhouse gases, solar output, volcanic load) forced climate variations. Such simulations are then used to examine the performance of empirically based methods to reconstruct historical climate. This is done by deriving "pseudo proxies" from the model output, which provide incomplete and spatially limited evidence about the global distribution of a variable.

Our simulation study was published in "Science" but received less response than expected - almost no open response, a bit in the media; but many colleagues indicated privately that such a publication would damage the good case of a climate protection policy.

In this talk the methodical critique of the hockey stick methods will be presented, followed by a personal discussion about the problem of post-normal climate science operating in a highly politicized environment.?

The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on the science of the hockey stick in the context of high?profile political issues. Panelists: Warren Washington, Doug Nychka, and Caspar Amman, NCAR and Roger Pielke Jr., Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado (CIRES).

Posted on July 3, 2005 04:30 PM View this article | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 28, 2005

The Barton Letters

As reported briefly yesterday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce has requested information from Michael Mann (and collaborators) and the heads of IPCC and NSF. The tone of the letters places House E&C essentially in ethics investigation mode. (That the committee has any staffers available to pursue this while armoring up for the energy bill conference is partially the subject of this post.)

The letters have been discussed a bit in the science policy blogoworld (link, link and link), but not yet picked up by any media outlets except for, curiously, the stalwart Electricity Daily. (Come on Rick W. and Andy R., this story is waiting for you!)

Here are my thoughts on why this inquiry is both reasonable and unreasonable:

Reasonable

First, this is not a subpoena. Letters of this nature are common and usually begin the process of holding a hearing on a particular topic. While the tone of the letter is accusatory and probably will be construed as alarming by its academic recipients, NSF will be used to this kind of inquiry and will see the letter to Director Bement for what it is: the way Congress often requests information. Keep in mind that Congress is a body used to getting what it wants and loves to play the indignant, outraged, pounding-on-the-table, concerned Congressman role. So while some bloggers are worried that Congress is trying to stifle climate research or stem the flow of climate studies that show that humans are changing the climate, I think that's a misreading. Joe Barton wants to hold an anti-climate change hearing and this is the first step in that process. Hearings aren't that bad.

Second, whatever their hidden, potentially nefarious motivations, House E&C is asking directly for one thing primarily:

"The concerns surrounding these studies reflect upon the quality and transparency of federally funded research and of the IPCC review process – two matters of particular interest to the Committee."

...

"As you know, sharing data and research results is a basic tenet of open scientific inquiry, providing a means to judge the reliability of scientific claims. The ability to replicate a study, as the National Research Council has noted, is typically the gold standard by which the reliability of claims is judged. Given the questions reported about data access surrounding these studies, we also seek to learn whether obligations concerning the sharing of information developed or disseminated with federal support have been appropriately met."

On its face this is a completely legitimate request and concern. In fact, this is exactly what Congress is supposed to do but has not been doing much of in the past few years. However, it would more properly be a concern of the NSF authorizing committees (House and Senate), not an authorizing committee clearly peripheral to science integrity in general and paleoclimatology in particular.

Third, the letters raise the issue of conflict of interest (without calling it that):

"For example, one concern relates to whether IPCC review has been sufficiently robust
and independent. We understand that Dr. Michael Mann, the lead author of the studies in question, was also a lead author of the IPCC chapter that assessed and reported this very same work, and that two co-authors of the studies were also contributing authors to the same chapter." (from the letters to IPCC and NSF)

Whatever climatology scientists think of this concern, and whatever IPCC insiders know about its legitimacy, this is absolutely an appropriate concern of Congress, which should be doing a lot more oversight into conflict of interest (especially in writing of Executive Branch regulations and recommendations, but that's a different story). The ultimate consumer of IPCC information is Congress and other major decision-making bodies. If Congress hears that there are questions about the information that they have been given, especially concerning such a politically touchy issue, it is their prerogative to investigate.

Unreasonable

Now what I really think of the E&C letters. First, if House E&C had made the same request of S. Baliunas and W. Soon or the Idso's, we'd be having a different conversation (although we'd certainly still be having it). By any reasonable measure of the consensus of the climatology community, the Baliunas and Soon papers were far more controversial and scientifically questioned than the Mann et al. papers. That this request is being made of one group of authors concerning one study out of thousands of studies and authors makes this clearly motivated not by fact-finding but by the politics of climate change.

Second, the letters to Drs. Mann, Bradley and Hughes stop just short of accusing them of scientific fraud. If the committee was truly interested in investigating such, it could start with investigating something much closer to its purview. How about starting with Hubbert's Peak and how various sources, some funded by the U.S. taxpayer, have come to wildly different conclusions about remaining reserves of light crude?

Third, Congressional meddling in science research has been happening science Senator Proxmire (D-WI) began giving away Golden Fleece Awards in 1975. By ridiculing specific NSF awards (among myriad other federal expeditures, see this link), Sen. Proxmire was essentially putting pressure on the scientific community to fund more "relevant" work. Senator Inhofe's proclamations of hoaxes and other comments on climate change are in a similar vein. However, this is congressional meddling taken to a whole new level and has the potential to set a bad precedent for the future, when the topic and stakes are different and the parties in power have switched. Furthermore, while some Sens and Reps have spoken vociferously against climate change, expressing their opinions of the research, none have yet used the dais to harass climate researchers.

Which brings me to my final point: the letters are primarily meant to embarrass and harass and the hearings, if they ever happen, could be seen as an abuse of power. The science policy system in the U.S., largely unchanged since Vannevar Bush's day, gives the science community the ability and obligation to police its own ethics. In extreme cases, such as questions of fraud that cannot be resolved internally by NSF/NIH, Congress should make their own inquiries. This case does not come anywhere close to fraud (see the affirmations of Mann et al.'s work here), is clearly a technical dispute of data analysis, and thus plainly belongs within the scientific community.

Barton's letters denigrate this self-governing system and signal that any technical dispute is worth a look from the top. I doubt that in the long run this will serve as a chilling effect on climate research, but it is another extraordinary event in a interannual trend toward increasing politicization of science.

Posted on June 28, 2005 08:57 PM View this article | Comments (17) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

June 27, 2005

Breaking-ish News

The House Energy Committee, apparently not busy enough tweaking the details of the upcoming conference report on H.R. 6, has sent letters to various players in climate change studies requesting information on how their research was done. Link to the letters is here.

The letters were dated last Thursday but it's unclear when they were posted to the House E&C webpage. Probably a classic Friday afternoon release.

I'll comment more on this and other topics in a short while, but first one note: the four-page request to Mann seems to be entirely based upon (or least take off from) a February article in the WSJ written by Antonio Regaldo. I posted here about the Regaldo WSJ article. In the post I came down hard on Mann while essentially stating that Regaldo's analysis was correct. But when this issue goes from public newsprint quibbling to Congressional hearing grandstanding (and this is obviously nothing more noble than that), we have big problems.

More later.
---
This post also appears on Kevin's blog here.

Posted on June 27, 2005 03:35 PM View this article | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

June 16, 2005

Consensus on Hurricanes and Global Warming

"[T]here is no sound theoretical basis for drawing any conclusions about how anthropogenic change affects hurricane numbers or tracks, and thus how many hit land." K. Trenberth, Science, 17 June 2005

Last winter, Chris Landsea caused a flap when he resigned from the IPCC claiming that Kevin Trenberth, the lead author of the IPCC chapter that he was contributing to, had made unfounded statements about hurricanes and global warming in a press conference organized by Harvard to allege a connection between the U.S. hurricane damages of 2004 and human-caused climate change. (Disclaimer: As most regular readers know, Landsea is a long-time collaborator of mine.) In this week's Science, Trenberth has an essay on hurricanes and climate change that should put this issue to rest. Trenberth's essay clearly vindicates Landsea's actions, and, in my opinion, it would not be inappropriate for IPCC officials who failed to support Landsea (Rajedra Pachauri and Susan Solomon) to issue him a public apology. But don't hold your breath.

Let's take a quick look at Trenberth's essay and explain why it vindicates Landsea.

Trenberth confirms in his Science essay what Landsea has claimed, that -- based on what is known today -- "there is no sound theoretical basis for drawing any conclusions about how anthropogenic change affects hurricane numbers or tracks, and thus how many hit land." None. There is no basis for claiming as Trenberth did that the hurricanes of 2004, much less their damages, could be attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases/global warming. Earlier this year, Trenberth said that his participation in the Harvard press conference was "to correct misleading impressions that global warming had played no role at all in last year's hurricane season." It is good to see this claim corrected.

Trenberth confuses the issue by calling into question the role of hypothesis testing in science (one wonders what this apparently new found perspective on hypothesis testing means for the rest of climate science, but I digress), and some discussion of variables that clearly have some effects on hurricanes (i.e., ENSO), but in the end he concludes "it is not yet possible to say how El Nino and other factors affecting hurricane formation may change as the world warms."

A more comprehensive review of current understandings of hurricanes and global warming can be found in this peer-reviewed paper, forthcoming in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, K. Emanuel, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, in press. Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. (PDF)

Bottom line: Landsea and Trenberth are scientifically on the same page, and the perspectives now being espoused by Trenberth are (in my interpretation) entirely consistent with what Landsea argued at the time he stepped down from the IPCC. Because of Trenberth's change in perspective, Landsea should feel completely vindicated. The IPCC should be big enough to note this and invite Landsea back into the fold.

A final note, NCAR's press release and those who approved it apparently learned little from the controversy as the press release irresponsibly muddies the issue by making it look like there is in fact a clear global warming-hurricane connection and that there is new information in the Trenberth paper. If the Trenberth paper is cited in the media as supporting a hurricane-global warming connection (and we'd welcome any links to media coverage), then I place full responsibility on the unnecessarily obfuscatory NCAR press release which sets the stage for a further mischaracterization of this issue, on which scientists who once differed, now agree. That is the real story.

Posted on June 16, 2005 03:13 PM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 14, 2005

A New Easily Digested Summary on Climate Actions

Thank god for the colored fishwrap. If the USA Today hadn't told me today that "The debate is over: Globe is warming" (link), I'd have to keep posting on Prometheus, hunting for nuggets of insight on the current state of consensus.

My snickering on USA Today headline writing aside (I think I prefer The Onion), Dan Vergano does a decent job of summing up some recent corporate attitudes and actions on climate change. None of it is surprising; a few of us had expected the American corporate machine to start moving on climate change when they realized that their international business interests were at stake post-Kyoto (link). But the article tries to go inside the heads of some affected corporations and includes this pearl from Big Coal:

" 'On the business side, it just looks like climate change is not going away,' says Kevin Leahy of Cinergy, a Cincinnati-based utility that reports $4.7 billion in annual revenue and provides electricity, mostly generated from coal, to 1.5 million customers. Most firms see global warming as a problem whose risks have to be managed, he says. "

This is what some climate/science policy people have been saying for a while. We're beyond the science and now into the risk realm. That is, we've identified a risk, which implies both knowledge and uncertainty. The risk, however you perceive it, isn't going away. So you better decide whether you want to be proactive or indifferent. This is boilerplate for regular readers of Prometheus, but it is interesting to hear a representative of "the problem" say the same thing.

The article is also interesting for trotting out the now infamous Rick Piltz, attributing to him expertise in energy conservation (he did publish a paper about it in 1989), without really showing whether Vergano actually interviewed Piltz for the article. It will be interesting to watch whether Piltz becomes a recognized and oft-quoted expert on climate change for the next two weeks. (While Revkin gets to sit back and bask in the glory of originality. Nice job, Andy.)

Posted on June 14, 2005 04:09 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

Betting on Climate

Placing bets on the future state of the climate makes sense, but in a research mode, not just in public displays of "calling out" particular opponents. Several commentators here on Prometheus have directed our attention to discussions of "betting on climate," that is, putting one's money where one's mouth is when making claims about the future state of the climate. James Annan, a scientist at the Frontier Research Center for Global Change in Japan, has been trying unsuccessfully to get prominent climate skeptics on the record in the form of a bet. Mark Bahner has responded by trying unsuccessfully to get James Annan on the record with some sort of bet.

This recent flurry of calling people out (reminds me of elementary schoolyard brawls - "I'm faster than you!" "No you're not!" "Prove it!" "Meet you after school on the playground!") no doubt has a high element of drama. Ronal Bailey takes credit for starting the betting flurry when he apparently misquoted MIT's Richard Lindzen discussing what odds he would take on a bet on the future state of the climate. Underlying all this, as Bailey observes, is the now legendary story of the Erlich/Simon wager which in spite of assertions to the contrary is widely viewed as a vindication of Simon's perspectives over Ehrlich's - of cornucopian correctness and catastrophist error. This is where the drama comes from, as bettors who call people out by name probably see themselves immortalized in future history with a publicly-visible betting victory like Julian Simon experienced.

I think that while such chest thumping displays are certainly entertaining, they tell us little about the broader state of uncertainty among experts or the public. But there is something important here that should not be overlooked. Betting, or more accurately a betting market, can tell us a lot about the state of uncertainty across a large body of experts. In 2001 I wrote an essay on "prediction markets," here is an excerpt:

"Nobel Prize winner Nils Bohr once remarked, "Prediction is difficult, especially of the future." Recognizing the difficulties of prediction, what if there was a way to integrate all available information about the future into a single forecast that would instantaneously incorporate and make available new information? Sound too good to be true? Research in economics and recent developments in the private sector point to a novel way to think about forecasting in the earth and atmospheric sciences.

The basic premise of the approach lies in the efficient market theory from the field of economics and most closely associated with the work of Eugene Fama at the University of Chicago in the 1960s. The efficient market theory holds that the current price of a commodity in an exchange market reflects all available information. When you hear the phrase "you can't beat the market" it is referring to the perspective that the "market" (usually the stock market) is efficient; i.e., if information were available that would allow someone to gain a trading advantage, this information would be reflected instantaneously in the price of the commodity through the actions of buyers and sellers in the marketplace. Whatever advantage the trader thought may have existed is absorbed into the market...

What if a "prediction market" were created that would allow trading based on specific predicted outcomes such as the weather? Could such a market be created that operated efficiently and had sufficient participation to integrate all available information about the future? Here is a research hypothesis: An efficient "prediction market" generally will outperform all competing prediction methodologies in the earth and atmospheric sciences...

Several policy issues come to mind. First, there is an implication for the research community. It would appear to make sense to test the hypothesis about whether "prediction markets" can outperform other approaches to forecasting phenomena related to the earth and atmospheric sciences. Perhaps an equivalent to the Iowa Electronic Market could stimulate such research related to weather forecasting, climate forecasting, and, in principle, any area where predictions are made. Second, if the marketplace can provide skillful forecasts, then perhaps a mechanism might be created for this information to be provided systematically to consumers of forecasts through the public or private sectors, or through a partnership."

There is a brilliant, straightforward (and fundable!) research proposal waiting to be written that develops the idea of prediction markets in the context of climate (and something that with a serious PI I'd be interested in collaborating on). The model to emulate is the Iowa Electronic Exchange, which is funded in part by the U.S. NSF as a research project, to explore how well prediction markets perform in the context of elections and certain measures of economic performance.

I can imagine a whole bunch of interesting datasets that might be collected through a climate prediction market. For example, it would be useful to create a market that is only populated by IPCC authors, a market populated by people with the same expertise as the IPCC authors but not part of the IPCC, different markets for different disciplinary areas of expertise, a market open to the public, and markets based on various metrics of interest to decision makers (beyond global average temperature) such as rainfall in particular locations or the number of hurricanes, etc. etc. Such markets would allow for a robust empirical examination of a wide range of obvious and not-so-obvious questions. (James Annan has set up here a market open to the public focused on global average temperature.)

On the climate issue it is often difficult to separate out the political theater from the serious attempts at research. Prediction markets offer a great opportunity to dramatically advance understandings of expert perspectives on the future state of the climate, as well as the diversity of views within the expert community. But to gain such understanding will require going beyond the schoolyard brawl mentality to real, rigorous research. Who thinks this is going to happen? Wanna bet? I'll meet you on the playground at noon.

Posted on June 14, 2005 06:32 AM View this article | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 13, 2005

The Good Explanation - Apologies

Welcome to the weblog… as I sat down to write a disgruntled letter to Donald Kennedy tonight, I went through my old email and discovered that it was Nature, not Science that rejected our hurricane paper without review.

My apologies for the error and for creating short-lived false hopes for conspiracy theorists. We call it like we see it here, especially when we are in error (surely won't be the last time). Meantime, do read the various papers on hurricanes and climate change, a comparison will be informative.

Posted on June 13, 2005 09:41 PM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Interesting Coincidence

Correction

Posted on June 13, 2005 11:11 AM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 10, 2005

New Paper on Hurricanes and Global Warming

We heard earlier this week that a short paper we had started on during last year's hurricane season has now been accepted for publication in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society after successfully completing peer review. With the paper we seek to provide a concise, largely non-technical, scientifically rigorous, globally inclusive, and interdisciplinary perspective on the state of current understandings of hurricanes and global warming that is explicitly discussed in the context of policy. As new research findings are reported in peer-reviewed journals on tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and climate change (global warming), and a corresponding public debate undoubtedly continues on this subject, we thought that it may be useful to provide a forest-level perspective on the issue to help place new research findings into a broader context.

The paper can be found here:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, K. Emanuel, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch, in press. Hurricanes and global warming, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. (PDF)

Here is an excerpt:

"... claims of linkages between global warming and hurricanes are misguided for three reasons. First, no connection has been established between greenhouse gas emissions and the observed behavior of hurricanes (IPCC 2001; Walsh 2004). Yet such a connection may be made in the future as metrics of tropical cyclone intensity and duration remain to be closely examined. Second, a scientific consensus exists that any future changes in hurricane intensities will likely be small in the context of observed variability (Knutson and Tuleya 2004, Henderson-Sellers et al 1998), while the scientific problem of tropical cyclogenesis is so far from being solved that little can be said about possible changes in frequency. And third, under the assumptions of the IPCC, expected future damages to society of its projected changes in the behavior of hurricanes are dwarfed by the influence of its own projections of growing wealth and population (Pielke at al. 2000). While future research or experience may yet overturn these conclusions, the state of knowledge today is such that while there are good reasons to expect that any connection between global warming and hurricanes is not going to be significant from the perspective of event risk, but particularly so from the perspective of outcome risk as measured by economic impacts."

Read the whole thing here in PDF.

Here are the identities of the authors: Roger Pielke, Jr. is a Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Colorado, Chris Landsea is a Research Meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division, Kerry Emanuel is a Professor in the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Mayfield is Director of NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC), Jim Laver is the Director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, and Richard Pasch is a Hurricane Specialist at NOAA NHC.

Posted on June 10, 2005 12:05 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 09, 2005

Issues of Integrity in Climate Science

Rick Weiss reports in the Washington Port today about a study appearing in the latest Nature on scientific integrity (link and link).

Two points I'd like to make:

1- The study was done on NIH-funded scientists and so doesn't immediately lend much insight into integrity in climate science (not that Prometheus is focused away from health sciences, but the expertise of the authors trend toward Earth and space sciences, so most posts are in that realm). Health sciences researchers have different challenges in collecting and interpreting data than do Earth scientists. It's not too much of a stretch to point out that climate science is based on interpreting the past and the future while hoping that both shed light on the present (the present is weather, after all). Medical studies are almost wholly focused on the present. While this perhaps is a subtle distinction, my feeling is that it is likely crucial in how it affects the integrity of research processes.

2- Despite what I write above, the authors of the Nature article (Martinson et al.) make a point relevant for climate studies:

"Our findings suggest that US scientists engage in a range of behaviours extending far beyond FFP [fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism] that can damage the integrity of science."

Ethical and value issues have been raised repeatedly in the climate sciences (if you're not a regular reader of Prometheus, just spend ten minutes in the archives), but in the published literature the problem has been often portrayed as a problem of the selective construction and interpretation of models (see the Paul Edwards paper and his citations in Science as Culture, 1999, 8(4), 437-472.).

Edwards points out in his paper that:

"To a large degree these debates are in fact about the model/data relationship: whether model results agree with observations, how much each of these can be trusted, and what sort of role model projections should play in policymaking. I will argue that some parties to these debates have relied upon a conceptual separation between models and data that is, at best, misleading. The interdependent, even symbiotic, relationship between theory and observation in global climate science requires a different conception of the nature of scientific work. Uncertainties exist not only because of quantifiable, reducible empirical and computational limits, but also because of unquantifiable, irreducible epistemological limits related to inductive reasoning and to the nature of model-based global science. These uncertainties can be, and have been, employed as political resources."

I would argue that this is where the integrity of climate scientists must be examined, and it will be a far more subtle effect than in simply asking about dropping a few data points or any of the ten questions asked by Martinson et al. in the Nature study. For example, the dividing line between judging initial model output as likely or unlikely and then following certain research lines based on initial output is one place likely to be influenced by a "consideration of the wider research environment" as pointed out by Martinson et al.

Martinson et al. go on to say:

"In ongoing analyses, not yet published, we find significant associations between scientific misbehaviour and perceptions of inequities in the resource distribution processes in science. We believe that acknowledging the existence of such perceptions and recognizing that they may negatively affect scientists' behaviours will help in the search for new ways to promote integrity in science."

The question becomes: do climate scientists also "misbehave" because of their perceptions on how the political system is treating the climate change question? And if they are misbehaving at anywhere near the rate found by Martinson et al. for medical researchers, what does it say, if anything, for the future intersections of politics and climate science? The question should also be asked in the context of Edwards' points and so also becomes: If climate scientists are "misbehaving," where in the process are they most likely to do so? And is this a result of poor scientific training, poor or a lack of ethical training, or some deliberate, evil malfeasance?

The question most fascinating to me is: How are climate scientists "misbehaving" unwittingly, if at all, as a result the various influences of values they are swimming in?

Posted on June 9, 2005 02:25 PM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

Andy Revkin Responds

[Note- This comment received by email from Andy Revkin, in response to a "heads up" from me, is posted with his permission (granted in a subsequent email to the one below). It is a response to my critique of his story in yesterday's NYT - RP]

"Actually I kind of like it!

You do realize, though, that the norms of journalism still require me to cover something like this, right?

Sadly, the White House is so hermetically sealed on such matters that it has essentially created such stories by making scraps of tea-leaf-like information noteworthy.

Piltz is far less significant than the documents themselves. And while the edits are subtle, as I explained, they create a different tone than the one that was there before. And tone does matter in policy debates, doesn't it?

Also, i interviewed some members of the NRC review panel and they were none too happy to see how the report they assessed was 'pre-spun' to heighten uncertainties. even the most careful reviewer would be apt to read thru some of these changes and never realize the overall pattern created in the document.

Every White House edits reports. No brainer. But shouldn't the characterization of the state of science be assessed by those in the White House with scientific background, i.e, OSTP? Why an ex-oil lobbyist with an economics bachelor's degree?

As for Our Changing Planet 2004-5, same deal. This admin, whether by inattention or on purpose, can't seem to get its story straight on the science of climate change, in part, perhaps, because it's petrified of crossing that next bar and accepting there is a human influence (even though you seem to think they'd have more strategies to fall back on to avoid co2 curbs).

I might consider letting you post this."

Posted on June 9, 2005 06:54 AM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 08, 2005

Manufactured Controversy

Today's New York Times has an article by Andy Revkin on the role of a Bush Administration official who edited two high level climate reports, one the annually issued "Our Changing Planet" (past editions here) which provides a very broad overview of climate research in the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the other is the Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). For several reasons I believe that this news story, which will no doubt be warmly welcomed by some, is pretty weak stuff.

Here is why, point-by-point:

1. The Bush Administration has clearly shown willingness to cherry pick and even mischaracterize information in pursuit of its political agenda. The most obvious example is its misuse of intelligence leading to the Iraq war. So it does make sense for outsiders to carefully watch how the Bush Administration uses information in support of its agenda. No problem there.

2. Of the two reports Revkin finds that a high level official edited, one report, the CCSP Strategic Plan was subsequently twice comprehensively reviewed and revised by a scientific committee convened by the National Research Council (NRC). The NRC committee endorsed the scientific content of the plan and recommend that it be implemented "with urgency." Whatever effects the Bush official's edits had on the plan did not stop the NRC from endorsing its scientific content. Thus, we should conclude that the edits were not particularly significant or they did not remain in the final version.

3. In contrast to today's story, the NYT and Andy Revkin reported in August 2004 that the release of the FY 2005 Our Changing Planet represented a "striking shift" in the Bush Administration's stance on climate change - toward accepting the science. I didn't buy that argument then, and commented, "the 2003 edition of Our Changing Planet, while perhaps somewhat more staid in comparison to the 2005 report, nonetheless contains numerous references to human-caused climate change and predictions of its future, negative impacts. The USGCRP is after all a multi-billion research program motivated by evidence that humans are causing climate change and the desire to develop policy responses. It is hard to see what the news here is. The fact that the 2005 report echoes much of the language of earlier reports does not seem to me to be a striking change or motivated by any possible "shift in focus" of the Bush Administration." Revkin can't have it both ways -- Our Changing Planet cannot both serve an example of the Bush Administration's acceptance of climate science and its misuse of climate science.

4. Let's take a look at the specific edits in question. Both examples seem exceedingly insignificant. Two that Revkin cites in detail are: (1) "In one instance in an October 2002 draft of a regularly published summary of government climate research, "Our Changing Planet," Mr. Cooney amplified the sense of uncertainty by adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."" (I do attribution work, related to trends in economic damage, and it is fair to characterize it as difficult or exceedingly difficult.) And (2) "a sentence in the October 2002 draft of "Our Changing Planet" originally read, "Many scientific observations indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of relatively rapid change." In a neat, compact hand, Mr. Cooney modified the sentence to read, "Many scientific observations point to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a period of relatively rapid change."" Are we really going to ascribe some policy or political significance to the difference between "may" and "is"? It would be naive to expect that political officials do not play a role in spinning high level reports, but if these are the worst examples that the NYT can dig up in this case, then it would seem that the official in question, even if from the oil industry, is editing with a pretty light touch compared with some of the perspectives I have seen from that community.

5. Rick Piltz, a former democratic congressional staffer and USGCRP staffer under the Clinton Administration, who was apparently the source of the documents, claims in the article that the actions of the Bush Administration have "undermine[d] the credibility and integrity of the [U.S. climate science] program." While the Bush Administration may have undermined its own political credibility, it goes too far, way too far, to suggest that anything that the Bush Administration has done has undermined the scientific research being conducted under the CCSP and USGCRP. I'd be surprised if climate scientists accepted such a characterization of their work. Climate science is fully politicized, but the vast majority of bench scientists are doing excellent work, largely unaffected by the controversies at the interface of climate science and politics.

Here is what I wrote last August and I think that it is still true: "The New York Times' apparent strategy of playing "gotcha" with agency documents on the science of climate change is sure to set off an (another) extended series of debates about the science of climate change and who believes or admits what. If so, then score another point for those who desire inaction on climate change because endless debate over the science is about as close a proxy to inaction as you can find. In the end, those pressing the Bush Administration to admit the science of climate change may very well achieve this goal, but they will likely find it to be an empty victory as the Bush Administration can very easily admit the science and then justify its actions on a range of legitimate, non-scientific factors."

In short, the front page New York Times story today is a manufactured controversy.

Posted on June 8, 2005 11:01 AM View this article | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

The Linear Model Consensus Redux

Not too long ago we wrote about the role of the so-called 'linear model' of science and policy: "The linear model is "based on first getting the science "right" as a necessary, if not sufficient, basis for decision making... ". The linear model places science at the center of political debates." On the climate issue at least political opponents share a consensus that the political battle on climate change should be fought through science, which probably explains why the debate continues to focus on science and not policy.

On the one hand, The Royal Society announces its role in the academies' statement with this headline: "Clear science demands prompt action on climate change say G8 science academies". Science does not demand action. People with values demand action. As we've suggested here before, to suggest that science compels a particular action is a mischaracterization of the role of science in policy and politics, and sets the stage for waging politics through science.

On the other hand, George Bush agrees with The Royal Society on the role of science in decision making stating yesterday, "we lead the world when it comes to dollars spent, millions of dollars spent on research about climate change. We want to know more about it. It's easier to solve a problem when you know a lot about it. And if you look at the statistics, you'll find the United States has taken the lead on this research."

Advocates of action on climate change seem to expect that if they can get George Bush to admit certain statements about the science of climate change, then certain actions will necessarily follow. This is exactly how Lord May, President of The Royal Society, characterized the issue:

"The current US policy on climate change is misguided. The Bush administration has consistently refused to accept the advice of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS concluded in 1992 that, 'Despite the great uncertainties, greenhouse warming is a potential threat sufficient to justify action now', by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Getting the US onboard is critical because of the sheer amount of greenhouse gas emissions they are responsible for. For example, the Royal Society calculated that the 13 per cent rise in greenhouse gas emissions from the US between 1990 and 2002 is already bigger than the overall cut achieved if all the other parties to the Kyoto Protocol reach their targets. President Bush has an opportunity at Gleneagles to signal that his administration will no longer ignore the scientific evidence and act to cut emissions."

President Bush responds, "In terms of climate change, I've always said it's a serious long-term issue that needs to be dealt with. And my administration isn't waiting around to deal with the issue, we're acting we're spending a lot of money on developing ways to diversify away from a hydrocarbon society there's a lot of things we're doing in America, and I believe that not only can we solve greenhouse gas, I believe we will."

It is perfectly reasonable to evaluate or criticize the specific policies of the US (or the UK or anyone else) on climate change, we do this all the time here, and I clearly wish there was more discussion of policy in the community. However, to suggest that science demands certain (stated or unstated) policies is a recipe for the continued politicization of climate science, and an approach that plays right into the hands of those advocating business as usual.

Posted on June 8, 2005 07:51 AM View this article | Comments (22) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 07, 2005

Science Academies as Issue Advocates

Last week we asked about the role that science academies should play in policy making. Today national science academies from Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States provided one answer to this question in the form of a jointly signed letter (PDF) to “world leaders, including those meeting at the Gleneagles G8 Summit in July 2005.” The letter advocates the following actions:

- Acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing.
- Launch an international study to explore scientifically informed targets for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and their associated emissions scenarios, that will enable nations to avoid impacts deemed unacceptable.
- Identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions. Recognise that delayed action will increase the risk of adverse environmental effects and will likely incur a greater cost.
- Work with developing nations to build a scientific and technological capacity best suited to their circumstances, enabling them to develop innovative solutions to mitigate and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change, while explicitly recognising their legitimate development rights.
- Show leadership in developing and deploying clean energy technologies and approaches to energy efficiency, and share this knowledge with all other nations.
- Mobilise the science and technology community to enhance research and development efforts, which can better inform climate change decisions.

There are several issues to be raised here:

1. Whatever one thinks of the merits of any one of these advocated actions, it is fair to ask whether or not it is the proper role for national academies to take an explicit advocacy position on highly politicized issues, while at the same time seeking to provide scientific information to inform policy makers. In other words there is at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. The non-partisan position of national academies is an important reason why policy makers turn to national academies, rather than the Sierra Club or Exxon, to provide scientific assessments. By presenting themselves as issue advocates scientific academies are threatening their own authority and legitimacy. As we have written here frequently, one effective way for scientific organizations to serve as honest broker is not to hide behind science, but instead to openly engage and discuss a range of policy options.

2. In the case of the U.S. at least, the most recent study of policy options on climate change was completed in 1992, and did not address some of the options now being advocated. Thus, it does not appear, at least, that some of the issues (e.g., the focus on specific targets for stabilization) being endorsed by the academies are the result of any sort of systematic and transparent evaluation of policy alternatives, but instead, have been selected based on political expediency. In other words, the academies are picking a side in an existing political battle. The lack of attention to research on policy is important because the advocated policy (a) simply cannot work, and (b) is likely to be less effective with respect to its stated goals than other possible policy options.

3. Significantly, the academies uncritically accept the Climate Convention's narrow definition of climate change. "This statement concentrates on climate change associated with global warming. We use the UNFCCC definition of climate change..." even though this narrow view is questionable scientifically and limiting from a policy perspective (see this paper for discussion). Do the national academies have an obligation to evaluate the effects of a definition of climate change that is not used by the IPCC, before uncritically accepting it?

Bottom line: Do we want science academies to engage in issue advocacy?

Posted on June 7, 2005 12:05 PM View this article | Comments (25) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

June 06, 2005

When the Cherries Don't Cooperate

Two recent cases, one on stem cells and one on global warming, suggest reasons for caution when cherry picking science to support a political agenda. Quite apart from the misuse of science, from the standpoint of political expediency, cherry picking can backfire.

Wired News had a story on Friday that illustrates some of the dynamics of politicizing science: whether a misuse actually occurs or not, cherry picking can be bad politics. Wired reports, “A spinal-cord patient has charged that Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Florida) used her image without permission and misled Congress and the public by suggesting that her case offers evidence that adult stem cells can help severely injured people walk again. Susan Fajt, who suffered a spinal-cord injury in a car accident in November 2001 that left her with little sensation from her chest down, e-mailed Weldon, who is also a physician, on Wednesday detailing her complaints and requesting an apology.” For its part, Rep. Weldon’s office says that its use of Ms. Fajt’s testimony and image are consistent with Senate testimony she gave recently. Fajt obviously disagrees. Weldon is the big loser politically in this instance, even if, as his spokes person notes, "Rep. Weldon's one-sentence statement regarding Ms. Fajt's treatment was completely consistent with Ms. Fajt's July 14, 2004, testimony before the U.S. Senate." Cherry pick with caution because sometimes the cherries talk back.

In another instance of cherry picking backfiring, two activists seeking to highlight the perils of global warming via a trip to the North Pole abandoned their trip because of "deep snow and drifting pack ice" (as well as polar bears). In this case the activist appeared to be seeking to exploit benign weather as an example of the effects of global warming. The fact that weather conditions are extreme in the arctic is of course not proof that global warming is a hoax, but nor would a successful trip to the North Pole prove the opposite. Some advocates opposed to action on global warming have already sought to use the failed expedition to further their own political agenda. For the explorers, their failed stunt provides some symbolic ammunition for their political opponents, even as both sides are playing fast and loose with the science.

Cherry picking is a tried and true approach to politicizing science, because, in many instances advancing a political agenda does not dependent upon getting the science “right.” But be careful, sometimes people and nature fail to cooperate.

May 25, 2005

Presentation on Climate Change and Reinsurance

Today I am giving a presentation at a forum on climate change sponsored by the Reinsurance Association of America. For those who are visiting this weblog as a result of my invitation during my talk, welcome! I am serving on a panel with several distinguished scientists from the reinsurance industry:

Dr. Eberhard Faust Head of Climate Risks, Department of Geo Risks Research Environmental Management, Munich Reinsurance Company AG

Gerry Lemcke, Ph.D. Head, Catastrophe Perils Team, Swiss Re America Corporation

My talk focuses on current scientific understandings related to the attribution of trends in the growth of economic damages related to weather and climate extremes. My basic conclusion is that, despite various claims to the contrary in the media and by advocacy groups, looking back in time, the evidence from climate impacts scientists provides very little support for claims that any significant part of the trend of increasing economic losses is the result of changes in the frequency or intensity of weather or climate extremes. (We discussed this in some detail last year here and here). Below you can find a long list of relevant studies.

This conclusion is for two reasons. First, although extreme events have varied at all time scales in their occurrence and magnitude (and such variations can be seen in the impacts records), and one can present historical records of various lengths that show trends, there has been no secular increase in extreme events around the world over recent decades. This conclusion is well supported by the most recent assessment of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A second reason is why the influence of extreme events is hard to detect is that the single most important factor responsible for the trend is increasing population and wealth in exposed locations. Any climate signal in the historical record will be difficult to detect, even after adjusting for societal factors, simply because the size of the climate signal is less than the errors in the societal data.

Looking to the future it is important to consider both possible changes in climate and society. All of the analyses that I am aware of all suggest that societal factors will continue to dominate climate factors, probably overwhelmingly so. We should therefore expect weather and climate-related damage to increase dramatically in future years and decades. This increase will be insensitive to the amount of emissions reductions that might be achieved (either realistically or unrealistically) over coming years and decades. It does not make sense to attempt to modulate future extreme events, and by extension their impacts, with energy policies (although there are other good reasons for thinking about energy policy and CO2 emissions.) Reduction of the economic and other human impacts of weather and climate will be most effective when focused on the societal conditions that lead to ever growing vulnerability.

It is of course important to recognize that science is always a work in progress and new experience or studies might give good reasons for a change in expectations.

For further reading:

Downton, M., J. Z. B. Miller and R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. Reanalysis of U.S. National Weather Service Flood Loss Database, Natural Hazards Review, 6:13-22. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A. and D. Sarewitz, 2005. Bringing Society back into the Climate Debate, Population and Environment, Volume 26, Number 3, pp. 255-268. (PDF)

Sarewitz, D., and R.A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. Rising Tide, The New Republic, January 6. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., J. Rubiera, C. Landsea, M. Fernandez, and R.A. Klein, 2003: Hurricane Vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean, Natural Hazards Review, 4:101-114. (PDF)

Downton, M. and R.A. Pielke, Jr., 2001: Discretion Without Accountability: Politics, Flood Damage, and Climate, Natural Hazards Review, 2(4):157-166. (PDF)

Changnon, S., R. A. Pielke, Jr., D. Changnon, D., R. T. Sylves, and R. Pulwarty, 2000: Human Factors Explain the Increased Losses from Weather and Climate Extremes. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 81(3), 437-442. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R.A., and M.W. Downton, 2000: Precipitation and Damaging Floods: Trends in the United States, 1932-97. Journal of Climate, 13(20), 3625-3637. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., R.A. Klein, and D. Sarewitz, 2000: Turning the Big Knob: Energy Policy as a Means to Reduce Weather Impacts. Energy and Environment, Vol. 11, No. 3, 255-276. (PDF)

Landsea, C. L., R. A. Pielke, Jr., A. Mestas-Nuez, and J. Knaff, 1999: Atlantic Basin Hurricanes: Indicies of Climate Changes. Climate Change, 42, 89-129. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., and M. Downton, 1999: U.S. Trends in Streamflow and Precipitation: Using Societal Impact Data to Address an Apparent Paradox. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80(7), 1435-1436. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R.A., and C.W. Landsea, 1999: La Nia, El Nio, and Atlantic Hurricane Damages in the United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80, 10, 2027-2033. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., and C. W. Landsea, 1998: Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925-95. Weather and Forecasting, American Meteorological Society, Vol. 13, 621-631. (PDF)

Posted on May 25, 2005 02:19 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 24, 2005

The Linear Model of Science in Climate Policy

Over at openDemocracy.net they have an interesting series of articles on climate change. Jon Miller has an article published yesterday titled "Selling Climate Change" that contains some smart advice (do read the whole thing). Here we focus on his first suggestion; one that Prometheus readers know will find a lot of sympathy here: "Don't debate the science." He continues,

"Everybody knows that greens love getting into a good debate. It's not surprising - there's a powerful scientific, moral and commonsense case to be made for taking action. Unfortunately, those with a vested interest in doing nothing are too shrewd. In the United States especially, they have successfully entangled environmental change campaigners in detailed debates about the validity of the science. It's a simple strategy: the likes of Exxon throw money at some financially compliant scientists, who produce a report with the appearance of credibility and objectivity. The greens, of course, leap to an enthusiastic defense of their case - and the trap is sprung: the public tunes out (too boring), the media downgrade the story (too complex) and the politicians have the greatest excuse for doing nothing (let's wait until the science is clear). It's entirely right to set out the case, of course - but the time has come to have confidence in the scientific consensus around climate change, and to stop debating the science. We urgently need to move the conversation from "is it really happening?" to "what do we do about it?""

Miller's call, like our own, to stop debating science is contrary to how many scientists describe their role in the political process. For example, a group of scientists writing last week in the openDemocracy forum make the claim that wise policy making requires accurate scientific judgments:

"In order to choose policy options wisely, decision-makers require the most accurate assessment of the relevant scientific information without having followed every discussion in the technical literature. To that end, scientists have a public role in placing new results in context, distilling the current state of knowledge, and pointing out where continuing uncertainties and problems lie."

This is an excellent example of an invocation of the "linear model" of science and decision making which I discussed in a recent paper (PDF). The linear model is "based on first getting the science "right" as a necessary, if not sufficient, basis for decision making... ". The linear model places science at the center of political debates:

"If the linear model is indeed an accurate reflection of how the world works then battles over science and how people interpret the significance of science are necessarily of critical importance because certain political outcomes can be made more or less likely through shaping public or policy maker perspectives on the science that putatively supports one agenda or another. However, the linear model has long been understood to be an inaccurate characterization of and even an undesirable approach to the relation of science and decision making because of the ample evidence showing that policy does not simply emerge from scientific understandings (see Oreskes, 2004 in this volume; Sarewitz, 2004 in this volume; Jasanoff, 1987; Wynne, 1991). Consequently, when scientists reinforce the linear model it has potential to create pathologies in decision making. From the perspective of the linear model science not only plays a (if not the) central role in political battle; but because scientific understandings are supposed to motivate political action, winning a scientific debate leads to a privileged position in political battle. Consequently, scientific debates are in effect political debates because resolving scientific debates will resolve political conflicts. Science thus becomes a convenient and necessary means for removing certain options from a debate without explicitly dealing with disputes over values. But because the linear model in fact fails to accurately describe the relationship between science and political outcomes, it may simply mask normative disputes in the language of science, to the possible detriment of both science and policy."

After the scientists writing on openDemocracy assert that wise policy requires accurate scientific assessments, they then assert exactly the opposite, "We comment here on scientific content in the submission by Benny Peiser in openDemocracy's climate change debate. Any criticism of his scientific points is however independent of our opinions concerning his preferred policy options." This raises some obvious confusion: If wise decision making requires accurate assessments, and Benny Peiser's assessment of science is inaccurate, then surely it stands to reason that the policies that he would recommend (whatever they are) based on science are then unwise policies. If the scientists' critique of Peiser's assessment of science is "independent" of judgments of policy, then wise decision making does not depend upon science. It can't be both ways -- judgments about policy cannot simultaneously both "require" and be "independent" of scientific debates.

One reason why scientists invoke the linear model is that it provides plausible deniability for scientists. It allows them to act is an overt political manner while simultaneously claiming to be disengaged from politics. Scholars who study science in society have long seen through this faade, but most scientists remain either unaware of or unburdened by it or its implications.

Miller's (and our own) call to move beyond debating the science of climate change and onto explicit discussion of policy would certainly be facilitated if leading climate scientists, who for many good reasons are the authoritative voices in the climate debate, themselves decide that wise policy does not depend upon debating the science, and, as Miller recommends, stop debating the science. But ironically enough my own call for scientists to recognize and act on the consensus of knowledge of scholarship in science and society is probably just another hopeless invocation of the linear model. Perhaps instead of invoking the scientific consensus of science scholars as the basis for action, climate scientists could instead benefit from open discussion of a range of choices for how they engage with society.

Posted on May 24, 2005 09:49 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Climate Change

May 23, 2005

More Cart and Horse

The actions of municipalities in the U.S. and several major companies to respond to human caused climate change by reducing their green house emissions has caused some to suggest that these decision makers have been persuaded by science to change their behaviors. But what if this interpretation of their actions is incorrect?

Surely some people do undergo “data induced transformations” of their policy commitments when presented with new information. But it is probably just as if not more likely that, as Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay have observed, "people generally come to their beliefs about how the world works long before they encounter facts." Such distinctions matter because they shape how people think about science in the politics of climate change. For many people the challenge of climate change is to convince “skeptics” or the uniformed of the scientific consensus on climate change under an expectation that such convincing will invariably lead to certain actions. But what if support for action on climate change has origins in factors other than knowledge of science? (Or alternatively, what if battling over science actually hinders effective policy?)

Consider the following two vignettes:

1. From The Economist last week is this interesting quote from Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE: “We are investing in environmentally cleaner technology because we believe it will increase our revenue, our value and our profits... Not because it is trendy or moral, but because it will accelerate our growth and make us more competitive.”

2. Michele Betsill at Colorado State University has studied cities and climate change. She writes in a 2001 paper,

“The experience of CCP [Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign sponsored by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives] communities indicates that global climate change is most likely to be reframed as a local issue when city officials recognise that actions to control GHG emissions also address other local concerns already on their agendas. Localisation requires the prior existence of a local hook on which to hang the issue of global climate change. Localising global climate change is an important first step in developing a municipal response to global warming; it helps generate political support for reducing local GHG emissions. However, not all communities are able to move from reframing to policy action. There are several institutional barriers that make it difficult for cities to develop and implement policies and programmes for mitigating climate change: the issue does not fit the way most city governments organise themselves; many city governments lack the administrative capacity to monitor their GHG emissions; and there are often budgetary constraints that make it difficult to invest in emissions reduction activities. Ultimately, motivating local action to mitigate global climate change calls for an indirect strategy, focused on the ways in which emissions-producing activities are embedded in broader community concerns (Rayner & Malone, 1997). The primary benefit of an indirect approach is that it avoids many of the political debates about climate change science that have plagued international efforts to address this issue (Sarewitz & Pielke, 2000). Several officials noted that it really does not matter whether global climate change science is credible. Since the emphasis is on how reducing GHG emissions can help the city address other (more pressing) problems, questions of the scientific basis for climate change rarely come up. When and if they do, city officials can easily reply that these are actions they should take anyway.”

Cart or horse matters a great deal for how we think about, use and prioritize science and advocacy on climate change. Framing has practical implications, and climate change, and the dominant framing of climate change may not be particularly effective from the standpoints of science or action. We have something to learn from the case of policy responses to ozone depletion. The lessons of policy responses to ozone depletion are often characterized as the cart leading the horse, but in reality, the horse did in fact lead the cart. See this paper (PDF) by Pielke and Betsill, which presents a perspective on the lessons of the ozone case.

Posted on May 23, 2005 04:37 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 17, 2005

Is the “Hockey Stick” Debate Relevant to Policy?

On several occasions I have alluded to the fact that I think that the debate over the so-called “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction is a distraction from the development and promulgation of climate policy. And the debate goes on (and on). We have written frequently about the core dynamic of the climate debate in which political opponents pick a scientific sandbox to fight in, with little connection to policy, and fight things out in a public manner under a pretense that the debate has significance beyond science. Over time this skeptic vs. hawk debate has taken place over a supposed CO2 sink in North American, surface vs. satellite temperature trends, hurricanes and climate change and also the “hockey stick” (among other areas). Within science (including my own area of expertise) subject matter experts engage in vocal and at times nasty debates over knowledge. Such dust-ups are characteristic of the academic enterprise. But I’d assert that the battles over climate science go far beyond typical academic wrangling, are really proxy wars over something else. But what is that something else?

It might be political power, i.e., who gets to have a public voice on issues of climate change? Science is widely viewed as authoritative and legitimate, so everyone wants the imprimatur of science on their side. From this perspective the battle over climate science is a battle for standing, with little connection to the substantive connections of the scientific debates and practical decision making. In other words, the battle is over who gets to decide what action we take on climate change and not what actions we should take. This battle for political supremacy is most visible on the rival WWW sites that have sprung up to join the battle over the hockey stick (see RealClimate and ClimateAudit.)

But there is also evidence to suggest that some people believe that the hockey stick is relevant to decision making. For example, in its most recent assessment the IPCC clearly considered the “hockey stick” to be relevant to policy, as it included it prominently it is 2001 “Summary for Policy Makers.” The mission of the IPCC is to be “policy relevant” so presumably it is safe to say that any science that it presents (and particularly in its summary for policymakers) it considers it to be relevant for policy. But because the IPCC does not explicitly discuss policy, there is no way to glean from its reports why it thinks that the hockey stick is policy relevant. Further, the IPCC clearly does not need the hockey stick to assert its scientific authority and legitimacy, so there must be a very real presumption of policy relevance.

[There is also the possibility that the battle over the hockey stick has more to do with personalities and egos than politics or policy. However, while I am sure that personalities and egos play an important role in the evolution of this and the other proxy wars on climate, I do not think that they overshadow the politics and policy issues above.]

So here is my question to Prometheus readers: Is the debate over the “hockey stick” of any policy relevance whatsoever, other than as a battleground for political standing? That is to say, is the future resolution of the “hockey stick” debate at all relevant to understanding (a) our available scope of options on climate change, or (b) how we might evaluate those options? The views of those actually engaged in the “hockey stick” debate are solicited as well – why are you involved in this debate?

Posted on May 17, 2005 10:41 AM View this article | Comments (18) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 13, 2005

Letter in Science

I've got a letter in Science this week on Oreskes/consensus. Naomi has a response. I've reproduced both in full below:

Consensus About Climate Change?

In her essay "The scientific consensus on climate change" (3 Dec. 2004, p. 1686), N. Oreskes asserts that the consensus reflected in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) appears to reflect, well, a consensus. Although Oreskes found unanimity in the 928 articles with key words "global climate change," we should not be surprised if a broader review were to find conclusions at odds with the IPCC consensus, as "consensus" does not mean uniformity of perspective. In the discussion motivated by Oreskes' Essay, I have seen one claim made that there are more than 11,000 articles on "climate change" in the ISI database and suggestions that about 10% somehow contradict the IPCC consensus position.

But so what? If that number is 1% or 40%, it does not make any difference whatsoever from the standpoint of policy action. Of course, one has to be careful, because people tend to read into the phrase "policy action" a particular course of action that they themselves advocate. But in the IPCC, one can find statements to use in arguing for or against support of the Kyoto Protocol. The same is true for any other specific course of policy action on climate change. The IPCC maintains that its assessments do not advocate any single course of action.

So in addition to arguing about the science of climate change as a proxy for political debate on climate policy, we now can add arguments about the notion of consensus itself. These proxy debates are both a distraction from progress on climate change and a reflection of the tendency of all involved to politicize climate science. The actions that we take on climate change should be robust to (i) the diversity of scientific perspectives, and thus also to (ii) the diversity of perspectives of the nature of the consensus. A consensus is a measure of a central tendency and, as such, it necessarily has a distribution of perspectives around that central measure (1). On climate change, almost all of this distribution is well within the bounds of legitimate scientific debate and reflected within the full text of the IPCC reports. Our policies should not be optimized to reflect a single measure of the central tendency or, worse yet, caricatures of that measure, but instead they should be robust enough to accommodate the distribution of perspectives around that central measure, thus providing a buffer against the possibility that we might learn more in the future (2).

Roger A. Pielke Jr.
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research
University of Colorado
UCB 488
Boulder, CO 80309-0488, USA

References

1. D. Bray, H. von Storch, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 80, 439 (1999).
2. R. Lempert, M. Schlesinger, Clim. Change 45, 387 (2000).

Response
Pielke suggests that I claimed that there are no papers in the climate literature that disagree with the consensus. Not so. I simply presented the research result that a sample based on the keywords "global climate change" did not reveal any, suggesting that the existing scientific dissent has been greatly exaggerated and confirming that the statements and reports of leading scientific organizations--including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences--accurately reflect the evidence presented in the scientific literature.

Pielke is quite right that understanding the results of scientific research does not implicate us in any particular course of action, and the purpose of my Essay was not to advocate either for or against the Kyoto accords or any other particular policy response. A full debate on the moral, social, political, ethical, and economic ramifications of possible responses to climate change--as well as the ramifications of inaction--would be a very good thing. But such a debate is impeded by climate-change deniers. In this respect, I am in complete agreement with Pielke's conclusion, which was precisely the point of my Essay: Proxy debates about scientific uncertainty are a distraction from the real issue, which is how best to respond to the range of likely outcomes of global warming and how to maximize our ability to learn about the world we live in so as to be able to respond efficaciously. Denying science advances neither of those goals.

Naomi Oreskes
Department of History and Science Studies Program
University of California at San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093, USA

Posted on May 13, 2005 01:10 AM View this article | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 09, 2005

Immigration and Climate Change

The New York Times today has an op-ed on climate change and immigration by Sujatha Byravan, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics, and Sudhir Chella Rajan, head of the Global Politics and Institutions Program at the Tellus Institute. The op-ed revisits an argument made by the authors recently in Nature.

Byravan and Rajan argue that one of the consequences of human-caused climate change "will be rising seas, which in turn will generate a surge of "climate exiles" who have been flooded out of their homes in poor countries. How should those of us in rich countries deal with this wave of immigrants? The fairest solution: allowing the phased immigration of people living in vulnerable regions according to a formula that is tied to the host country's cumulative contributions to global warming."

This op-ed is worth commenting on because it actually talks about policy, and does not take us into the cul-de-sac of "global warming: yes or no?". So let's discuss their recommended policy option. To summarize my critique, Byravan and Rajan take a complicated issue of great importance, displaced peoples, and argue as if a human-caused climate change aspect of this issue can be considered in isolation of that larger problem. This, in a nutshell, represents the core pathology of current discussion of climate policies.

Byravan and Rajan proposal is as follows: "So no matter what we do, a wave of climate change exiles is inevitable. One option for dealing with this is to tighten our borders and inure ourselves to the exiles' cries for help. A more sensible, and just, approach is for the top greenhouse gas emitters - including China and India - to grant entry to the up to 200 million people who could lose their homes to rising seas by 2080. How many should go where? Under our formula, the top cumulative emitter, the United States, would absorb 21 percent of the climate-change exiles a year; the smallest of the 20 major emitters, Venezuela, would absorb less than 1 percent. If such a program were to start in 2010, the United States, for example, would have to be prepared to accept 150,000 to a half-million immigrants a year for the next 70 years or so (to put that in context, the United States now has one million legal immigrants annually)."

My critique of their proposal has two parts. First, Byravan and Rajan's numbers are based on some highly dubious assumptions. They suggest that based on its proportion of historical greenhouse gas emissions the US might be responsible for accepting 21% of climate change immigrants, which they calculate as 150,000 to 500,000 per year. The Times op-ed doesn't say where these numbers come from but we can see their origin from what Byravan and Rajan said in Nature:

"Estimates suggest that roughly 50 million to 200 million people will be displaced by the 2080s, owing to the direct impacts of climate change under a plausible range of emissions scenarios (R. J. Nicholls Glob. Environ. Change14, 69-86; 2004). Assuming that all these climate-change exiles are absorbed by the top ten 'emitter' countries, new annual immigrants would range from a few thousand for the Czech Republic to about three-quarters of a million for the United States."

So 150,000 immigrants refer to the 50 million-over-70-year scenario and the half million immigrants refers to the 200-million-over-70-year scenario. Setting aside uncertainties in projecting future sea-level rise and its impacts on coastal inhabitants, the dodgiest assumption here is that all people projected to be displaced by human caused climate change will seek to relocate in rich countries.

The Indian Ocean tsunami does provide some experience that might be useful in exploring how many displaced coastal residents from developing countries actually seek to migrate to rich countries. According to the Red Cross more than 1.6 million people were displaced by the tsunami. Have all of these people sought to migrate to rich countries? It seems highly unlikely. According to a just-released US AID study in the aftermath of the tsunami, "despite the devastation, the desire for self-sufficiency and a return to normality has led some people to return home already without help from the government or aid agencies. Most people said that if they could not return home, they would like to be relocated as close as possible to their original homes and jobs if the government could guarantee them legal ownership of the land on which their new homes would be built."

A second issue with the numbers is that Byravan and Rajan seek to anchor attention to the current level of United States immigration of ~1 million per year. Under their proposal this would result in a 15% to 50% increase over present day levels, numbers surely designed to capture attention. But a more appropriate base rate is the number of displaced people worldwide. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees estimates in recent years that there are ~17-20 million people who are in some way displaced. Even assuming the worst case assumptions of Nicholls study, it would seem that migration of people associated with climate change is a subset of a much larger challenge of displaced peoples, rather than vice versa.

And this leads to my second criticism of the Byravan and Rajan op-ed, it seeks to redefine a serious humanitarian issue as an issue of human caused climate change. This is (yet) another example of attempts to gerrymander the climate change issue as if it can be addressed in isolation from issues of disease, disasters, poverty, water resources, energy use and now migration. Under Byravan and Rajan's proposal that climate change refugees be allocated to rich countries I wonder how they might identify a "climate change refugee" from the much larger population of displaced peoples. So as to distinguish them from the tens of millions of other displaced people, presumably these future immigrants to the rich world need some proof that their dislocation resulted from the historical emissions of greenhouse gases and not poverty, war, poor governance, bad luck or any this else.

Less charitably, invoking concerns about future migrations of developing world peoples to the north comes close to exploiting existing fears and passions about immigration as a rhetorical political strategy to garner support for action climate change. Issues of displaced peoples and immigration are tremendously important. Climate change is also important. But conflating the two is unlikely to lead to effective policy development in response to immigration or climate impacts.

Posted on May 9, 2005 11:00 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 04, 2005

Fun With Cherry Picking

Two blog posts from recent days highlight the cherry picking of information to put a favorable spin on information.

Chris Mooney does a nice job showing differences between a press release on a recent paper by Hansen et al. issued by Columbia University and a version of the same press release issued by NASA. Mooney argues that the differences show that, “The tenor of these edits is all in one direction: Make the findings seem less alarming--i.e., less demanding of political action, and also less newsworthy.” Of course, the authors of the Columbia press release also had decisions to make about how to portray the Hansen paper.

At Climate Audit, a recent post makes the case that the IPCC selectively ignored inconvenient data when creating a graphed showing paleoclimate temperature reconstructions. Climate Audit then presents its recreation of the graph in question with the previously not-included data added and suggests that the IPCC did not include the data because it complicated its conclusions.

Both of these instances are great examples of the “cherry pick -- the careful selection of information to buttress a particular predetermined perspective while ignoring other information that does not. In other words, take the best and leave the rest.” NASA is allegedly trying to present the Hansen paper in a way that puts the current Administration’s climate policies in the best light, and the IPCC is allegedly trying to present data that best support its conclusions. If we get a bit reflexive about this, in a similar manner, Chris Mooney is selectively focusing on data and anecdotes that make the Bush Administration look bad (e.g., he has not vetted every agency press release), and Climate Audit is focused on holding the paleo-climate science community accountable (and similarly has not audited every IPCC graph). Here at Prometheus we selectively focus on examples and cases at the messy interface of climate politics and science (and we tend to focus on problematic aspects of that interface). But of course we should not expect to receive information that is not selective; it would be of little use. Weblogs are useful because they are selective in their presentation of information.

All of this is to say – to quote Dan Sarewitz -- all uses of facts and information are selective. Every single one. There is no alternative. Every time anyone makes an argument and invokes facts or information they have some agenda for doing so (except Michael Crichton, that is). That NASA or the IPCC (or Chris Mooney or Climate Audit or Prometheus) have agendas in not surprising. In neither case do Chris Mooney or Climate Audit allege (I think this is correct) that either NASA or the IPCC has engaged in scientific misconduct. What they are saying is that each organization has acted in ways to present information in a manner that further its own interest , perhaps revealing an underlying agenda, probably political.

Good for Chris Mooney and good for Climate Audit. Such close attention can help both the IPCC and NASA realize that people are paying attention to their use of information and facts. Knowing that people are paying attention will mean that NASA and IPCC may be less likely to go beyond cherry picking to providing information that is mistaken or mischaracterized. NASA and IPCC (and bloggers as well) should care because if people come to learn that their information providers are playing fast and loose with facts and information, then with some audiences their institutional legitimacy and authority may be placed at risk.

Anytime someone uses facts or information to make an argument, that use is selective. Cherry picking is inevitable. But it is important to recognize that how one uses information can either foster or damage legitimacy and authority (on this, see recent reports on use of intelligence leading to the war in Iraq).

Posted on May 4, 2005 05:37 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

April 26, 2005

GAO on CCSP

Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a letter report (PDF) on the structure of the U.S. government's Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). The New York Times characterized the report as follows, "The Bush administration's program to study climate change lacks a major component required by law, according to Congressional investigators. The program fails to include periodic assessments of how rising temperatures may affect people and the environment." The GAO concludes that due to the structure of the CCSP and its process for connecting science with decision makers, "it may be difficult for the Congress and others to use this information effectively as the basis for making decisions on climate policy."

The GAO report was interpreted by the New York Times as a narrow criticism of the Bush Administration, but what is missing is the historical context. The CCSP, and its former incarnation as the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), have always deemphasized research on the impacts of climate change and on mitigation and adaptation responses. It is probably true that the Bush Administration is happy with a CCSP focused on questions of climate science absent an impacts or policy context, but this stance is possible because it overlaps with the long-time interests of the climate science community in avoiding these issues as well.

I'll claim to know something about this subject because my PhD thesis (1994) was an evaluation of the USGCRP's ability to contribute useful information to policy makers, and the dynamics reported on by the GAO go back to the late 1980s. Here is some background (references at the bottom):

First, it is unambiguous that the overarching goal of the U.S. investment in climate research is to support decision making. Here is what the law says: "the goals and priorities for Federal global change research which most effectively advance scientific understanding of global change and provide usable information on which to base policy decisions relating to global change (P.L. 101-606, sec. 104)." The law also explicitly calls for research on adaptation and mitigation. In the early 1990s some in Congress expressed frustration that climate research was advancing knowledge but not particularly useful. Here are two statements of frustration, one from 1989 and the other 1993:

"We [in Congress] are in desperate need of policy assistance. What are the ways - what are some of the things that we could do to increase the policy relevance of scientific research on global change?"

In a 1992 hearing a USGCRP official was asked by a member of Congress if the program "pays sufficient attention to the potential impacts of climate change on human society, and the impacts on society of climate change; that is, the economic issues, the sociological issues, the international issues, the institutional issues". The official replied "we do not, in the USGCRP, support what's called mitigation and adaptation research. . . This program is focusing on some of the fundamental scientific issues". No one seemed bothered by the fact that the law establishing the USGCRP in fact calls for research on mitigation and adaptation.

In 1993 an Office of Technology Assessment evaluation identified a number of gaps in the program: "What are the implications [of climate changes] for forestry, agriculture, and natural areas? What mitigation strategies would slow climate the most? How much would they cost? To whom? How might society respond to changes in climate and global ecosystems? What technologies should be developed?" The USGCRP steadfastly avoided such issues in its research focus, not because of the Clinton-Gore administration, but because the climate science community deemphasized such research (for reasons why see the references below).

In short the USGCRP, now the CCSP, has a long history of neglecting research on impacts, mitigation and adaptation (consider that the 2000 National Assessment was 6 years late and, among many of its problems, served largely as a substitute for research on impacts, mitigation and adaptation). If the scientific community has ever thought that such neglect was problematic, then they could recommend changes to the structure of climate research that would increase the emphasis on impacts, mitigation and adaptation. With very few exceptions the climate science community continues to deemphasize such work.

Framing this issue into a Bush Administration vs. opponents may fit neatly into the politics of the day, but it neglects the underlying incentives and interests of the climate science community that have led it to deemphasize the research identified by the GAO as needed in the USGCRP. If the Bush Administration is hiding behind climate science, it is because the climate science community, as a primary beneficiary of the Bush Administration's approach to climate research, is allowing this to happen.

Here is what Dan Sarewitz and I wrote (PDF) in 2003:

"One way to exercise this leadership and make the CCSP more useful to decisionmakers would be to involve policymakers, in whose name the program is justified, in structuring, implementing, and evaluating the program's research. Practically, this would mean sharing control over resource-allocation decisions with the mission agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Energy, Transportation, and Heath and Human Services, whose day-to-day business actually involves decisions related to climate. Another way would be to conduct serious research on the information needs of relevant decisionmakers at the local and regional level-farmers, emergency managers, city and regional planners, natural resource and energy supply managers, to name a few-as a basis for determining areas of research that are most likely to provide support for effective actions. We recognize that these approaches would represent a fundamental shift in the science and policy of climate and would likely result in a significant change in scientific and budgetary priorities for climate research. But if the public, rather than the scientific community, is to be the primary beneficiary of the nation's commitment to climate research, then this is the direction in which we must move."

Read this whole article (here.

References:

Pielke, Jr., R. A. and D. Sarewitz, 2003. Wanted: Scientific Leadership on Climate, Issues in Science and Technology, Winter, pp. 27-30. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2000: Policy History of the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Part I, Administrative Development. Global Environmental Change, 10, 9-25. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2000: Policy History of the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Part II, Legislative Process. Global Environmental Change, 10, 133-144. (PDF)

Pielke Jr., R. A., 1995: Usable Information for Policy: An Appraisal of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Policy Sciences, 38, 39-77. (PDF)

Pielke Jr., R. A., 1994: Scientific Information and Global Change Policymaking. Climatic Change, 28, 315-319. (PDF)

Posted on April 26, 2005 07:43 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 18, 2005

More on Real Climate as Honest Broker

In a paper of mine (PDF) last year on the role of scientists in the debate over Bjorn Lomborg's book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, I observed "Some scientists in opposition to Lomborg lent their credibility and stature to interest groups who then used the scientists as the basis for making a political claim." Clearly, the practice of issue advocates using scientists (and scientists offering their services) to further political ends takes place across the political spectrum. In what ways should scientists claiming to be honest brokers bear responsibility for the use of their name, stature and organizations in the political battle of issue advocates?

One reply is that it depends upon what role that scientists and their organizations want to play in the process, honest broker or issue advocate? Here at Prometheus we have commented on organizations (and their representatives) such as the IPCC, Presidents Council on Bioethcs and the Real Climate weblog who appear to conflate the roles of issue advocate and honest broker. Here I'd like to continue a critique of Real Climate by focusing on the role of one of its representatives in the current issue of Mother Jones magazine.

To be fair to Real Climate, I am focusing on them because (a) they are an important experiment at the interface of science and policy/public, their role invites STS-type analyses (b) we have an ongoing and I think unique conversation here on Prometheus with numerous Real Climate scientists on this subject and (c) Real Climate claims to be serving as an honest broker, in contrast to many other groups in the climate arena who clearly identify their role as issue advocates. We have at times taken a similar role in critiquing the IPCC. Also, it is worth repeating that our critique of Real Climate does not imply any affinity with those who critique Real Climate on the basis of the contrarian/mainstream science-cum-political debate on climate change. Our views on both this debate and the policies that we advocate on climate change are well established (e.g., see this PDF).

The current issue of Mother Jones contains an interview with Michael Mann who represents Real Climate as "a resource for people looking for an honest broker...". Mann's interview appears in a special issue that is focused on advocating a particular approach to climate politics that has climate science at the very center of this debate. Mother Jones posits that the political debate over climate is between "environmentalists" and "climate skeptics." Here are some excepts on the MJ perspective:

From an article by Bill McKibben, "To reduce the amount of CO2 pouring into the atmosphere means dramatically reducing the amount of fossil fuel being consumed. Which means changing the underpinning of the planet's entire economy and altering our most ingrained personal habits or now and for the foreseeable future, the climate skeptics have carried the day. They've understood the shape of American politics far better than environmentalists." McKibben, accurately I believe, characterizes "climate skeptics" not by their scientific views, but by their political views. But in the process he equates a view on science with a particular political perspective, thereby turning scientific debate into political debate. In other words, McKibben has left no room for honest brokering of science.

In the second article article, Chris Mooney further reifies the politicization of climate science by explicitly positing the work of Michael Mann to be contrary to the political agendas of conservative issue advocates on climate change, "Nevertheless, the ideological allies of ExxonMobil virulently attack Mann's work, as if discrediting him would somehow put global warming concerns to rest." Irrespective of who is scientifically correct in this debate, issue advocates on both sides have successfully scientized the political debate over global warming so that any defense of Mann's work will take on a political hue, regardless of the intent of the defenders. (We have argued elsewhere that scientists can militate against the scientization of politics and politicization of science through explicit discussion of policy options, see this (PDF).

And in the third article Ross Gelbspan connects the hurricanes of 2004 with global warming and reinforces the scientization of the climate debate, "When four hurricanes of extraordinary strength tore through Florida last fall, there was little media attention paid to the fact that hurricanes are made more intense by warming ocean surface waters... In the early 1990s, when climate scientists began to suspect that our burning of coal and oil was changing the earth's climate, Western Fuels, then a $400 million coal cooperative, declared in its annual report that it was enlisting several scientists who were skeptical about climate change-Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, and S. Fred Singer-as spokesmen."

In this skeptics-versus-mainstream political context appears Michael Mann's interview in which he sticks close to scientific issues but still makes numerous statements that reinforce those of McKibben, Mooney and Gelbspan. This happens because McKibben, Mooney and Gelbspan have equated scientific views with issue advocacy. For example, Mann says:

On the need for action:

"If you talk about a severe flood or drought or heat wave-if climate change expresses itself in those terms-then people can understand climate change much better. So often those advocating for action, which in my personal opinion is advisable, use those sorts of examples out of context to try to make a point." [Note- Clearly, Mann means that action is advisable, not examples out of context.]

On hurricanes/climate change:

"MM: On the other hand, as sea surface temperature warms, the hurricanes that do end up forming can become far more powerful. There's a great deal of sensitivity to this-it isn't that you just change the sea surface temperature by 1 percent and hurricanes get 1 percent stronger. As you increase sea surface temperatures in the tropics, even by a little bit, you can greatly enhance the maximum potential intensity of a hurricane. It's what we call a "nonlinear" relationship.

MJ: So to say that the Earth is warming and thus there will be more hurricanes hitting Florida is not necessarily true.

MM: Right. It could be true, but we don't know the answer to that question yet. However, the models are quite clear about the storms getting stronger, and the observations on that point thus far seem to be consistent with predictions."

On the role of scientists in the debate against the skeptics:

"MJ: Is this [work of the skeptics] just a big PR campaign?

MM: I'll leave it to you as a journalist to investigate some of the links, some of the funding sources, and come to your own conclusions. Ross Gelbspan-he's a former editor of Boston Globe-has written two books on the connections between industry funding, in particular funding by ExxonMobil, and these climate contrarians. The vast majority of them appear to receive funding from industry sources.

MJ: Earlier this year, the hockey stick was hot topic, yet it seems the debate has died down a little of late. Are they backing off this particular argument?

MM: The contrarians are always jumping from one argument to another. It's sort of like a Hydra-when one of its heads is cut off it merely sprouts another. These contrarians-and interestingly it is often the same group of individuals-first tried to dispute the instrumental record of surface temperature data that demonstrates the dramatic warming of the earth's surface. That was back in the in the early 1990s. They argued that urban heat island issues affected the temperature readings-but of course, scientists had already accounted for that.

Then they moved on to the argument that recent satellite data-which appeared to show less warming than surface data-argued against surface warming. The flaws of this argument were exposed as well, and if you analyze the satellite data properly they actually reaffirm the other evidence of surface warming. So then the contrarians began to go after the "hockey stick" because it was perceived as an icon of the global warming debate. It just goes on and on.

There are quite a few papers undergoing peer review now and studies in press which detail the critical flaws in the arguments that these contrarians have been putting forward about the hockey stick in the past few months. As it plays out in the peer-reviewed literature, it will soon be evident that many of claims made by the contrarians were fraudulent.

MJ: Is it fair to say that this head of the hydra has been cut off?

MM: As far as the legitimate scientific community is concerned, yes. But what's often the case is that contrarians will pretend that they have an argument long after the scientific community has thoroughly discredited it. As long as something sounds good in a sound bite, they'll keep at it.

MJ: This has to be difficult for scientists to combat in the public arena. How do you approach this?

MM: I've been involved with a team of other climate scientists in this project called realclimate.org which is a website with a blog format. It's a commentary site on climate science created by working climate scientists for both the interested public and for journalists.

The idea is to provide a rapid response to developing stories and provide the scientific context that's often missing in the media coverage. We're not circumventing the peer review process, as some have claimed, we're simply trying to provide the context of what existing peer reviewed science has to say about certain issues. And we've had a fair amount of success with this. We've received good media coverage, and have had over 200,000 visitors since we went online in mid-December. So it seems to be serving the purpose that we intended, which is to provide a resource for people looking for an honest broker for stories like the hockey stick attacks and State of Fear, both of which are riddled with fallacies."

For the most part Mann does a very nice job sticking to the science. But in this case "sticking to the science" means taking sides in a political debate that is being waged through the language of science. So it is unavoidable that Mann is either contributing to or being used in issue advocacy. A prominent climate scientist who I have a lot of respect for wrote me an email last week to explain why climate scientists are not too thrilled with being told that efforts to "stick to science" actually wind up contributing to the politicization of climate science:

"So, in climate, when we discuss water vapour feedback, or ice core results, or what climate sensitivity is, regardless of the audience, we feel we can do so without having to always refer to the policy implications. Now along comes an STS academic who states that we can't be doing what we claim to be doing because the whole concept has been completely discredited. Therefore we must either be ignorant of our own motivations and agenda or deliberately downplaying our motivations and agenda to sneakily subvert our readers with policy-driven pseudo-science. Neither of these permitted options is particularly attractive to us scientists, and so (understandably) we are liable to be a little aggressive in resisting the impeccable logic of our fellow academics. Conversations with people who have 'a priori' concluded that you must be either a fool or a knave generally don't go well!"

This is a fair response (I agree with everything except the "pseudo-science" comment - the science can be first rate and the comment still holds.) My reply is still that if scientists want to play in the public and political arenas, there can be no hiding behind the science. And such scientists should not be surprised when they garner the considerable interest of those scholars who study science in society and policy. Honest brokering is an admirable objective, but as the Mother Jones example (and many others in other contexts) progress in that direction will require a greater sophistication about science in policy and politics than the climate community has shown in the past. The alternative is the continued scientization of the political debate over climate, reinforcing the politicization of science.

Posted on April 18, 2005 01:19 PM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 15, 2005

Conflicts of Interest

The Marshall Institute, a conservative think tank, recently released a report on "Funding Flows for Climate Change Research and Related Activities" which asserts that, "In today's highly charged environment of climate change policy, efforts are often made to impugn the credibility of those engaged in the debate through assertions that their views are a product of financial relationships rather than sincerely held beliefs or objective research. All too frequently evidence of a financial tie is sufficient to condemn, without proof that the tie altered the views, opinions, or conclusions in any way." After this complaint the Marshall Report joins this game by arguing that corporate funding ties are emphasized but "overlooked are concerns that public funding generates unwelcome pressures on scientists to conform to prevailing beliefs. Public funding is also said to breed alarmism and facilitate distortion in public discourse." (Disclosure: The Marshall Report ranks my employer the University of Colorado as the top recipient of federal funds on climate change, and I have a few federal grants myself.) What should we make of claims of conflicts of interest? Are they restricted to financial conflicts? And can they be avoided?

Discussed below: Conflicts of interest do matter. They are not restricted only to financial considerations, and they cannot be avoided, only managed.

An article in yesterday's USA Today illustrates why debate over conflicts of interest can be damaging to science and its role in policy. The article describes a just-published meta-study of health effects of a certain chemical in plastics, "Is it possible that a chemical's effect is in the eye of the beholder? That's the implication of a paper published this week in a prominent environmental health journal. It concerns a debate over the safety of low doses of a chemical used to make hard, clear plastics such as those found in baby bottles, food-storage containers and the lining of soda cans. When the plastic industry examines the health impact of a ubiquitous chemical called bisphenol A, everything's fine. If the government or a university funds the study, there are big problems."

The study, by Frederick S. vom Saal and Claude Hughes, (available here in PDF) made the interesting discovery that "Source of funding is highly correlated with positive or negative findings in published articles. For government-funded published studies, 94 / 104 (90%) report positive effects at doses of BPA below 50 mg/kg/day. No industry-funded studies (0 / 11 or 0%) report positive effects at these same doses." This leads the authors to suggest two possible reasons for these findings, "1. Are government-funded scientists under real or perceived pressure to find or only publish data suggesting adverse outcomes? 2. Are industry-funded scientists under real or perceived pressure to find or only publish data suggesting negative outcomes?" vom Saal and Hughes clearly come to the conclusion that the government funded studies are those that are correct, while an industry spokesperson countered, "You can have 1,000 studies, but if they're all weak, adding up weak evidence doesn't necessarily give you strong evidence of anything, Jumping to who sponsored it is a way to dodge the facts." And if we believe that sources of funding shape conclusions then we should not be surprised that the von Saal and Hughes study is government funded and the industry spokesperson works for, well, industry. This situation leads to the USA Today's comment that research findings are "in the eye of the beholder," a conclusion sure to infuriate many scientists who reject such relativistic post-modern claims to the subjectivity of knowledge.

It is important to recognize that the chase of chemical risk assessment (and climate change and many others) putatively scientific debates are real proxy wars over politics, that is, over a specific course of action, e.g., to regulate or not. It just so happens that the political battle is taking place through the language of science. A common assumption is that disclosure of sources of financial support is sufficient to address the influences of the conflicts of interest. But as the Marshall Institute report and USA Today article suggest, this may do little to shape a consensus on either science or action. The Marshall folks are suggesting that government studies are biased and vom Saal and Hughes are suggesting that industry is biases. But what if the reality is that everyone has biases and the world in not in fact black or white?

In an editorial in The Lancet (PDF) Richard Horton explains why disclosure of potential financial conflicts of interest alone is insufficient to deal with this issue, and begins to point to a more thoughtful treatment of this issue:

"... the case in favour of full disclosure rests, it seems to me, on three large fallacies. First, there is the fallacy of objectivity, the notion that scientific writing can be free from the common prejudices found in other literatures or journalism-or that if prejudice does exist it can be easily neutralised by a statement of disclosure. Yet interpretations of scientific data will always be refracted through the experiences and biases of the authors. Scientific writing can never escape from being a rhetorical exercise. Advocates of disclosure may argue that some of these potentially malign influences could be limited by focusing on the most serious conflicts. This brings us to the second fallacy-that it is financial conflicts of interest which "cause the most concern". Financial conflicts may be the easiest to identify but they may not be the most influential. Academic, personal, and political rivalries and beliefs are less easily recognised, but each may affect an interpretation. Such biases render the declaration "conflict of interest: none" an impossibility. To put financial conflicts to the fore is to provide a smokescreen for more covert and possibly more influential commitments. The third fallacy is that disclosure can heal the wound inflicted by a financial conflict... "

Horton suggests that there are a range of sources of potential conflict beyond the financial:

"Interests (commitments) facing an investigator

Professional (eg, personal, specialty, departmental, or institutional status) Financial (eg, personal reward; research funding) Patient-related (eg, as a personal physician; payment for study recruitment) Institutional (eg, ethics committee) Grant-related Regulatory (eg, FDA) Scientific publication Mass media Legal (eg, patent protection) Sociopolitical Public interest (eg, research support through taxes, charitable donations)"

Horton concludes that "The only way to minimise bias among interpretations is to allow maximum dialogue from all parties, irrespective of their interests." He is correct in pointing toward procedural remedies. To this I would add that for scientists interested in limiting the morphing of scientific and politic debates, a focus on the choices available to decision makers (i.e., policy) and not just the science can help scientists to counter incentives to wage political battles through science. More in depth and thoughtful treatment of these issues can be found in the papers by Harrison, Oreskes and Herrick in the special issue of Environmental Science and Policy that I co-guest edited last year.

Posted on April 15, 2005 10:00 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 12, 2005

Bush Administration and Climate Science

An editorial in today’s Detroit Free Press has some interesting information related to the Bush Administration’s position on climate science.

“The Bush administration is taking a new tack on global warming, finally conceding that human activities contribute to it. But, unfortunately, it doesn't look as if any of its underlying policies are going to take a similar leap forward. Glen Davies, principal deputy assistant secretary for European affairs at the Department of State, told editorial writers last week that "we accept that the science is clear" on human contributions to global warming -- although not on how much of the problem human activity causes or how fast climate change is occurring. The administration's focus clearly remains on alternative technologies, not mandated cutbacks, and Davies specifically cited hydrogen technology.”

This is interesting for several reasons. First, the fact that this information is being conveyed by a “principal deputy assistant secretary for European affairs” suggests that it is a trial balloon. And even though John Marburger has made similar comments in the recent past, as science advisor he is not is a policy position. Second, the Bush Administration is likely to take heat on this position from two camps. One is the hard-core contrarians who would like to persist in debate over climate science. They will likely make claims that the science is not yet settled. And the second are those opposed to Bush who also would like the debate to continue in the form of climate science. They will make claims about what the Bush Administatrion “really” believes on climate science. Both of these camps would be good examples of the “scientizers” that I characterized last week.

The Free Press editorial concludes with the following:

“The July G8 event would be an opportune time for the United States to do more than tweak its talking points on global warming. A bolder commitment -- to research, to alternative energy and to the right mix of incentives -- is in order.”

Nuclear energy, anyone?

Posted on April 12, 2005 09:21 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 08, 2005

Response to the RealClimate Guys

The folks at RealClimate have offered a set of thoughtful responses in the comments to an earlier post of mine seeking to classify the various political camps of the climate debate. Let me offer a few responses here in the main part of Prometheus because I think (perhaps wrongly!) that this discussion is worth sharing with the broader community. Let me emphasize that I respect the ambitions of RealClimate and I appreciate Gavin, William, Stefan and Eric's willingness to engage on these issues.

1. William Connolley offers three points. First he suggests that I am using the term "honest broker" in different ways, he quotes me and then responds: "Firstly, there is "the honest broker who seeks to expand (or at least clarify) the scope of choice". RC does this, of course, by analysing the science. But later on, your defintion of HB has shifted: now suddenly "an honest broker for decision makers and the public on the climate issue, then it should openly discuss policy options". Why? Within the science arena, one can discuss the science."

I don't see any distinction here because I equate "scope of choice" with "openly discuss policy options." I cannot see how it is that RealClimate can claim to clarify or expand the scope of choice (i.e., policy options) on climate change without explicitly discussing such options. And I just disagree that science either implicitly implies or points to certain options. So my point is that if you indeed want to clarify policy options then the obvious course of action is to actually discuss policy.

Second William (and Eric below) wonders why I differentiate between RealClimate and Journal of Climate. I would think that this should be obvious in a number of dimensions. Most obviously is the fact that JOC seeks to present new science under the institutional structures of a journal with an editorial board, under a professional society (AMS) and the (imperfect, yes) process of peer review. RealClimate, like Prometheus, is a commentary forum for a very few people to express their views. Obviously, we think that weblogs are import, but I wouldn't conflate Prometheus with the journal "Policy Sciences".

Third, William asks for a response to Gavin's complaint about being "lumped in" with "policy-driven pseudo-scientists." My response is simply that the category referred to is called "scientizers" and not "scientists" and would include people far outside the scientific community (e.g., Rush Limbaugh and Ross Gelbspan). My interpretation of the RealClimate blog is that prevailing opinion there is that the political debate on climate centers on science, and see my response to Eric below for further discussion of this point. (Dan Sarewitz, Naomi Oreskes, Steven Bocking, Sheila Jasanoff, Peter Wiengart and others have written thoughtful pieces on how political debates become "scientized" and expand beyond the credentialed or mainstream scientific community.)

2. Stefan Ramstorf writes that Real Climate, "is a forum where working scientists attempt to explain and discuss the science in their field in a way understandable for a wider audience. This has nothing to do with policy options - you could have a site just like this discussing new results from astrophysics for a wider audience. Whether a new estimate of climate sensitivity "narrows" or "widens" policy options is not what we want to discuss on RealClimate - whether it is based on reliable data and sound physical reasoning is."

I have written on my interpretation of Real Climate's focus in a post of late last year,

"[RealClimate] claims to be "restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science." This is a noble but futile ambition. The site's focus has been exclusively on attacking those who invoke science as the basis for their opposition to action on climate change, folks such as George Will, Senator James Inhofe, Michael Crichton, McIntyre and McKitrick, Fox News, and Myron Ebell. Whether intended or not, the site has clearly aligned itself squarely with one political position on climate change." And to this I'd add that the comment section of RealClimate (moderated in some way?) is mostly about politics and policy, not science.

But consider also this example: Stefan asks on RealClimate, "What if the hockey stick were wrong?" and then answers, "Surely, then we wouldn't need to worry about global warming, and the world could hold off with the Kyoto protocol? Unfortunately, that also doesn't follow." This seems to me to be quite obviously a discussion of the implications of science for policy and politics. I in fact agree strongly with Stefan that the "Hockey Stick" is not relevant to decisions about Kyoto. In fact, I'd make the stronger statement that the scientific debate over the "Hockey Stick" (i.e., its scientific correctness or incorrectness) is not relevant to any climate policy. But the "Hockey Stick" is for better or worse a political symbol and support for it or attacks on it are both unavoidably caught up in a political (again, not policy) debate. Whatever RealClimate's motivations for entering this debate, surely RealClimate must be aware of the political significance of their role. And this is why a comparison of climate science to astrophysics doesn't really work because astrophysics lacks the important context of a highly political debate taking place in the guise of science.

3. Eric Steig takes issue with my claim that RealClimate sees the climate debate as being about science and calls my categorizing a "best guess." Well, yes it is a guess. If the folks at RealClimate think that the political debate about climate is in fact not about science then I'd be happy to be corrected. But as I wrote here, "It would be wonderful if opponents to action on climate change would stop hiding behind science. But the efforts of those scientists who take them on the basis of science are what allow then to hide in plain sight. The way out of this situation is not to engage in endless debate about climate science, but to question whether science is in fact the right battleground for this political conflict."

A question in response to Eric is, why does RealClimate think that public, policy makers, journalist education on climate science matters enough to warrant a weblog, if not for reasons of coming to more informed judgments (i.e., decisions, policies) on climate? In other words, if RealClimate is all about science they why would you even care about responding to "agenda-driven commentary"?

Eric also writes, "With respect to RealClimate, in particular, you clearly differentiative between them and the scientific journals. On what grounds? What are the journals supposedly doing (or not doing) that makes them different from RealClimate? You can't appeal to peer review here, because peer review is imperfect, and the reviews are done by scientists, most of whom probably disagree with your viewpoint on RealClimate! So if RealClimate is "biased" then so are the journals! That puts us in the wonderful position of having no purely scientific basis for the study of climate. Is that really the intellectual position you wish to take?"

If Eric is suggesting that RealClimate and peer-reviewed scientific journals are one and the same then I admit to being baffled. Elsewhere RealClimate posts the following statements, among many there which defend peer review,

"It is essential that the papers be published in scientific quality journals in order to ensure the credibility of the results." (here)

"... even when it initially breaks down, the process of peer-review does usually work in the end." (here)

Yes peer review is flawed, but (for reasons also discussed above) I am not ready to equate science journals with weblogs.

RealClimate is an important experiment. And it would seem to me that from close attention to this experiment we can learn a lot about whether or not there is a role on the web for commentary on science, policy and politics that goes beyond what is already in plentiful supply from interest-group advocates, mainstream journalism or the traditional peer-reviewed journals.

Posted on April 8, 2005 10:48 AM View this article | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Posted to Climate Change

April 06, 2005

A Forecast of Calm on Landsea/IPCC?

The May/June issue of American Scientist has an article by David Schneider on the IPCC/Landsea flap that offers some new comments from the principals involved in that controversy. And I again bring up this issue because hurricane season is right around the corner, when this debate might threaten to come out of its springtime dormancy. The good news is that this controversy need not continue, and the new comments suggest a rapprochement.

Many Prometheus readers will recall that last January NOAA’s Chris Landsea resigned as a contributor to the IPCC after receiving an unsatisfactory response from the IPCC related to his to his concerns that the author (Kevin Trenberth) of the forthcoming IPCC chapter that summarized the science of hurricanes had made statements at a press conference unsupportable in the scientific literature (you can find a number of posts on this issue in the Prometheus archives, and here is one post that might be a good intro).

Schneider reports in American Scientist,

“Trenberth now says that "it was clear [in the press conference] I was not speaking for the IPCC." Yet the moderator for the briefing had introduced Trenberth as "convening lead author of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report." And in his opening remarks Trenberth volunteered, "I was a lead author on the 2001 IPCC report for Working Group One, which deals with the science of climate change, and in fact I was involved in developing some of the information that is in that report dealing with hurricanes."”

Schneider also reports of Landsea, “[Landsea said] “If I had to make a guess for the next 20 years, I'd say it's going to be a lot like the last 10 years." That is not to say that Landsea discounts any influence of a warming planet. "No one should pooh-pooh the possibility that global warming might do bad things," he says. But he stresses that the increase in hurricane wind strength being suggested on the basis of computer modeling is "pretty tiny." And he points out that the monitoring of hurricane winds today has a coarseness of about 5 miles per hour. So the influence of global warming on hurricanes now, if it exists at all, is in the noise. "Even in 2080," he says, "you might not be able to measure it."”

[Schneider also discusses Hans von Storch in the article, which is online here.]

So Trenberth appears to accept that it is a good idea to keep separate the IPCC perspective from that of individual scientists. For his part, Landsea states both an expectation that coming decades will be more active than the long term average and leaves open the possibility of global warming influencing hurricanes (in a “tiny,” undetectable fashion). If these comments are reported accurately then we should be able to get through hurricane season 2005 with out replaying the debate over global warming and hurricanes. (I can imagine the laughter at my naiveté!)

More generally for the role of scientists and leadership in the IPCC, these new comments from Trenberth and Landsea reinforce my own perspective on how this controversy might have been avoided -- “[H]ad Trenberth instead said at that now infamous Harvard press conference, "The IPCC concluded X, Y, and Z about hurricanes in its 2001 assessment, but my personal view is A, B, and C," then I be willing to bet that there would have been no Landsea/IPCC flap.” And to be fair to Kevin, the IPCC leadership easily could have avoided this controversy after the comments had been made with even a half-hearted effort to respond seriously to Landsea’s complaints. On this I wrote, “The IPCC should either ask scientists to refrain from using their IPCC affiliation when making scientific claims that are inconsistent with the IPCC, or conversely, when scientists use their IPCC affiliation to burnish their credentials they should be sure to clearly identify the IPCC's position on the topic being discussed. To do otherwise is to invite the politicization of the IPCC process.”

Posted on April 6, 2005 10:15 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 05, 2005

A Taxonomy of Climate Politics

Dan Whipple's UPI column today has some kind words for Prometheus and a response to a post here a few weeks back that took issue with his use of the politically-loaded phrase "climate skeptic." The UPI column today goes over well trodden ground reviewing the surface-troposphere temperature record debate and the "hockey-stick" controversy. Rather than developing a political taxonomy of the climate debate focused on science, I thought that it might be worth focusing on the actual political and policy agendas at play. Please consider the list below as food for thought, experimental, subject to change and not definitive. We'd welcome your comments, additions and subtractions.

Climate realists. The UPI column correctly places me in this camp. But Steve Rayner characterized this community best, "But, between Kyoto's supporters and those who scoff at the dangers of leaving greenhouse gas emissions unchecked, there has been a tiny minority of commentators and analysts convinced of the urgency of the problem while remaining profoundly sceptical of the proposed solution. Their voices have largely gone unheard. Climate change policy has become a victim of the sunk costs fallacy. We are told that Kyoto is "the only game in town". However, it is plausible to argue that implementing Kyoto has distracted attention and effort from real opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect society against climate impacts. While it may not be politically practical or desirable to abandon the Kyoto path altogether, it certainly seems prudent to open up other approaches to achieving global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."

Scientizers. This large and diverse group actively works to frame the climate issue as a scientific debate under the expectation that if you win the scientific debate then your political agenda will necessarily follow. This group is comprised mostly of scientists of one sort or another. I would include here the dueling science-cum-politics weblogs Realclimate.org and Climateaudit.org (we had an exchange with Reaclimate folks a while back). I would also include here CATO's Patrick Michaels and the IPCC's Rajendra Pachauri (see this post) and others who have a clear political perspective but choose frequently to debate the science as a proxy war. A great irony is that the Scientizers have different political views but share the expectation that science is the appropriate battleground for this debate, and have together thus far successfully kept the focus of attention on the climate science rather than policy and politics.

Energy Policy Free Riders. The climate debate in many ways represents the evolution of an energy policy debate that took place in the 1970s and 1980s. Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO) characterized this perspective in the late 1980s when he said, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy" (cited here, in PDF). For this group the current debate over climate change is really all about changing energy policies.

Free Market Free Riders. Like the EP Free Riders the FM Free Riders see the climate debate as the evolution of a preexisting debate over the role of government and the individual in society. A recent column at Tech Central Station presented a strong version of this perspective, "[The Kyoto Protocol] is emblematic of the 'unorthodox' thinking in social sciences. It gave the world Marxism, Stalinism, planned economies and fascism in the past, and supports anti-trade movements, anarcho-socialism, dogmatic pacifism and multicultural relativism today."

International Relations Free Riders. The international relations free riders see the Kyoto Protocol as an extension of recent tensions between the U.S. and Europe, in particular, and have more concern with multilateralism than climate per se. In this group are those who see multilateralism as a solution to international conflicts (climate among them) and others who see it as part of them problem. The IR Free Riders includes the U.S. neoconservatives and their opponents. It also represents a cleavage of optinion between the Bush Administration's approach-to-date on climate and that generally favored by governments in Europe.

There is undoubtedly a larger set of "free riders" who have sought to hitch their own favored agendas (e.g., species preservation, Bush Administration bashing, etc. etc.) to the climate issue, but these seem to be the most significant.

Those who Suffer Climate Impacts. There is an extremely large group of people (and species, ecosystems, etc.) that actually experience the effects of climate in their everyday lives. Too often they are used as symbols (or as potential material witnesses in lawsuits) by one of the groups listed above without real concern for their plight. The hundred of millions of people who suffer the impacts of climate have a real political stake in climate policies and with a few notable exceptions (e.g., see the 2002 Dehli Declaration) have little voice in how climate policy is evolving. (See also this recent paper.)

Undoubtedly there are more camps in this complex tapestry, but further discussion will have to continue another time. I'm off to class.

Posted on April 5, 2005 10:23 AM View this article | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 01, 2005

Carrying the Can

In this week's Nature representatives of several environmental organizations ask (PDF registration required) for scientists to become more active in educating the public on climate change. They write,

"The science of climate change is under attack; an attack that is coordinated, well-funded and given constant play in the media. The stronger the scientific consensus on climate change becomes, the more the media suggest that the science is uncertain... The impression created in the public mind is that climate scientists are deeply divided, and action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions would be premature. Yet the consensus among climatologists, glaciologists and atmospheric physicists; that anthropogenic climate change is a reality; is as robust as is likely to be found on any scientific issue. As environmental campaigners, we would like to ask climate scientists everywhere: why are we being left to carry the can?

We're not asking you to become campaigners or to compromise your independence. But we wish you would defend your profession as any other professionals would. This includes training people in media relations, sending eminent delegations to meet editors and senior journalists, writing letters to the papers to correct misleading articles and seeking every opportunity to put the record straight. Isn't it time you started fighting for your science?"

I'd like to question the assertion in the letter that "The impression created in the public mind is that climate scientists are deeply divided, and action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions would be premature." The letter provides no data to support this assertion and of the opinion data I am aware of, this assertion is simply wrong. Last May I wrote, referring to the United States:

"Granted that the public is not at all scientifically literate about climate change, and granted as well global warming is not among the environmental issues that the public is most concerned about. However, the battle over public opinion about the existence of global warming has been won. Efforts made trying to convince the public that global warming is "real" are pretty much wasted on the convinced. The public overwhelmingly believes global warming to be real and consequential. In fact, I'd even hypothesize that when compared to what the public actually believes about climate change and the future, the IPCC reports would seem pretty tame."

Consider these examples:

A 2002 Harris Poll in the United States, summarizes its findings as "Majorities Continue to Believe in Global Warming and Support Kyoto Treaty."

And a 2004 Gallup Poll in the U.S. reported (subscription required) the following:

"About half of Americans (51%) believe that the effects of global warming have already begun to occur, while another 5% believe they will start within a few years, and 12% expect these effects to happen at some point in their lifetimes. Only 18% believe the effects will be postponed to future generations, and just 11% are completely skeptical, saying that deleterious effects from global warming will never happen. Gallup has not observed any significant change in this assessment over the past seven years. Not only do Americans think global warming is real, but when asked about it last year, 61% also believe that increases in the Earth's temperature result more from the effects of pollution from human activities rather than natural changes, while only 33% believe the effects are the result of natural changes in the environment rather than human activities. This is the crux of much scientific and political debate surrounding global warming, and it appears that Americans are firmly on the side of the environmental movement."

And polls from outside the U.S. find similar or stronger public views that global warming is of concern and has been observed (e.g., see this report (PDF) from the UK).

Given all of this data it seems to me that the only justification I can see for political advocates (on both sides) in the climate debate to ask scientists to "fight for their science" is to seek political advantage by pretending that that the climate debate is about science, when it is really about politics.

So when the authors of the Nature letter ask, "As environmental campaigners, we would like to ask climate scientists everywhere: why are we being left to carry the can?" one response might be that the data suggest that scientists have already ably done their jobs. It is not too far-fetched to think that the so-called "skeptics" are enabled and empowered by those who seek to scientize the climate debate. Perhaps it is time to discuss climate change in terms of policy and politics and to stop asking science to carry the can.

Posted on April 1, 2005 09:04 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 22, 2005

Reaction to UPI Climate Commentary

UPI's Dan Whipple writes an interesting weekly commentary on climate change. This week he writes about the long-term implications of climate change. In this week's essay Whipple is off base on two important points. He writes,

"... nations have to decide what, if anything, to do to deal potentially destructive changes. Some argue to invest now to cut off greenhouse-gas emissions at the source, thereby reducing future impacts, Others counter that the money is better spent fashioning adaptations to a warmer world. Even if the skeptics are correct -- and humans can easily adapt to global warming -- those adaptations are going to cost money. Climate science actually is challenging the conventional way of thinking about investing in the future -- something economists, the guardians of thought about long-term money, are loath to admit. Applying traditional economic tools, such as the discount rate, to investing in the amelioration of global warming, you quickly discover that you cannot justify even a tiny investment to stop or slow it."

A first issue is that in the article in several places Whipple equates "climate skeptics" with those who support adaptation to climate. This is misleading for two reasons. First, most of the so-called climate skeptics are labeled as such because they are in some way skeptical of the "mainstream" perspective on climate science, e.g., as reflected in the IPCC reports. Many in this group do not support adaptation because it would mean admitting that there is a climate problem needing to be adapted to in the first place. Second, many who support adaptation are not skeptical of climate science at all, and would include the authorship of the IPCC which devotes efforts of its Working Group II to issues of adaptation. Perhaps those who expect that adaptation should be part of any response to climate change might be more accurately described as "climate realists."

A second issue is that Whipple's discussion of the discount rate is fundamentally misleading. The discount rate tells us something about the time-value of money (or action, or lives, etc.), it does not tell us how to act. Whipple quotes NYU professor (and someone I've occasionally collaborated with) Dale Jamieson as saying of the discount rate, "If I plant a bomb to go off in Manhattan in 500 years, if we discount that from the present, the discount rate tells us that there is no damage. That can't be right," and Whipple consequently concludes, "That kind of thinking clearly is indefensible." Not only is it indefensible, both Jamieson's analogy and Whipple's conclusion reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of discounting. If there was a bomb planted in NYC to go off in 500 years and it cost, say, $100 to stop it from going off, rather than defusing the bomb today, we would be smart to invest that $100 for 499 years and then spend $100 (which would then be only a fraction of the resulting investment) on defusing the bomb 499 years from now. The discount rate does not say that we should not defuse the bomb. (This analogy is not directly applicable to the climate issue for several obvious reasons.) The real significance of the discount rate in the climate debate is that it tells us that we would be wise to concentrate on those adaptation and mitigation actions that can be justified both on their short-term and long-term benefits -- that is why such measures are called "no-regrets." The discount rate can also motivate us to carefully consider the goals of climate policies.

Posted on March 22, 2005 09:03 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 18, 2005

Old Wine in New Bottles

Science magazine has published two articles this week that suggest that “the wheels of global climate change are in motion, and there is little we can do to stop them, at least in the short-term.” These articles, which no doubt are quality science done by accomplished researchers, suggest to me that discussion of climate change increasingly recirculates the same stories and same reactions – a clear sign of gridlock.

There are several relevant points here. First, while the new studies may add some details, the notion that we are committed to changing the climate is an old story. For example, in 1995, Pekka E. Kauppi wrote in Science that the goal of the Framework Convention on Climate Change was either “unattainable or irrelevant … If GCM projects are right, the climate will change, there will be dangerous effects and the Convention objective will be unattainable” (Science, 220:1454). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 1996 that “even with the most ambitious abatement policy, some climate change seems likely to occur” (WGIII, p. 188). And I wrote (PDF) in 1998, “even under a scenario of aggressive mitigation most experts expect climate change.”

Second, new studies reconfirming that we are committed to changing the climate is easily spun by both sides of the current political debate. For example, The Denver Post reports that Gerald Meehl, lead author of one of the two studies in Science this week (the other study was authored by Tom Wigley), “hoped the results are interpreted as cause for action, not pessimism.” On the other side Steve Milloy writes at FoxNews.com, “[Wigley’s results] purport to show that global warming would still occur even if we completely stopped emitting greenhouse gases… neither Kyoto nor Son of Kyoto will accomplish anything — other than, of course, driving the world, particularly developing countries, toward economic ruin.” I’ve seen no interpretations that suggest that the new studies suggest that we need a fundamentally new approach to climate. (See this commentary by Steve Rayner for an example of what a new approach might look like.)

The recirculation of “news” on climate is an obvious sign that debate and discussion remains stuck in a cul-de-sac.

Posted on March 18, 2005 09:52 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 08, 2005

New Project WWW Page

We are collaborating on a new project with colleagues at the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University. The project is called Science Policy Assessment and Research on Climate or SPARC and it is sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s program on Decision Making Under Uncertainty.

SPARC has a new webpage here. This is how we describe the project,

“Each day, in the face of deep uncertainty, millions of decisions are made that respond to and influence the behavior of climate. How does the nation’s multi-billion dollar investment in climate research affect those decisions? How can the societal value of this scientific investment be enhanced? These are the core organizing questions for Science Policy Assessment and Research on Climate (SPARC) which conducts research and assessments, outreach, and education aimed at helping climate science policies better support climate-related decision making in the face of fundamental and often irreducible uncertainties.”

For those interested in climate science policy, the site offers a number of resources, now in their infancy. There is a library, a weblog - Metis and a guide to our research.

SPARC and its website are evolving. We’d welcome your feedback.

Posted on March 8, 2005 10:04 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 02, 2005

Adaptation and Climate Policy

In 2002 the World Health Organization reported that, “Climate change was estimated to be responsible in 2000 for approximately 2.4% of worldwide diarrhoea, 6% of malaria in some middle income countries and 7% of dengue fever in some industrialized countries. In total, the attributable mortality was 154 000 (0.3%) deaths …” For the sake of discussion lets assume that this number is not only correct, but that each of the 154,000 deaths are the consequence of climate changes resulting from greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.

Now consider an editorial in The New York Times from earlier this week,

“Throughout the continent of Africa, thousands of people die needlessly every day from diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. One hundred years ago, before we had the medical know-how to eradicate these illnesses, this might have been acceptable. But we are the first generation able to afford to end poverty and the diseases it spawns. It's past time we step up to the plate. We are all responsible for choosing to view the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia as more deserving of our help than the malaria victims in Africa. Jeffrey Sachs, the economist who heads the United Nations' Millennium Development Project to end global poverty, rightly takes issue with the press in his book "The End of Poverty": "Every morning," Mr. Sachs writes, "our newspapers could report, 'More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty.' " So, on this page, we'd like to make a first step. Yesterday, more than 20,000 people perished of extreme poverty.”

At 20,000 deaths per day, this equates to 7,300,000 deaths per year. So the ratio of poverty deaths to putative climate change deaths is about 50 to 1.

Does this mean that we should not worry about climate change? No.
Does this mean that we should emit greenhouse gases with reckless abandon? No.

What it does mean is that efforts to justify greenhouse gas mitigation policies on preventing human impacts run up against the reality that if it is human lives that you really care about, then there are obvious, straightforward and comparatively inexpensive ways to reduce human death and suffering that do not involve first reordering the global energy system.

Further, reducing greenhouse gases, per se, will do little or nothing to address the 7.3 million deaths from poverty each year, but addressing the conditions that lead to those 7.3 million deaths has the side benefit of also addressing those very same contributing factors that lead to the 0.15 million deaths attributed to climate change.

From this perspective, adaptation to climate change by focusing on reducing societal vulnerability to climate-related impacts deserves a much more prominent role in discussion of climate change. At the same time, advocates of climate mitigation should think carefully about the use of human death and suffering as a justification for adoption of greenhouse gas emissions -- the numbers don’t make a strong case.

For further reading:

Sarewitz, D., and R.A. Pielke, Jr., 2005. Rising Tide, The New Republic, January 6. (PDF)

Posted on March 2, 2005 01:57 PM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

March 01, 2005

New Paper

Dan Sarewitz and I have a perspective piece out in Population and Environment that provides an updated perspective on ideas that we have been writing about for several years now. The paper is titled, “Bringing Society back into the Climate Debate” and it can be found here.

Here is the abstract:

“Debate over climate change focuses narrowly on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. A common justification for such emissions reductions is that they will lead to a reduction in the future impacts of climate on society. But research from social scientists and others who study environment–society interactions clearly indicates that the dominant factors shaping the impacts of climate on society are societal. A greater appreciation for this body of research would allow for consideration of a broader base of policy options to respond to the challenges of climate change, as well as the composition of climate research portfolios more likely to contribute useful knowledge to decision makers.”

Read the whole thing. We welcome comments and reactions.

Posted on March 1, 2005 04:45 PM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 25, 2005

New Entrants in Climate Change Debate

Author: Kevin Vranes (website. email)

The first shot has been fired in the post- Kyoto-in-effect-for-everybody-else United States. A new package of climate change bills (S.386, 387 and 388) was introduced last week by Senators Hagel, Alexander, Craig, and Dole, all of the R persuasion. Two eye-opening excerpts from Hagel’s floor speech:

"I rise today to introduce three pieces of legislation which I believe can help contribute to a new domestic and international consensus on climate change. This legislation builds upon three principles: the need for shared responsibilities between developed and developing countries; the linkages between environmental, economic, and energy policies; and the employment of greenhouse gas intensity as the best measurement upon which to build an effective climate policy."

"We all agree on the need for a clean environment and stable climate. The debate is about solutions. The question we face is not whether we should take action, but what kind of action we should take. Climate change initiatives should include commitments to research and development, technology, and a more efficient and productive use of energy and resources."

Why is this eye opening? For starters, I wonder if Senator Hagel's press secretary equates "we" with "everybody" or with "the four of us cosponsoring this legislation." Certainly Senator Inhofe, and many others who like to defer to Mr. Inhofe's expertise on climate change, would be loathe to agree that "the debate is [now] about solutions." Sen. Inhofe is still talking about hoaxes.

Since the text of the new bills have not yet been released by the General Printing Office, it is impossible to get into the weeds of the first post-Kyoto foray into U.S. climate policy. But the introduction alone, coupled with Hagel's floor speech, signals that a group of Republican Senators are willing become proactive in the climate change policy, rather than reactive. It brings a new group of legislators into the debate, already attempting to wield compromise. It takes the biggest R-side knock on Kyoto ("developing countries are excluded from emissions controls at our expense") head on.

Hagel, Craig, Dole and Alexander all voted against the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act in October 2003, as the bill went down 43-55. During the debate and vote, the word amongst all staffers on the floor was, "my boss is very close to being able to vote for this, it just needs to change a little." Hagel el al.'s legislation now ensures that at least four Senate R's are guaranteed to work behind the scenes for passage of a climate change bill.

The introduced legislation was covered by nobody beyond the Southwest Nebraska News and the Lincoln Journal. But if these bills are the first sign that American multinational businesses see the Kyoto train leaving the station without them (credit Steve Schneider) and are putting pressure on their electeds to get on board, much more media coverage is in store for S.386 – 388.

Posted on February 25, 2005 07:48 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

More on Why Politics and IPCC Matters

The following is a statement on climate change from earlier this week of Dick Taverne,, a Liberal Democrat in the U.K. Parliament House of Lords. The statement provides more evidence why it is important for the IPCC to ruthlessly protect its position as an "honest broker" on climate policy.

Lord Taverne expresses concerns about the IPCC being "sexed up" and says, "There is a sort of political taboo about the [climate] issue. If you express doubts, you must be in the pay of the oil industry or a Bush supporter. There is a slight whiff of eco-McCarthyism about."

Some might respond to Lord Taverne with a barrage of science and contextual emendations to the examples that he cites. This in my view would be a mistake. Lord Taverne already expresses, "I support measures to curb emissions of carbon dioxide." The more effective response in my view would be for the IPCC to view Lord Taverne's statement as evidence of the effects of the politicization of climate science on those who are the desired audience for the science, and to take those steps necessary to protect its role as an honest broker on climate policy. Looking to the structure of its first assessment report would be a good place to start.

Here is Lord Taverne's complete statement.

"My Lords, I have no very clear view about climate change. Indeed, I am somewhat worried that many people seem to be so sure. The issue is one of great complexity. There are so many factors that interact and have to be judged over such a long timescale that it makes predictions hazardous. About 75 per cent of experts-most, although not all, as some claim-agree that man-made greenhouse gases are a significant factor in global warning and everyone agrees that global warming is taking place. I feel that I must accept that majority view about the contribution of man-made factors, but how much warming will there be, how soon will it happen, what effect will it have and what should we do about it?

On the one hand, there are Sir David King's persuasive warnings both in his evidence to the committee and in his Zuckerman lecture; then there are reports of the melting of the glaciers-to which the noble Lord, Lord Haworth, referred in his eloquent maiden speech-and the polar ice, the recent findings of the heating of the oceans and the potential changes to the Gulf Stream. All of those suggest that we may be facing imminent catastrophe-by imminent, I mean some time in the next 50 to 100 years. Yet, let me list some doubts. The first, the hockey stick model often cited by the IPCC, which shows centuries of no rise in warming with a sudden increase as we started the massive use of fossil fuels has been effectively discredited by Hans Von Storch and others and also by Macintyre and McKitrick who demonstrated that the model was so designed that whatever data is fed into it ends up with a hockey stick curve.

Next, the IPCC's future scenarios are based on economic forecasts. These have been convincingly shown by David Henderson and Ian Castles, two eminent economists, to be flawed. It is likely that they exaggerate future emissions of greenhouse gases. The cavalier dismissal of this careful critique by the panel's president shows him to be a partisan advocate and not an objective chairman. He also likened Lomborg to Hitler. He does not inspire confidence.

An early draft of the IPCC's report stated cautiously that:

"Studies . . . suggest that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to the observed warming, especially over the last 30 years. However, the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing".

The final summary report said something slightly different-more definite:

"In the light of new evidence and taking into account remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely"-

that means, by their definition, a 66 per cent to 90 per cent chance-

"to be due to greenhouse gas concentrations".

The document seems to have been sexed up.

Recently, Dr Landsea, the Panel's leading hurricane expert, resigned in protest, because the IPCC attributed recent hurricanes to global warming. One year's events were taken as evidence, but, interestingly, barometric fluctuations in Stockholm have shown no systematic change in the frequency and severity of storms since Napoleon's time.

There is evidence that ocean levels in the Maldives are steady and have not risen significantly in the past 1,000 years. There is photographic evidence showing high-water marks in the past higher than those at present.

Next, do we know what percentage of warming is due to solar activity? Some experts say 30 per cent, some say 70 per cent to 80 per cent. What of clouds and aerosols, which can have a cooling effect?

I mention these uncertainties, not because I am a climate change denier, but because we should not be dogmatic. There is a sort of political taboo about the issue. If you express doubts, you must be in the pay of the oil industry or a Bush supporter. There is a slight whiff of eco-McCarthyism about.

I support measures to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, of which the most important would be, first, investment in nuclear energy and then carbon sequestration. I do not see it as a mortal sin to question the Kyoto Protocol, which will reduce warming by one-fiftieth of a degree Celsius by 2050, at considerable economic cost. I doubt if its targets will be reached, and there are no sanctions if they are not. I suspect that there will be less costly and more effective ways of dealing with whatever prospects lie ahead than the Kyoto straitjacket."

Posted on February 25, 2005 07:37 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 18, 2005

Open Season on Hockey and Peer Review

Author: Kevin Vranes (website. email)

The recent 2/14 WSJ article (“Global Warring...” by Antonio Regaldo) addresses the debate that most readers of this site are well familiar with: the Mann et al. hockey stick. The WSJ is still asking – and trying to answer – the basic questions: hockey stick or no hockey stick? But the background premise of the article, stated explicitly and implicitly throughout, is that it was the hockey stick that led to Kyoto and other climate policy. Is it?

I think it’s fair to say that to all of us in the field of climatology, the notion that Kyoto is based on the Mann curve is utter nonsense. If a climatologist, or a policy advisor charged with knowing the science well enough to make astute recommendations to his/her boss, relied solely on the Mann curve to prove definitively the existence of anthropogenic warming, then we’re in deeper trouble than anybody realizes. (This is essentially what Stephan Ramstorf writes in a 1/27 RealClimate post.) And although it’s easy to believe that national and international policy can hinge on single graphs, I hope we give policy makers more credit than that.

But maybe we are in that much trouble. The WSJ highlights what Regaldo and McIntyre says is Mann’s resistance or outright refusal to provide to inquiring minds his data, all details of his statistical analysis, and his code. The WSJ’s anecdotal treatment of the subject goes toward confirming what I’ve been hearing for years in climatology circles about not just Mann, but others collecting original climate data.

As concerns Mann himself, this is especially curious in light of the recent RealClimate posts (link and link) in which Mann and Gavin Schmidt warn us about peer review and the limits therein. Their point is essentially that peer review is limited and can be much less than thorough. One assumes that they are talking about their own work as well as McIntyre’s, although they never state this. Mann and Schmidt go to great lengths in their post to single out Geophysical Research Letters. Their post then seems a bit ironic, as GRL is the journal in which the original Mann curve was published (1999, vol 26., issue 6, p. 759), an article which is now receiving much attention as being flawed and under-reviewed. (For that matter, why does Table 1 in Mann et al. (1999) list many chronologies in the Southern Hemisphere while the rest of the paper promotes a Northern Hemisphere reconstruction? Legit or not, it’s a confusing aspect of the paper that should never have made it past peer review.)

Of their take on peer review, I couldn’t agree more. In my experience, peer review is often cursory at best. So this is what I say to Dr. Mann and others expressing deep concern over peer review: give up your data, methods and code freely and with a smile on your face. That is real peer review. A 12 year-old hacker prodigy in her grandparents’ basement should have as much opportunity to check your work as a “semi-retired Toronto minerals consultant.” Those without three letters after their name can be every bit as intellectually qualified, and will likely have the time for careful review that typical academic reviewers find lacking.

Specious analysis of your work will be borne out by your colleagues, and will enter the debate with every other original work. Your job is not to prevent your critics from checking your work and potentially distorting it; your job is to continue to publish insightful, detailed analyses of the data and let the community decide. You can be part of the debate without seeming to hinder access to it.

Posted on February 18, 2005 10:33 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Vranes, K. | Climate Change

Harbingers and Climate Discourse

Over the past year or so, Berkeley linguist George Lakoff has received a lot of attention because of his writing on the framing of political issues and their significance for shaping debate and discourse. (We discussed Lakoff here.) I've thought of framing as I've noticed the apparent increased use by scientists of the unique term "harbinger" to characterize the relationship of contemporary climate events and expected future climate changes. Consider the following examples:

17 Feb 2005 - "Scott L. Schliebe, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Polar Bear Project in Anchorage... said "We are seeing harbingers of change which are dictated by climate... It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that [the changes] could affect polar bears..."

3 Feb 2005 - "Steve Schneider from Stanford University, California, said there was clear proof that species were reacting to the 0.7 degrees centigrade warming of the atmosphere that had already taken place over the past century. "This is a harbinger -- nature is already responding,""

7 Nov 2004 - "Four hurricanes in a five-week period could be a harbinger of things to come," said Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School."

21 Oct 2004 - "[Kevin] Trenberth said, "But the evidence strongly
suggests more intense storms and [the] risk of greater flooding events, so that the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future.''"

23 Sept 2004 - "University of Colorado at Boulder researcher Ted Scambos said... "As temperatures crossed the threshold of melting in the summer months, ice shelves in the area rapidly disintegrated... While the consequences of this area are small compared to other parts of the Antarctic, it is a harbinger of what will happen when the large ice sheets begin to warm""

30 Jan 2003 - "The 1998-2002 drought affected much of the United States as well as southern Europe and southwest Asia. And while they can't be certain, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate scientists Martin Hoerling and Arun Kumar say it may be a harbinger of droughts to come."

And as chance would have it, the term "harbinger" has been proposed by the Union of Concerned Scientists as part of a strategy to advocate support for greenhouse gas reductions to combat climate change. UCS says on its WWW page, "Frustrated because a friend or colleague says global warming is the future's problem? Compelling new evidence demonstrates that global warming is already under way with consequences that must be faced today as well as tomorrow. The evidence is of two kinds:

* Fingerprints of global warming are indicators of the global, long-term warming trend observed in the historical record. They include heat waves, sea-level rise, melting glaciers and warming of the poles.

* Harbingers are events that foreshadow the impacts likely to become more frequent and widespread with continued warming. They include spreading disease, earlier spring arrival, plant and animal range shifts, coral reef bleaching, downpours, and droughts and fires.

UCS is taking steps to bring this evidence to the public's attention, with the goal of building support for action to reduce the heat-trapping gas emissions that cause global warming."

Of course an important role for UCS and other advocacy groups is to work to shape the dialogue on issues. But scientists who use the term "harbinger" in this manner risk playing fast and loose with the science of climate change. It allows a scientist to imply that contemporary events are directly related to CO2-caused climate change but at the very same time it also provides the scientist with a plausible deniability that an explicit connection was implied. It is doublespeak. As Von Storch and Stehr recently wrote,

"... more and more often [scientists] connect current extreme weather events with anthropogenic climate change. To be sure, this is usually carefully formulated; interviews sound something like this: "Is the flooding of the Elbe, the hurricane in Florida, this year's mild winter evidence for the climate catastrophe?" Answer: "That's scientifically unproven. But many people see it that way." Neither of these statements is false. In combination, however, they suggest the conclusion: Of course these weather events are evidence. Only no one ares to say this explicitly either."

Climate science and policy will be better served by scientists who speak directly to the issue of attribution of contemporary events to CO2-caused climate change and not to rely on cute and clever rhetoric.

Posted on February 18, 2005 12:40 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 14, 2005

McIntyre on Climate Science Policy

Here at Prometheus we don’t do hockey sticks. (Astute readers will find one oblique reference to it in this paper - PDF.) However, the debate over the hockey stick is worth our attention not only for what it says about the state of climate science and politics, but also because it is significant for how we think about climate science policy. Climate science policy refers to those decisions that we make about climate science, including priorities for research and processes of scientific assessment and evaluation.

Steven McIntyre has posted his thoughts on climate science policy arising from his experiences with taking on the hockey stick. He writes,

“IPCC proponents place great emphasis on the merit of articles that have been “peer reviewed” by a journal. However, as a form of due diligence, journal peer review in the multiproxy climate field is remarkably cursory, as compared with the due diligence of business processes. Peer review for climate publications, even by eminent journals like Nature or Science, is typically a quick unpaid read by two (or sometimes three) knowledgeable persons, usually close colleagues of the author. It is unheard of for a peer reviewer to actually check the data and calculations.”

This observation has also been made in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in a 2000 commentary by Ron Errico, who writes,

“Too frequently, published papers contain fundamental errors… How can a piece of work be adequately evaluated or duplicated if what was really done or meant is not adequately stated?... My paramount recommendation is that our community acknowledges that a major problem in fact exists and requires ardent attention. Unless this is acknowledged, the community will likely not even consider significant changes. I suspect that too many scientists, especially those with the authority to demand changes, will prefer the status quo.”

Errico’s paper, titled “On the Lack of Accountability in Meteorological Research,” is well worth reading in full. He makes several recommendations that are completely consistent with McIntyre’s recommendations.

McIntyre also comments on the incestuous structure of the IPCC,

“The inattentiveness of IPCC to verification is exacerbated by the lack of independence between authors with strong vested interests in previously published intellectual positions and IPCC section authors… For someone used to processes where prospectuses require qualifying reports from independent geologists, the lack of independence is simply breathtaking and a recipe for problems, regardless of the reasons initially prompting this strange arrangement.”

McIntyre concludes by observing, “Businesses developed checks and balances because other peoples’ money was involved, not because businessmen are more virtuous than academics. Back when paleoclimate research had little implication outside academic seminar rooms, the lack of any adequate control procedures probably didn’t matter much. However, now that huge public policy decisions are based, at least in part, on such studies, sophisticated procedural controls need to be developed and imposed.”

Of course, some scientists will reply to this in exactly opposite fashion, by saying that academics are more virtuous than business people so such checks are unnecessary. But whatever one thinks about the debate over the hockey stick, McIntyre’s views on climate science policy make good sense and are good for the community as a whole.

Posted on February 14, 2005 09:34 AM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Methane Policy

In The New Republic Gregg Easterbrook describes (subscription required) the Bush Administration’s “Methane to Markets” partnership (EPA site). Easterbrook argues that the Bush Administration has not gotten enough credit in the media for this program, which he characterizes as being as significant as successful implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. He suggests,

“The press corps is pretending the anti-methane initiative does not exist in order to avoid inconvenient complications of the Black Hat versus White Hat narrative it has settled into regarding global warming. In this narrative, the White House is completely ignoring building scientific evidence of artificially triggered climate change; everything Bush does is wicked; everything the enlightened Euros do is noble. The narrative is simple and easy to follow--plus, it's pretty easy to get supporting quotes from Democratic politicians and enviros. The drawback to the narrative is that it isn't true. But why should that stop the nation's reporters and editorialists?”

Easterbrook also observes, “That Bush is not doing enough regarding the greenhouse effect is a different and plausible complaint.”

Easterbrook refers to NASA’s ubiquitous James Hansen to support the importance of methane policy. Hansen wrote five years ago, “Non-CO2 greenhouse gases are probably the main cause of observed global warming, with CH4 causing the largest net climate forcing. There are economic incentives to reduce or capture CH4 emissions, but global implementation of appropriate practices requires international cooperation.” (The full peer-reviewed paper can be found here – PDF.)

Four years ago Easterbrook advocated a methane-first approach and explained why he thought it would meet resistance:

“Last year James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a NASA affiliate, began to champion a methane-first approach. But, for ideological and geopolitical reasons, the idea has yet to catch on. Enviros laud Hansen for declaring in 1988 that he was "ninety-nine percent" certain an artificial greenhouse effect had begun. But many grow spitting mad when he suggests that action against methane offers more bang for the buck than action against carbon dioxide. What the hard-core enviros want is punitive fossil-fuel restrictions that screw big oil and big coal; a relatively painless global-warming fix that lets fossil fuel off the hook would leave the movement's left heartbroken. Moderate enviros worry that a methane-first strategy would cause complacency about carbon dioxide emissions, though Hansen always makes clear that something will eventually need to be done about carbon, too.”

Easterbrook continues this argument in this week’s TNR,

“Yet reporters who write reams about carbon dioxide rarely mention methane, and some environmentalists become actively upset when the potential for methane reduction is raised. Why? Because the United States is the world's number-one emitter of carbon dioxide. (At least for the moment; if current trends hold, China will pass us.) Keeping the focus on carbon dioxide is the blame-America-first strategy. The European Union, on the other hand, is a leading emitter of methane, given the natural-gas energy economies of many Western European nations. Talk about methane reduction makes Europe uneasy. In the regnant global warming narrative, the United States is always bad and the European Union is always good. Raising the methane issue complicates that narrative.”

However one feels about methane policy, Easterbrook’s essay raises the increasingly important question: How do we break out of the two-sided debate on climate change to open discussion of new and innovative options on policy?

(For a discussion of this two-sided debate and why it persists see this 2000 essay that Dan Sarewitz and I wrote – PDF.)

Posted on February 14, 2005 09:31 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 09, 2005

Letter in TNR

The New Republic printed a letter in its 14 February 2005 issue responding to an article in TNR that Dan Sarewitz and I had last month on climate change and disasters following numerous claims that the Indian Ocean tsunami should motivate action on climate change. Here is the letter:

“In their article on the Indian Ocean tsunami's "real cause," Daniel Sarewitz and Roger A. Pielke Jr. did a good job of severing the perceived connection between global warming and all natural disasters ("Rising Tide," January 17). They failed, however, to provide the simplest and most damaging critique to the argument that the Indian Ocean tragedy is somehow linked to global warming: Tsunamis have practically nothing to do with the atmosphere. They usually result from undersea seismic activity, though collapsing landforms and glaciers can cause them, too. A 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra will produce a tsunami regardless of the atmospheric temperature or composition.

Daniel J. Smith
Iowa City, Iowa”

We did not see fit to make the point that global warming did not cause the tsunami because everyone (in their right mind) knows that (except perhaps the genius at TNR who came up with the subtitle to the article!). Our focus was on the more interesting and difficult challenge of evaluating policy options available to prepare for future disasters.

Posted on February 9, 2005 09:06 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 08, 2005

Climate Science and Politics, but not IPCC

I have received some comments asking whether or not I think that IPCC scientists should simply remain mute on issues of climate science or politics. The answer is “no” – in my view IPCC scientists should feel free to speak out as they see fit, but they should be careful when using the authority of the IPCC to establish their credentials. A good example of a scientist speaking out who did not rely on his IPCC credential appeared in The Washington Post on Sunday. The Post contained an article on recent drought in the western United States, including some very strong claims that it has been caused by greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Here is an excerpt:

“Jonathan Overpeck, who directs the university- and government-funded Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona, said current drought and weather disruptions signal what is to come over the next century. Twenty-five years ago, he said, scientists produced computer models of the drought that Arizona is now experiencing. "It's going to get warmer, we're going to have more people, and we're going to have more droughts more frequently and in harsher terms," Overpeck said. "We should be at the forefront of demanding action on global warming because we're at the forefront of the impacts of global warming. . . . In the West we're seeing what's happening now."”

The statements by Overpeck are quite similar to those made by Kevin Trenberth on hurricanes and discussed at length in the Prometheus archives. But there is one important difference. Like Trenberth, Overpeck is also a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC’s fourth assessment report, but Overpeck (or the Post) does not rely on this connection to establish his credentials. Hence, in this case there is no ambiguity about whether or not Overpeck is speaking for the IPCC or himself. I have no complaint on Overpeck making these assertions.

(For more on climate and drought in the U.S. Southwest see this report from Overpeck’s group at Arizona.)

Posted on February 8, 2005 11:12 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 07, 2005

A Climate of Staged Angst

Author: Hans Von Storch and Nico Stehr in Der Speigel

The following essay by Hans Von Storch and Nico Stehr was originally published in Der Spiegel, a German newspaper, on 24 January 2005. We are providing an English translation with the permission of the authors and Der Speigel.

The days are gone when climate researchers sat in their ivory towers packed to the rafters with supercomputers. Nowadays their field has become the stuff of thrillers, and they themselves have risen to take on the leading roles. The topic is so hotly contested, the prognoses so spectacular, that they are no longer merely the subject of media reports; now the specialists in staged apocalypse have moved in. Last year Roland Emmerich depicted a climatic collapse provoked by humankind in his film "The Day After Tomorrow." Since last week the belletristic counterpart has been available in German bookstores: the novel "State of Fear," by the best-selling author Michael Crichton.

The thriller is about the violent conflict between sober environmental realists and radical environmental idealists. For the idealists, the organized fear of abrupt climate change serves as a handy weapon. They interpret every somehow unusual weather event as proof of anthropogenic global warming. "You have to structure your information so that it's always confirmed, no matter what kind of weather we have," the P.R. consultant for the environmentalist organization advises. The realists, who protest that the evidence that human activity has increased meteorological extremes is thin, are fighting a losing battle. Their dry scientific arguments are unable to gain any ground against the colorful, horrific visions of the climate idealists.

Film and novel have certain aspects in common. Where Emmerich holds out the prospect of a threatening climate catastrophe, the book prophesies an economic collapse. In both cases, greenhouse gases produced by humankind are the culprit - in the film, because the emissions themselves are too much; in the book, because the fear of them is. The idealists are so obsessed with their mission that ultimately, in order to rouse the public, they themselves bring about the foretold catastrophes.

Despite a good deal of factually untrue - and thus all the more striking - compression, Crichton has quite correctly observed the dynamic of the paths of communication among scientists, environmentalist organizations, the state and the civilian population. For there is indeed a serious problem for the natural sciences: namely, the public depiction and perception of climate change. Research has landed in a crisis because its public actors assert themselves on the saturated market of discussion by overselling the topic.

Climate change of man-made origin is an important subject. But is it truly the "most important problem on the planet," as an American senator claims? Are world peace, or the conquest of poverty, not similarly daunting challenges? And what about population growth, demographic change or quite normal natural disasters?

In the U.S., only a very few remain interested in the greenhouse effect. At the end of the 1980s, the situation was still different. That was the era of the great drought of 1988, the Mississippi flood of 1993, and the climate capers ought by rights to have taken off in earnest from that point. But that never happened in the U.S., and interest petered out. According to a survey by the CBS television network in May 2003, environmental problems were no longer ranked among the six most important subjects; and even within environmental problems, the topic of climate came in only in seventh place. In Germany, so far, things are still seen differently. But for how much longer?

In order to keep the topic of "climate catastrophe" - a concept nonexistent outside the German-speaking world, by the way - continually in the public eye, the media feel obligated, exactly like the protagonists in Crichton's thriller, to keep framing the topic "a bit more attractively." At the beginning of the 1990s - severe hurricanes had just swept through the country - one could read and hear in the German media that storms were due to become ever more severe. Since then, storms have become rarer in northern Europe. But no notice is taken of this. The fact that barometric fluctuations in Stockholm have shown no systematic change in the frequency and severity of storms since Napoleon's time is passed over in silence. Instead, there is now talk of heat waves and floods. Very much in the style of Crichton's instigators of fear, the story is now that all manner of extreme events are on the increase. Thus even drought in Brandenburg and deluge on the Oder fit the picture without apparent contradiction.

Add to this - besides normal floods and storms - other, more dramatically threatening, scenarios: the reversal of the Gulf Stream and the resultant cooling of large areas of Europe, for instance, or even the rapid melting of the Greenland ice pack. The question has already been publicly raised whether perhaps even the Asian tsunami can be attributed to the disastrous effects of human activity.

This will not be able to hold the public's attention for long. Soon people will have become accustomed to these warnings, and will return to the topics of the day: unemployment and Hartz IV, Turkey's entry to the E.U. or whether Borussia Dortmund can avert disaster on the soccer field and in the boardroom. Thus we will see firsthand how the prophets of doom will draw the climatic dangers in even more garish colours. The terrifying visions to haunt the future can already be guessed at: the breakup of the west Antarctic shelf ice, which will cause the water level to rise much more rapidly, and after a few decades of uncontrolled carbon dioxide emissions, an abrupt rise in temperatures, giving us a deadly atmosphere like that of Venus. Prospects such as these have long been in the public eye; can they not compete effortlessly with Emmerich's Hollywood images?

The costs of stirring up fear are high. It sacrifices the otherwise so highly valued principle of sustainability. A scarce resource - public attention and trust in the reliability of science - is used up without being renewed by the practice of positive examples.

But what do climate researchers themselves think, how do they deal with the media and the population?

Public statements by noted German climate researchers give the impression that the scientific bases of the climate problem have essentially been solved. Thus science has provided the prerequisites for us now to react appropriately to the goal; meaning, in this case, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible.

This does not at all reflect the situation in the scientific community. A considerable number of climatologists are still by no means convinced that the fundamental questions have been adequately dealt with. Thus, in the last year a survey among climate researchers throughout the world found that a quarter of the respondents still harbor doubts about the human origin of the most recent climatic changes.

The majority of researchers are indeed of the opinion that global climate change caused by human activity is occurring, that it will accelerate in the future, and that it will thus become more readily apparent. This change will be accompanied by warmer temperatures and a higher water level. In the more distant future, that is, in about 100 years, a considerable increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases is foreseen, together with an increase in precipitation in our latitudes; in some regions there could be more powerful storms, in others weaker ones.

But again and again, there are scientists to whom, true to the alarmists' maxim in Crichton's book, this does not sound dramatic enough. Thus, more and more often they connect current extreme weather events with anthropogenic climate change. To be sure, this is usually carefully formulated; interviews sound something like this: "Is the flooding of the Elbe, the hurricane in Florida, this year's mild winter evidence for the climate catastrophe?" Answer: "That's scientifically unproven. But many people see it that way." Neither of these statements is false. In combination, however, they suggest the conclusion: Of course these weather events are evidence. Only no one dares to say this explicitly either.

The pattern is always the same: the significance of individual events is processed to suit the media and cleverly dramatized; when prognoses for the future are cited, among all the possible scenarios it is regularly the one with the highest rates of increase in greenhouse gas emissions - and thus with the most drastic climatic consequences - that is chosen; equally plausible variations with significantly lower emission increases go unmentioned.

Whom does this serve? It is assumed that fear can motivate listeners, but it is forgotten that it mobilizes them only in the short term. Climatic changes, however, demand long-term reactions. The effect on public opinion in the short view may indeed be "better," and thus may also have a positive effect on reputation and research funding. But in order for this to function in the long run, each most recent claim about the future of the climate and of the planet must be ever more dramatic than the previous one. Once apocalyptic heat waves have been predicted, the climate-based extinction of animal species no longer attracts attention. Time to move on to the reversal of the Gulf Stream. Thus there arises a spiral of exaggeration. Each individual step may appear to be harmless; in total, however, the knowledge about climate, climate fluctuations, climate change and climatic effects that is transferred to the public becomes dramatically distorted.

Sadly, the mechanisms for correction within science itself have failed. Within the sciences, openly expressed doubts about the current evidence for climatic catastrophe are often seen as inconvenient, because they damage the "good cause," particularly since they could be "misused by skeptics." The incremental dramatization comes to be accepted, while any correction of the exaggeration is regarded as dangerous, because it is politically inopportune. Doubts are not made public; rather, people are led to believe in a solid edifice of knowledge that needs only to be completed at the outer edges.

The result of this self-censorship in scientists' minds is a deaf ear for new and surprising ideas that compete with or even contradict conventional patterns of explanation; science degenerates into being a repair shop for popular, politically opportune claims to knowledge. Thus it not only becomes sterile; it also loses its ability to advise the public objectively.

One example of this is the discussion of the so-called "hockey stick," a temperature curve that allegedly depicts the development over the last 1000 years, and whose shape resembles that of a hockey stick. In 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the committee of climate researchers appointed by UNO, rashly institutionalized this curve as the iconic symbol for anthropogenic climate change: At the end of a centuries-long period of stable temperatures, the upward-bent blade of the hockey stick represents the human influence.

In October 2004, we were able to demonstrate in the specialist journal "Science" that the methodological bases that led to this hockey-stick curve are mistaken. We wanted to reverse the spiral of exaggeration somewhat, without also relativizing the central message - that climate change caused by human activity does indeed exist. Prominent representatives of climate research, however, did not respond by taking issue with the facts. Instead, they worried that the noble cause of protecting the climate might have been done harm.

Other scientists lapse into a zeal reminiscent of nothing so much as the McCarthy era. For them, methodological criticism is the spawn of "conservative think tanks and propagandists for the oil and coal lobby," which they believe they must expose; dramatizing climate change, on the other hand, is defended as a sensible means of educating society.

What is true for other sciences should also hold for climate research: Dissent is the motor of further development, Differences of opinion are not an unpleasant family affair. The concealment of dissent and uncertainty in favor of a politically good cause takes its toll on credibility, for the public is more intelligent than is usually assumed. In the long term, these allegedly so helpful dramatizations achieve the opposite of that which they wish to achieve.

By doing so, however, both science and society will have wasted an opportunity.

Hans von Storch, 55, heads the Coastal Research Institute of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht and is considered one of the pioneers of computerized climate statistics. Together with Nico Stehr, 62, sociologist at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, he has conducted ongoing research into the public perception of climate change.

DER SPIEGEL - January 24, 2005 URL: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,338080,00.html

Posted on February 7, 2005 12:36 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

February 04, 2005

We Have an Answer

On Monday I asked, “Some members of the climate science community are gathered this week in Exter, UK at a meeting titled, "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change." Is this meeting for scientists to inform policy makers on a range of possible goals for climate stabilization and a range of means to achieve those goals, or is it a strategy of political advocacy designed to support adoption of a particular goal over others?”

The Steering Committee for the meeting has published its report summarizing the meeting which provides a definitive answer:

“Limiting climate change to 2 deg C implies stabilizing the atmospheric concentration of all greenhouse gases. The CO2 concentration must not exceed 500ppmv, if the climate sensitivity is 2.5 deg C. Global emissions would need to peak in 2020 and decline to 3.1 GtC/year by 2095… Major investment is needed now in both mitigation and adaptation. The first is essential to minimise future impacts and the latter is essential to cope with impacts which cannot be avoided in the near to medium term.”

If the Exter conference is indicative of the direction that the IPCC will be taking in its Fourth Assessment Report, then it will be remembered as a key milestone in the continuing evolution of the IPCC from honest broker to political advocate.

Posted on February 4, 2005 01:29 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Street Fighting

If anyone wants to understand why science is coming to be viewed as increasingly political one need only look to a quote from Kevin Trenberth in an article in the current issue of the Economist.

“For example, when Kevin Trenberth, head of the IPCC’s panel on hurricanes, recently suggested that there exists a link between climate change and the wave of powerful hurricanes last year, he was immediately challenged. Christopher Landsea, a hurricane expert at America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC panel, arguing that Dr Trenberth’s comments went beyond what the peer-reviewed science could justify. He wrote a public letter complaining that: “because of Dr Trenberth’s pronouncements, the IPCC process has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost.”

Dr Trenberth retorts that “politics is very strong in what is going on, but it is all coming from Landsea and colleagues. He is linked to the sceptics.” He explains the remarks in question by saying that he did not suggest climate change was affecting the number of hurricanes, but was affecting their intensity, because of hotter ocean temperatures, a conclusion he says the data readily bears out.”

(For background on the Landsea/IPCC issue please see recent discussion in the Prometheus archives.)

When Trenberth says that Landsea is “linked to the skeptics” (and to be fair to Kevin, several other scientists have also made this observation in debate) he is referring to a reference in Landsea’s open letter to a publication that has been submitted to the Journal of Climate. Here is the reference: “(Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted)”. Presumably the “Michaels” in this reference is none other than Pat Michaels, a research professor at the University of Virginia who is also affiliated with the Cato Institute. He is an unabashed political advocate who frequently uses science as the basis for his political arguments.

Trenberth is implying that because Landsea has collaborated with Michaels on a peer reviewed paper submitted for publication, that we can dismiss Landsea’s complaints as being politically motivated and without merit. In other words because of the “linkage” we don’t need to actually look to the science to resolve their disagreement.

Ad hominem attacks are part and parcel of a political fight. If scientists want to encourage the evaluation of scientific debates according to who is “linked” with whom rather than on the merits of the claims under dispute, then they should not be at all surprised to see science viewed as just another arena for political battle.

I maintain that Trenberth’s case would be better served if he could simply provide a single peer-reviewed study to back up his scientific claims, rather than engaging in McCarthyesque innuendo. Better yet, had Trenberth instead said at that now infamous Harvard press conference, "The IPCC concluded X, Y, and Z about hurricanes in its 2001 assessment, but my personal view is A, B, and C," then I be willing to bet that there would have been no Landsea/IPCC flap.

And a final note on the futility of the “linkage” argument as a proxy for real scientific debate. Trenberth himself has a very similar “linkage” to a prominent skeptic:

Hurrell, J. W., S. J. Brown, K. E. Trenberth and J. R. Christy, 2000: Comparison of tropospheric temperatures from radiosondes and satellites: 1979-1998. Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., 81, 2165-2177.

Both Trenberth’s and Landsea’s “linkages” are in the process of publishing peer reviewed literature and as such should be evaluated on their merits, and not on the personalities or politics of their authors. But if they really want to play politics, they by all means they use the ad hominem attack. But in pursuing such a strategy, don’t be surprised to see the diminishment of what is valuable about peer review and, ultimately, the further politicization of science.

Posted on February 4, 2005 12:24 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

February 03, 2005

Making Sense of the Climate Debate

Why is it that the climate debate has organized itself around the notion of “dangerous interference”? What consequences does this framing of the problem have for research and action?

I have argued in several papers that the basic dynamics of the climate debate, including the strong incentives to map politics onto science and an institutional bias against adaptation, stem from the exceedingly narrow definition of “climate change” adopted by the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Below is an excerpt from a short paper that makes this case. A reference to a longer, peer-reviewed paper now in press can be found at the bottom. Comments and reactions are welcomed.

An excerpt from: Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2004:What is Climate Change?, Issues in Science and Technology, Summer, 1-4. (PDF)

“Believe it or not, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), focused on international policy, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), focused on scientific assessments in support of the FCCC, use different definitions of climate change. The two definitions are not compatible, certainly not politically and perhaps not even scientifically. This lack of coherence has contributed to the current international stalemate on climate policy, a stalemate that matters because climate change is real and actions are needed to improve energy policies and to reduce the vulnerability of people and ecosystems to climate effects…

The narrow FCCC definition encourages passionate arguments not only about whether climate change is “natural” or human-caused, but whether observed or projected changes rise to the level of “dangerous interference” in the climate system. The goal of the FCCC is to take actions that prevent “dangerous interference” in the climate system. In the jargon of the climate science community, identification of climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions is called “detection and attribution.” Under the FCCC, without detection and attribution, or an expectation of future detection and attribution, of climate changes that result in “dangerous interference” there is no reason to act. In a very real sense, action under the FCCC is necessarily based on claims of scientific certainty, whereas inaction is based on claims of uncertainty… The FCCC definition of climate change fosters debating climate policy in terms of “science” and thus encourages the mapping of established political interests onto science….

This helps to explain why all parties in the current climate debate pay so much attention to “certainty” (or perceptions of a lack thereof) in climate science as a justification for or against the Kyoto Protocol. Because it requires detection and attribution of climate change leading to “dangerous interference,” the FCCC definition of climate change focuses attention on the science of climate change as the trigger for action and directs attention away from discussion of energy and climate policies that make sense irrespective of the actual or perceived state of climate science. The longer the present gridlock persists, the more important such “no-regrets” policies will be to efforts to decarbonize the energy system and reduce human and environmental vulnerability to climate…

Under the FCCC definition of climate change, there is precious little room for uncertainty about the climate future; it is either dangerous enough to warrant action or it is not. Claims about the existence (or not) of a scientific consensus become important as surrogates for claims of certainty or uncertainty. This is one reason why climate change is often defined as a risk management challenge, and scientists promise to policymakers the holy grail of reducing uncertainty about the future. In contrast, the IPCC quietly notes that under its definition of climate change, effective action requires “decision making under uncertainty”—a challenge familiar to decision makers and research communities outside climate science.

The FCCC definition of climate change shapes not only the politics of climate change but also how research agendas are prioritized and funded. One result of the focus on detection and attribution is that political advocates as well as researchers have paid considerably more attention to increasingly irrelevant aspects of climate science (such as were the 1500s warmer than today?) than to providing decision makers with useful knowledge that might help them to improve energy policies and reduce vulnerabilities to climate. It is time for a third way on climate policy.”

If you would like to read a more fully developed argument along these lines please have a look at the prepublication version of this paper:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2005 (in press). Misdefining Climate Change: Consequences for Science and Action, Environmental Science and Policy. (PDF)

Posted on February 3, 2005 12:35 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 31, 2005

Politics or Science?

Some members of the climate science community are gathered this week in Exter, UK at a meeting titled, "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change." Is this meeting for scientists to inform policy makers on a range of possible goals for climate stabilization and a range of means to achieve those goals, or is it a strategy of political advocacy designed to support adoption of a particular goal over others? There is evidence to support both sides of this question, and the presentations, press reports and conclusions from the meeting later this week should allow for a more definitive answer to this question.

Some background

The Exter meeting was first announced in a speech last summer by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which he called for the meeting to address two "big questions."

"We have to recognise that the commitments reflected in the Kyoto protocol and current EU policy are insufficient, uncomfortable as that may be, and start urgently building a consensus based on the latest and best possible science. Prior to the G8 meeting itself we propose first to host an international scientific meeting at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter in February. More than just another scientific conference, this gathering will address the big questions on which we need to pool the answers available from the science: -What level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is self-evidently too much?; and What options do we have to avoid such levels?"

The phrase "dangerous climate change" used in the meeting's name is a direct reference to the phrase "dangerous interference" which comes from the Framework Convention on Climate Change which states its overall objective in its Article 2,

"The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner."

In recent years advocates for emissions reductions have increasing organized around the phrase "dangerous interference" under the assumption that if they can demonstrate that some threshold of dangerous interference has been or will be exceeded, then given the broad range of signatories to the Climate Convention (including the United States) it will necessarily compel political action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And the threshold that many emissions reductions advocates have organized around is that a human-caused climate change of more than 2 degrees Celsius would represent "dangerous interference." (For those wanting more background on this subject, have a look at this paper (PDF) by Dessai et al.)

Of course, a challenge exists in that definition of "dangerous interference" is subjective and different people will view the concept quite differently. The IPCC noted as much in its 2001 Summary for Policymakers that definition of "dangerous interference" is a political challenge, and not a scientific exercise.

"Natural, technical, and social sciences can provide essential information and evidence needed for decisions on what constitutes "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." At the same time, such decisions are value judgments determined through socio-political processes, taking into account considerations such as development, equity, and sustainability, as well as uncertainties and risk."

The organizers of the Exter conference wisely have chosen not to organize their meeting around the Prime Minister's first question and instead have focused on a set of questions to clarify options. Here are the questions that are to be addressed by the conference:

"1. For different levels of climate change what are the key impacts, for different regions and sectors, and for the world as a whole?

2. What would such levels of climate change imply in terms of greenhouse gas stabilisation concentrations and emission pathways required to achieve such levels?

3. What technological options are there for achieving stabilisation of greenhouse gases at different stabilisation concentrations in the atmosphere, taking into account costs and uncertainties?"

So if the conference reports scientific understandings and uncertainties for emissions stabilization scenarios related to (a) a magical instantaneous ending of CO2 emissions, (b) unrestrained emissions (a maximum scenario), and (c) everything in between, then it would clearly give policy makers a sense of what science can say about stabilization scenarios and their consequences. This information would allow policy makers in the the UK, or any other country, to debate and discuss the concept of "dangerous climate change" and, if desired, work towards a political consensus. Such a perspective would be a valuable outcome of the meeting.

But if the meeting results in a recommendation for stabilization at one particular concentration level over others, and increasingly we hear calls for a 2 degree/400 ppm target, then the meeting will have devolved into an exercise in political advocacy under the cover of the authority of science and scientists.

In looking over the abstracts for the meeting there is evidence to support both approaches to the meeting. Given the number of prominent IPCC officials participating, this is a good chance for the IPCC to either reassert its role as honest broker or confirm its tendency towards political advocacy. Lets see what happens.

A last observation, surely the media present will be able to cherry pick from the presentations to support a particular agenda, and some of this appears to have begun. Consider this report from Agence France Presse,

"The three-day conference, running from Tuesday to Thursday in the southwestern English city of Exeter, is bound to have a wide political impact. It will add the objective weight of science to the political pressures on Washington to help curb carbon pollution."

And the BBC also has characterized the meeting's expected outcome in political terms by claiming that scientists will define how dangerous interference "should" be defined, "But Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, a three-day meeting at the Met Office in Exeter, is mainly about the science. The participants, more than 200 in all, will try to agree how to define what is a danger level, and what it should be."

Posted on January 31, 2005 09:51 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 28, 2005

What is the scientific consensus on climate change?

Author: Naomi Oreskes
University of California, San Diego

Since the publication in Science of my article, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” (Science 306:1686, 3 December 2004) and its follow-up piece in The Washington Post, “Undeniable Global Warming, (26 December 2004), a number of people have asked me to clarify what, exactly, I think this consensus is.

This request rather misses the point of my essay, which was to underscore the fact that the scientific societies have already clearly expressed the expert opinions of their membership, and that these statements are readily available and easy to read. Rather than attempt to paraphrase these carefully worded statements, I recommend that anyone who wants to know what climate scientists have to say about climate science, should, quite simply, read what they have to say. (And it takes a lot less time than plowing through all the misrepresentations that now abound on the web.)

Here are the relevant references and links:

American Association for the Advancement of Science,

American Meteorological Society, 2003: “Climate Change Research: Issues for the Atmospheric and Related Sciences,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 85: 508-515. See also this website,

American Geophysical Union, “Human Impacts of Climate,” adopted by unanimous vote of the AGU Council, December 12, 2003,

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Climate Change 2001: Summary for Policymakers

U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change, “Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,” Washington DC: National Research Council: National Academy Press, 2001.

Posted on January 28, 2005 07:18 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

January 27, 2005

A Good Example why Politics/IPCC Matters

Here is a good example why the IPCC should be concerned about the role of its leaders in political advocacy. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, released a press release today titled, “Pachauri Must Resign as Head of UN Climate Panel Activism Compromises Scientific Objectivity.”

The CEI describes itself as “a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.” It is safe to say that the CEI is firmly against the Kyoto Protocol and highly skeptical of climate science. So the political agenda supported by CEI is in direct opposition to the political agenda endorsed in recent months by R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC.

Here is the calculus that I’d like the IPCC folks to understand: Whatever benefits they believe lending the IPCC’s name and authority (as an institution or as individuals) to their favored political causes is more than outweighed by the substantially greater benefits that they provide to their political opponents by defecting from the IPCC’s formal position as honest broker. Not only does this contribute to a loss of legitimacy and authority of the IPCC (which matters to everyone because we need honest brokers) but it is just poorly played politics in support of the causes to which Dr. Pauchari has lent his name and that of the IPCC.

Posted on January 27, 2005 11:25 AM View this article | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

Reader Mail on Political Advocacy

A Prometheus reader emailed with the following request:

"On RealClimate.org's "Anomalous Recent Warmth in Europe" discussion thread, someone yesterday quoted something you wrote about the nature of the politicization of the IPCC, and RealClimate's William Connolley answered that it "appears to be an error or misstatement in [Pielke's] post" and that he doesn't "think the IPCC folk do think its (the IPCC's) role to be a political advocacy" and that all "the IPCC folk quoted were speaking personally." If I understand this correctly -- and maybe I don't -- it strikes me as something that I'd hope you'd clarify personally. Thanks."

Short Answer

The aim of "political advocacy" is to reduce the scope of policy alternatives, typically to a single favored outcome (or in the case of an election, to reduce the field of candidates). Endorsement of a specific policy (or political candidate) when there is a range of alternatives is political advocacy. The actions documented here over recent months by R. K. Pauchuri and scientists in the Harvard press conference are unambiguous examples (of many related to the IPCC) of political advocacy trading on the authority of the IPCC. Political advocacy is an important and honorable part of a healthy democracy. It is, however, not consistent with the role of an honest broker, which is also an important and honorable part of a healthy democracy.

Longer Answer with References

As I wrote on this subject in a paper published last year,

"Addressing the significance of science for decision making requires an ability to clearly distinguish policy from politics. For science, a policy perspective implies increasing or elucidating the range of alternatives available to decision makers by clearly associating the existing state of scientific knowledge with a range of choices. The goal is to enhance freedom of choice. By contrast, a political perspective seeks to decrease the range of alternatives (often to a single preferred option) available to policy makers, i.e., to limit the scope of choice, for example, support of, or opposition to, the Kyoto Protocol. Because scientific results always have some degree of uncertainty and a range of means is typically available to achieve particular objectives, the task of political advocacy necessarily involves considerations that go well beyond science."

So when R.K. Pachauri lends his name and IPCC association to groups who are pushing for specific actions on climate, then this is clearly political advocacy. I discussed this in the context of the IPCC in a 2002 essay in Nature,

"A well known example of such an attempt to provide independent scientific guidance is found in the IPCC, which has largely received positive reviews of its assessments of climate change (see Nature 412, 112; 2001). But the IPCC does not explicitly assess scientific results in the context of particular policies, which may be its greatest weakness. The IPCC only assesses knowledge of climate-change science, impacts and economics, and not their policy significance. Consequently, to understand the significance of the IPCC’s analyses for alternative courses of action, a decision-maker is forced to rely almost exclusively on the interpretations (and misinterpretations) provided by corporations, government agencies or interest groups. Invariably, such interpretations are at odds with one another, yet consistent with all or parts of the IPCC’s results. When well-intentioned IPCC scientists enter the political fray as individuals, the IPCC itself becomes politicized."

Political advocacy is of course essential to a well functioning democracy. But so too is the honest broker. And one cannot simultaneously serve as an advocate and an honest broker. That is, one cannot work to reduce the scope of choice and to expand (or just clarify) the scope of choice at the same time. So the IPCC, and more generally all scientists and science organizations, have choices to make. To be viewed as an honest broker requires not being viewed as working to advance the political agenda of certain groups over others.

But none of this is to suggest that the IPCC should withdraw from discussion of policy. In fact, trying to cleanly separate science from policy can make things worse. To the contrary, the IPCC is at risk of politicization because it tries (WGI at least) to remain mute on policy. An alternative would be to clearly discuss the connection of climate science with climate policy options. As I wrote in 2002,

"One solution in the IPCC case would be to establish a new, independent group on policy, explicitly for assessing the significance of the scientific results in the context of policy. This kind of group could assess a broad range of alternative actions that are consistent with IPCC assessments without endorsing a particular alternative. (This group could also provide valuable feedback to the research community as to the issues that need more attention.)"

An expanded version of this discussion can be found in this paper: Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2003: Il significato della scienza, chapter in P. Dongi (ed.) Il governo della scienza, Laterza, Rome, Italy, pp. 85-105. (Here is a pre-publication English version.

Posted on January 27, 2005 01:12 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

January 26, 2005

More Politics and IPCC

Last October, when R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), wrote the forward to a report advocating specific policies on climate change I wrote,

“It is troubling that the Chair of the IPCC would lend his name and organizational affiliation to a set of groups with members engaged actively in political advocacy on climate change. Even if Dr. Pachauri feels strongly about the merit of the political agenda proposed by these groups, at a minimum his endorsement creates a potential perception that the IPCC has an unstated political agenda.”

Dr. Pachauri has once again lent his name, and that of the IPCC, to an advocacy effort on climate change. This time Dr. Pachauri is presented as the “scientific advisor” on a report released earlier this week by the International Climate Change Taskforce (ICCT). The report advocates a range of very specific policy actions on climate change – among them, limiting global carbon dioxide concentrations to 400 ppm, a requirement that G8 countries obtain 25% of their electrivity from renewables by 2025, the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies, requiring Export Credit Agencies and Multilateral Development Banks to adopt minimum efficiency or carbon intensity standards for projects they support and building upon the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. The ICCT was organized by a number of self-described progressive think tanks -- the Institute for Public Policy Research in London, the Center for American Progress in Washington DC and The Australia Institute in Canberra.

According to the IPPC website the ITCC’s recommendations are, “aimed at all major governments in the international negotiations, with special emphasis on the United Kingdom (UK), which will hold the Presidencies of the G8 and the European Union in 2005.” Quite simply, there is a clear conflict in Dr. Pachauri seeking to act as an honest broker on climate science as chairman of the IPCC while simultaneously advocating a specific political position in the very process to which he is tasked to provide impartial guidance. The IPCC operates under a guideline that is to be “neutral with respect to policy.” I am unclear as to what this phrase actually means, but I am pretty sure that it is not consistent with overt political advocacy. As a 2001 news article in Nature reported, “The IPCC aims to provide information to policy-makers without endorsing specific policies. As such, it can only work if it is widely perceived to represent a highly credible and unbiased consensus.”

Posted on January 26, 2005 01:07 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 24, 2005

Follow Up On Landsea/IPCC

Several news stories have come out flowing Chris Landsea's resignation from the IPCC last week. These news stories provide some additional information that allows for some insight into the scientific dispute between Landsea and NCAR's Kevin Trenberth, as well as into the broader political context of the IPCC.

The Scientific Dispute

Landsea wrote in his letter that he resigned from the IPCC, in part, because "It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming," and one of those colleagues, Trenberth, was the Lead Author for the IPCC responsible for writing the chapter on hurricanes to which Landsea was to contribute. In an article in yesterday's Washington Post Trenberth again asserted that the very active 2004 hurricane season was influenced by global warming:

"Trenberth, who in an interview Friday called Landsea's charges "ridiculous," said he participated last fall in a media conference call organized by Harvard University professors "to correct misleading impressions that global warming had played no role at all in last year's hurricane season." He added he would have welcomed opposing views in the assessment, even though he believes "if global warming is happening, how can hurricanes not be affected? It's part of the overall system.""

And Sunday's Boulder Daily Camera contained a similar report: "In a telephone interview with the Camera, Trenberth said the [Harvard] press conference had been called to rebut statements by Landsea and others who have said "global warming had nothing to do with hurricanes.""

The scientific dispute between Landsea and Trenberth over whether or not global warming played a role in the 2004 hurricane season is easily addressed. Landsea writes that the assertion that the 2004 hurricane season was linked to global warming was not supported by peer-reviewed science, "All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record." Yesterday's Boulder Daily Camera contains a similar perspective from MIT's Kerry Emanuel, another expert on hurricanes, "I think it's extremely difficult to pin the last season on global warming. That does not preclude that there may be a global warming signal buried in there somewhere, but nobody in my field thinks that we've seen it."

It seems that Trenberth could easily respond to Landsea by producing a single peer-reviewed study supporting his claims. While one such study would not automatically overturn the many studies on hurricanes and climate change (see RealClimate on this general point), it would provide a scientific basis for Trenberth's statements, which Landsea characterized as "far outside of current scientific understanding." For his part, Trenberth had earlier acknowledged that his views on this subject are controversial. Absent at least one peer reviewed study to support Trenberth's claims, it would seem that he is, at best, a bit forward on his skis.

Why does peer review matter? As the folks at RealClimate have recently written peer review is a "necessary but not sufficient condition" for the production of good science. Consequently, "observers would thus be well advised to be extremely skeptical of any claims in the media or elsewhere of some new "bombshell" or "revolution" that has not yet been fully vetted by the scientific community." Presumably a good example of where such skepticism would have been appropriate was in response to the news conference held by Harvard Unveristy in October, 2004 - it was titled, "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity: Problem Tied to Rising Sea Temperatures From Trapped Greenhouse Gases; Trend Portends More Storm Damage Costs for FL, AL, LA, TX, NC and SC." It was this news conference in which Trenberth and colleagues asserted a link between global warming and the 2004 hurricane season, but provided no peer-reviewed science to back up these claims.

So even if Trenberth's claims about a linkage between global warming and the hurricanes of 2004 are proven correct through future research, public pronouncements on science, particularly in highly politicized contexts, will always be much stronger if they are backed by peer-reviewed scientific knowledge. And right now there does not appear to be a peer-reviewed basis for Trenberth's claims. If the climate science community wants to assert the importance of peer review when evaluating the claims of those scientists opposed to action on climate change (and quite rightfully so in my opinion) then it seems appropriate that scientists who advocate action on climate change should be held to the same standard.

Political Context

A second reason Landsea gave for resigning from the IPCC was the response of IPCC officials to his concerns, "The IPCC leadership saw nothing to be concerned with in Dr. Trenberth's unfounded pronouncements to the media, despite his supposedly impartial important role that he must undertake as a Lead Author on the upcoming AR4." In particular, it seems odd that the head of the IPCC would assert that Trenberth's statements accurately reflected the work of the third IPCC assessment (in 2001), since they clearly do not (and also by Trenberth's admission as well). Landsea wrote much of the IPCC conclusions on hurricanes for the 2001 report, so he ought to know.

But more troubling than a lack of knowledge of the substance of the science of the IPCC reports is the political stance on climate taken by the head of the IPCC. The Independent reported yesterday that the head of the IPCC recently called for deep and dramatic emissions reductions to save humanity.

"Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and called for immediate and "very deep" cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive"."

In taking such a political position in the highly charged context of climate change, Dr. Pachauri has placed himself in a highly conflicted position. If he were to have accepted Landsea's complaint as valid, it could be seen as admitting that an IPCC scientist is "overselling" the science in support of a political agenda. This could harm the prospects for advancing the political agenda that Dr. Pachauri advocates, so there is a strong incentive for Pachauri to dismiss Landsea's concerns. (We have discussed politics and the IPCC on many occasions, here and here.) These dynamics seem consistent with the argument made recently by Von Storch et al., "Judgments of solid scientific findings are often not made with respect to their immanent quality but on the basis of their alleged or real potential as a weapon by "skeptics" in a struggle for dominance in public and policy discourse."

So long as people within the IPCC leadership sees its role as political advocate rather than honest broker, and acts accordingly, we should not be surprised to see future controversies erupt in the IPCC. The solution is not to retreat into the illusion that it can deal only with science, but to openly confront the reality that its very existence is based on the need to connect science with policy.

[Some disclosures: I know both Landsea and Trenberth quite well. I have collaborated with Landsea on a number of occasions, e.g., here. I also have co-authored a book on hurricanes (with my father, published by John Wiley, 1997), and on pp. 186-188 you can see our views on hurricanes and climate change. And you can find various other articles on hurricanes, climate change, etc. that I have authored or co-authored here.]

Posted on January 24, 2005 07:22 AM View this article | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 21, 2005

A Third Way on Climate?

Hans von Storch, Nico Stehr and Dennis Bray have written an interesting perspective on climate science and policy, suggestive of a third way beyond the Manichean global warming: yes or no debate. They write,

“The concern for the “good” and “just” case of avoiding further dangerous human interference with the climate system has created a peculiar self-censorship among many climate scientists. Judgments of solid scientific findings are often not made with respect to their immanent quality but on the basis of their alleged or real potential as a weapon by “skeptics” in a struggle for dominance in public and policy discourse.

When we recently established that the method behind the so-called “hockey-stick” curve of Northern Hemisphere temperature is flawed, this result was not so much attacked as scientifically flawed but was seen both in private conversations and public discourse as outright dangerous, because it could be instrumentalized and undermine the success of the IPCC process. Similarly, the suggestion that hitherto excluded research and policy discussions devoted to adaptive measures ought to be undertaken in order to pursue a much more balanced strategy of adaptation to and mitigation of climate change is seen as undermining the Kyoto process…

The concept of anthropogenic climate change is compelling even if the hockey-stick curve is false. Efforts to reduce the release of GHGs into the atmosphere are probably rendered meaningful even if we reduce present and future vulnerability by suitable adaptation measures. Climate science needs to reach a new self-understanding of its own culture”

Their recommendations are worth our attention:

• “We need to deal with the issue of anthropogenic climate change in a sustainable manner. The all too common practices of overselling and of even exaggerating adverse events by some must be strongly discouraged. Examples are the unfalsifiable, and thus useless, claims that current extreme events are, if not proof, strong indications of anthropogenic climate change. Sustainability requires that we tell the full truth as currently understood, irrespective if it fits into the politically correct agenda of the purportedly good case. People make all sorts of decisions under uncertainty — buying insurance, investing in the stock market, often with the advice of supposed financial experts, tolerating genetically modified foods — and there is no reason that uncertainty pertaining to climate change should be disabling.

• We need to respond openly to the agenda-driven advocates, not only skeptics but also alarmists, who misuse their standing as scientists to pursue their private value-driven agendas. This is a tragedy of the commons, namely that the short term gains (in terms of public attention; success of specific political agendas; possible funding) of a few are paid for on the long term by the scientific credibility of the whole discipline. Instead, sustainability requires that the discipline of climate science to provide the public with options of policy responses to the challenge of climate change, and not to prescriptively focus on only one such option (i.e., maximum reduction of GHG emissions).

• Finally we need to accept that climate science (as any other sciences) is a social process. Social and cultural scientists should be invited to analyze this process, to identify hidden limitations and conventions rooted in social and cultural backgrounds of the scientific actors, and to reduce the role of group dynamics on the practice of science.”

Read the whole essay here.

Posted on January 21, 2005 07:59 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 19, 2005

Landsea on Hurricanes

Author: Chris Landsea

It may be worth pointing out that last October Chris Landsea prepared a primer on hurricanes and climate change for Prometheus. We thought that it might be worth re-posting his views.

Hurricanes and Global Warming
Chris Landsea (chris.landsea@noaa.gov)
---------------------------------------

There are no known scientific studies that show a conclusive physical link between global warming and observed hurricane frequency and intensity. Whatever suggested changes in hurricane activity that might result from global warming in the future are quite small in comparison to the large natural variability of hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones. For example, the latest GFDL global warming study suggested about a 5% increase in the winds of hurricanes 80 years in the future. This contrasts with the more than doubling that occur now in numbers of major hurricanes between active and quiet decades in the Atlantic basin.

If global warming is influencing hurricane activity, then we should be seeing a global change in the number and strength of these storms. Yet there is no evidence of a global increase in the strength and frequency of hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones over the past several years.

Total U.S. direct damages from Atlantic hurricanes this year will be on the order of $30 billion, making it about equal to the most damaging year on record - 1992 with the landfall of Hurricane Andrew. However, such increased destruction from hurricanes is to be expected because of the massive development and population increases along the U.S. coastline and in countries throughout the Caribbean and Central America. There is no need to invoke global warming to understand both the 10 years of active hurricane seasons and the destruction that occurred both in Florida and in Haiti this season. The former is due to natural cycles driven by the Atlantic Ocean and the latter is due to societal changes, not due to global warming.

Posted on January 19, 2005 02:26 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

Climate Change and Reinsurance, Part 2.5

My recent posts on climate change and reinsurance (Part 1 and Part 2) led to a wide-ranging and fruitful discussion with a number of colleagues in the U.S. and Europe. (Thanks all!)

To bring you up to date, Part 1 made the case for a clear conflict of interest when reinsurers attribute or project increasing disasters because of climate change. Part 2 sough to evaluate the merits of such claims, which to be fair are made by many people well beyond just some in the reinsurance industry. The central question is, when looking to the past, to what degree is climate change responsible for the growth in disasters and disaster costs up to the present? I asserted in Part 2 that the answer is "not at all."

In this post, Part 2.5, I'd like to expand on the information presented in Part 2 drawing on additional information and analyses drawing from my recent discussions with colleagues. Specifically, there seems to be a strong consensus within the climate impacts community that the trends of increasing damage related to storms (whether tropical, extra-tropical, thunder, hail or other extreme weather) is completely the result of trends in societal impacts. Questions were raised about trends in impacts related to floods, heat waves and drought. Let's consider each in turn.

Floods

I noted in Part II that while the IPCC identified some regional trends in the incidence of what it calls "extreme" precipitation, it did not find similar trends in extreme streamflow (i.e., floods). After talking with colleagues and reading up on some of the more recent literature, it seems clear that there is no evidence for global trends in floods, although there may be some regional trends. There is considerable mixed evidence depending upon definitions of "flood" and the time period selected. It will be interesting to see how the next IPCC comes out on this. It is abundantly clear that flood damage is increasing around the world.

While it is conceivable that trends in precipitation and streamflow are responsible for some part of the growing impacts of floods, I await data and analyses making such a case quantitatively and globally. It is both logical and shown in our own research that flood damage tends to increase with aggregate precipitation (i.e., imagine a graph of such a relationship; it necessarily starts at the graph's origin - no precip, no flood damage), but exactly how much and how significant are open questions. My hypotheses, resulting from my work with Mary Downton on this paper .

Pielke, Jr., R.A., and M.W. Downton, 2000: Precipitation and Damaging Floods: Trends in the United States, 1932-97. Journal of Climate, 13(20), 3625-3637,

. are that (a) trends in damage will be most closely connected to trends in precipitation and streamflow at the regional and local level, and (b) attempts to aggregate regional data to national or global levels will necessarily result in a much smaller connection because of the contextual nature of flood impacts. Even if a signal could be found in the noise, it would be tiny when compared with the effects of societal vulnerability on flood damage.

Heat Waves

I am not an expert on heat waves or their impacts, so I called up someone who is, Larry Kalkstein from the University of Delaware. Here is what I asked him:

1. Is there evidence for an increase (globally) in heat waves? 2. Is there evidence for a trend of increasing societal impacts related to heat waves? 3. Is there evidence for growing societal vulnerability to heat waves?

His answers:

1. No. There is no evidence of an increase in the number of heat waves, in the U.S. or globally, but there are regional variations (e.g., Great Britain may have seen an increase). (Note that what he reported to me is completely consistent with the IPCC TAR.)

2. Yes and no. In the United States heat mortality has decreased since the 1960s by about 20-25%, which is less than what others have reported in the literature. Europe, by contrast has seen an increase in heat related mortality over the past decade. But there are large data gaps around the world.

3. Yes. Vulnerability has increased largely because of two factors -- demographics and the costs of energy. There are growing numbers of elderly people, particularly in Europe, and the elderly are more vulnerable to heat. Air conditioning is ever present in the United States, so its availability is less of a problem than is the cost of running the units. Many poor people choose not to run their air conditioners because of the cost, leading to an increase in their vulnerability. The urban structure of Europe makes its populations much more vulnerable to heat related impacts.

My conclusions: There is a lot that we don't know about global trends in the impacts of heat waves. Any trends that exist in the incidence of heat waves would seem to be regional in nature. If so, then we can narrow our focus on the role of climate changes as a factor in trends in impacts to those places that have seen (a) an increase in heat waves, and (b) an increase in impacts. This area would seem to be far smaller than global. Even so, better data will be useful from around the world. But clearly there is no evidence that would allow for a connection to be made between trends in heat waves and their societal impacts. I'll stick with my hypothesis that any trends in impacts are the result of increasing societal vulnerability and ask for falsification.

Drought

What we know about the societal impacts of heat waves seems to similar to what we know about the societal impacts drought. Drought has tremendous societal impacts, yet there seems to be no systematic collection of data on those impacts and how they have changed over time and space. For example, Donald Wilhite's two volumes on drought provide no trend data (Drought: A Global Assessment, 2000. Natural Hazards and Disasters Series, Routledge Publishers, London).

A recent NCAR study argues that one measure of drought shows a significant increase in areal extent over the past 20 years. But a connection to societal impacts remains to be made.

My conclusions on drought echo those on heat waves: There is a lot that we don't know about global trends in the impacts of droughts. There may be robust trends in the incidence of drought that are global in nature. Better data on impacts will be useful from around the world. But clearly there is no evidence that would allow for a connection to be made between trends in drought and their societal impacts. I'll stick with my hypothesis that any trends in impacts are the result of increasing societal vulnerability and ask for falsification.

So the bottom lines:

1. Anyone making assertions that changes in climate (whether human caused or not) are responsible for any part of the global trend of increasing disaster losses had better provide some new scientific evidence to back up such claims. Future research may tell a different story, but my reading of the current state of science is that, today, such claims are groundless.

It is important to reiterate that the discussion thus far has been retrospective, focused only on the attribution of factors responsible for the global trend in disasters. I will next turn to Part 3 which will explore the question, in the future to what extent should we expect climate changes to be responsible for increasing disasters and disaster costs?

Posted on January 19, 2005 08:17 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 17, 2005

Chris Landsea Leaves IPCC

This is an open letter to the community from Chris Landsea.

Dear colleagues,

After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

With this open letter to the community, I wish to explain the basis for my decision and bring awareness to what I view as a problem in the IPCC process. The IPCC is a group of climate researchers from around the world that every few years summarize how climate is changing and how it may be altered in the future due to manmade global warming. I had served both as an author for the Observations chapter and a Reviewer for the 2nd Assessment Report in 1995 and the 3rd Assessment Report in 2001, primarily on the topic of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons). My work on hurricanes, and tropical cyclones more generally, has been widely cited by the IPCC. For the upcoming AR4, I was asked several weeks ago by the Observations chapter Lead Author - Dr. Kevin Trenberth - to provide the writeup for Atlantic hurricanes. As I had in the past, I agreed to assist the IPCC in what I thought was to be an important, and politically-neutral determination of what is happening with our climate.

Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4's Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity" along with other media interviews on the topic. The result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.

I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.

Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).

It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy.

My concerns go beyond the actions of Dr. Trenberth and his colleagues to how he and other IPCC officials responded to my concerns. I did caution Dr. Trenberth before the media event and provided him a summary of the current understanding within the hurricane research community. I was disappointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC. Specifically, the IPCC leadership said that Dr. Trenberth was speaking as an individual even though he was introduced in the press conference as an IPCC lead author; I was told that that the media was exaggerating or misrepresenting his words, even though the audio from the press conference and interview tells a different story (available on the web directly); and that Dr. Trenberth was accurately reflecting conclusions from the TAR, even though it is quite clear that the TAR stated that there was no connection between global warming and hurricane activity. The IPCC leadership saw nothing to be concerned with in Dr. Trenberth's unfounded pronouncements to the media, despite his supposedly impartial important role that he must undertake as a Lead Author on the upcoming AR4.

It is certainly true that "individual scientists can do what they wish in their own rights", as one of the folks in the IPCC leadership suggested. Differing conclusions and robust debates are certainly crucial to progress in climate science. However, this case is not an honest scientific discussion conducted at a meeting of climate researchers. Instead, a scientist with an important role in the IPCC represented himself as a Lead Author for the IPCC has used that position to promulgate to the media and general public his own opinion that the busy 2004 hurricane season was caused by global warming, which is in direct opposition to research written in the field and is counter to conclusions in the TAR. This becomes problematic when I am then asked to provide the draft about observed hurricane activity variations for the AR4 with, ironically, Dr. Trenberth as the Lead Author for this chapter. Because of Dr. Trenberth's pronouncements, the IPCC process on our assessment of these crucial extreme events in our climate system has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost. While no one can "tell" scientists what to say or not say (nor am I suggesting that), the IPCC did select Dr. Trenberth as a Lead Author and entrusted to him to carry out this duty in a non-biased, neutral point of view. When scientists hold press conferences and speak with the media, much care is needed not to reflect poorly upon the IPCC. It is of more than passing interest to note that Dr. Trenberth, while eager to share his views on global warming and hurricanes with the media, declined to do so at the Climate Variability and Change Conference in January where he made several presentations. Perhaps he was concerned that such speculation - though worthy in his mind of public pronouncements – would not stand up to the scrutiny of fellow climate scientists.

I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IPCC leadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth's actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have decided to no longer participate in the IPCC AR4.

Sincerely, Chris Landsea

Attached are the correspondence between myself and key members of the IPCC FAR, Download file.

Posted on January 17, 2005 11:39 AM View this article | Comments (23) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

January 15, 2005

A Response to RealClimate

In case you missed it Gavin Schmidt, one of the founders of the RealClimate blog, responded thoughtfully to my post "The Uncertainty Trap" where I suggest that their claim to focus on science and not politics "is a noble but futile ambition." He writes in response,

"Let me make one more thing clear: we are not taking a political stand on this [climate debate]. That someone else decides to support their political point by using bogus science is not our fault. If we correct their errors it is because we don't want to see bogus science used at all. It does not necessarily imply that we are taking a stand against their political premise."

Readers of Prometheus will know how much we value the honest broker. And to be sure climate science certainly needs more honest brokers. So RealClimate has great potential to fill a much needed niche. But unless RealClimate carefully considers policy and politics as they go about their business, they run the risk of simply becoming viewed as yet another voice on the internet pushing a political agenda through science, not unlike CO2science.org but with a different slant.

There are a few simple things that RealClimate might do to enhance its role as an honest broker. Here is some unsolicited advice.

1. No free passes.

RealClimate's focus thus far is very much framed in one political direction, e.g., on attacking George Will, Senator James Inhofe, Michael Crichton, McIntyre and McKitrick, Fox News, and Myron Ebell. These criticisms are perfectly justified, but RealClimate shouldn't give a free pass to anyone, especially those whose political agenda they may find more compelling. Here are a few items from the past week that RealClimate might have focused on:

*Worldwatch released its 2005 State of the World report and linked the 2004 Florida hurricane season and typhoons to signs of an "accelerated global warming." There is no scientific basis for making this linkage.

*An AP story linked a spell of warm winter weather in Russia to global warming. Perhaps such a linkage exists, but I'd be surprised if there was a scientific basis for making such a claim.

Excesses abound in the climate debate on all sides. Don't ignore this fact.

2. Be transparent.

Some RealClimate contributors have in other venues openly presented their political and policy commitments on climate change. In some cases these commitments are very strongly held. When such commitments have been made, RealClimate readers will be better served by being open about them. The bios on the site might simply present such information. Don't hide behind science.

3. Diversify.

The blog will be viewed as more legitimate and authoritative as an honest if the set of scientific contributors is comprised so as to have a diversity of political perspectives represented. If everyone who contributes shares a similar perspective, it can be more difficult for the participants to see the biases that result. In addition, it is important to be careful about moderating the posts to ReaClimate. If a diversity of perspectives is allowed to express their views then it will enhance the credibility of the site. This also means allowing legitimate scientists with different points of view to respond to your posts on topics that remain under debate in the scientific literature. Gatekeeping is another means that unstated biases can be reflected.

4. Distinguish policy and politics.

If RealClimate wants to avoid being labeled an advocacy site then rather than pretending to be disconnected from politics it might consider openly discussing policy issues. For example, questions related to policy, but which are apolitical, that might be addressed include:

What effect might emissions reductions of various sizes have on arctic ice cover?

What effect might emissions reductions of various sizes have on sea level rise?

What are the implications of the IPCC and FCCC using different definitions of "climate change"?

The honest broker's role will be better served by working to expand the scope of policy options available for discussion. Everything posted on RealClimate has implications for policy and politics, when not openly confront this reality?

Finally, it is important to understand that there is a large body of scholarship that shows that efforts to focus only on "the science" actually exacerbate the politicization of science. Any scientists claiming to focus on "scientific topics and not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science" should read and carefully think about the following two papers by Daniel Sarewitz:

How science makes environmental controversies worse

Science and Environmental Policy: An Excess of Objectivity

Here at Prometheus we wish the RealClimate folks well, it is a great experiment in honest brokering.

Posted on January 15, 2005 11:36 AM View this article | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

January 14, 2005

The Uncertainty Trap

Scientists are being played expertly in the ongoing political debate about climate change. Here is how the game works. Those opposed to acting on the options currently on the table, like Kyoto or McCain/Lieberman, invoke "scientific uncertainty" about climate change as the basis for their opposition. Of course, the basis for opposition for most of these folks has nothing to do with scientific uncertainty and everything to do with their valuation of the costs and benefits of taking action. As George W. Bush said in 2001, "For America, complying with those [Kyoto] mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases for consumers." The projected economic impacts of Kyoto are of course uncertain because they are the product of complex computer models based on numerous assumptions and parameterizations. But this uncertainty is not an obstacle to the Bush Administration taking decisive action.

Even though the basis for President Bush's opposition is grounded in how he values expected outcomes, he nonetheless raises scientific uncertainty about climate itself as a basis for his decision, "we do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have had on warming. We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it. For example, our useful efforts to reduce sulfur emissions may have actually increased warming, because sulfate particles reflect sunlight, bouncing it back into space. And, finally, no one can say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided." But his invocation of such uncertainties is just a distraction. Consider that Senator John Kerry who also opposed the Kyoto Protocol, but never invoked scientific uncertainty as the basis for his opposition (he claimed that the fact that developing countries did not participate was the basis for his opposition). Because Bush and Kerry shared opposition to Kyoto but had different views on the science of climate change, this suggests that ones views on climate science are not deterministic of one's political perspectives.

While there is ample evidence that scientific uncertainty is not the main reason behind opposition to action on climate change, advocates of Kyoto and emissions reduction policies more generally have seized upon claims of scientific uncertainty as the linchpin of their advocacy efforts (Why? Read this). In this way, the political debate over climate change takes place in the language of science, with some invoking "scientific uncertainty" as the basis for their preexisting ideological and political views, and others invoking "scientific certainty" (often in response to those invoking "scientific uncertainty"). Whether one likes it or not, claims of uncertainty map onto one political agenda and claims of certainty onto another political agenda. In climate politics there is no such thing as objective or unbiased science, it is all viewed through the lens of the political conflict.

The great irony here is that the debate of certainty and uncertainty is largely disconnected from the real reasons for political debate over climate change, which is based on a conflict over values. There may of course be those few folks whose political perspectives undergo "data-induced transformations" based on science but as Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay have observed "people generally come to their beliefs about how the world works long before they encounter facts."

If this assertion is close to being right, it means that opponents to action on climate change have already taken a big step toward winning the political debate when advocates of action take the bait on uncertainty. By raising uncertainty as a red herring advocates for action spend considerable time and effort trying to disprove allegations of uncertainty as the centerpiece of their efforts, but no matter how this sideshow winds up, it will do little to change the underlying political outcome, as the opponents can just switch their justification to something else while maintaining their political commitment to opposition. This is an exceedingly difficult line of argument for environmentalists and scientists to accept because the former have hitched their agenda to science and the latter's claims to authority lie in science.

The experiences of a new weblog run by a group of climate scientists, realclimate.org, provide a great example of this dynamic. The site claims to be "restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science." This is a noble but futile ambition. The site's focus has been exclusively on attacking those who invoke science as the basis for their opposition to action on climate change, folks such as George Will, Senator James Inhofe, Michael Crichton, McIntyre and McKitrick, Fox News, and Myron Ebell. Whether intended or not, the site has clearly aligned itself squarely with one political position on climate change. And by trumpeting certainty and consensus, and attacking claims to the contrary, it has fallen squarely into the uncertainty trap.

So if opponents to action on climate change want to distract the attention of some prominent climate scientists, they need simply write the occasional opinion article or give a speech in which they invoke uncertainty about climate change. Meantime, business as usual pretty much gets a free pass.

It would be wonderful if opponents to action on climate change would stop hiding behind science. But the efforts of those scientists who take them on the basis of science are what allow then to hide in plain sight. The way out of this situation is not to engage in endless debate about climate science, but to question whether science is in fact the right battleground for this political conflict.

Posted on January 14, 2005 10:53 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

January 11, 2005

A Couple of Newsletters and Essays

Our newsletter, Ogmius, is out today with an essay by Mike Rodemeyer, Director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, titled, “Science, Genetically Modified Foods, and the Rumsfeld Doctrine”. He writes,

“The lack of prior experience with biotech foods, combined with the perceived lack of benefit and the absence of any trusted proxy on the safety issue, has led to the current skepticism about safety and hostility toward biotech foods in Europe and other parts of the world. More assurances from scientists that such concerns are misplaced are unlikely to change the dynamic. Fears about the “unknown unknowns” can be overcome only through experience and trust, neither of which can be earned overnight.”

Read the whole thing here.

ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes has their email newsletter just out as well. The feature a perspective by Oxford University’s Steve Rayner titled, The International Challenge of Climate Change: Thinking Beyond Kyoto. He writes,

“Unfortunately, support for Kyoto has become a litmus test for determining those who take the threat of climate change seriously. But, between Kyoto’s supporters and those who scoff at the dangers of leaving greenhouse gas emissions unchecked, there has been a tiny minority of commentators and analysts convinced of the urgency of the problem while remaining profoundly sceptical of the proposed solution. Their voices have largely gone unheard. Climate change policy has become a victim of the sunk costs fallacy. We are told that Kyoto is “the only game in town”. However, it is plausible to argue that implementing Kyoto has distracted attention and effort from real opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect society against climate impacts.”

Read the whole thing here.

Posted on January 11, 2005 08:21 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Biotechnology | Climate Change

January 07, 2005

Climate Change and Reinsurance, Part II

Part I made the case for a clear conflict of interest when reinsurers attribute or project increasing disasters because of climate change. Part III will explore the question, to what extent will climate change be responsible for increasing disasters and disaster costs in the future?

Now in Part II we turn to the merits of these claims, which are made by many beyond just some in the reinsurance industry. This post looks backwards and asks, is climate change responsible for the growth in disasters and disaster costs up to the present? The answer, detailed below, is "Not at all." There is no scientific basis for attributing the increasing trend in disasters to changes in climate, regardless of cause. This is for two reasons. First, the IPCC has found very little evidence for trends in weather extremes, both in its 1996 and 2001 reports. Second, given the magnitude of growth in disasters, there is clearly much going on beyond any possible changes in climate. The reason for increasing loses lies entirely with changes in societal vulnerability to disasters. Dan Sarewitz and I make this case in an article in The New Republic this week.

I was first drawn to this subject in 1995 when I was working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research with Mickey Glantz as a post-doc on a project on extreme weather events and impacts. At that time the trend of increasing disasters and disaster costs was clear. Munich Re observed this in a 1996 press release:

" the trend towards ever more and ever costlier catastrophes continues. In comparison with the 1960s, five times as many natural catastrophes occur nowadays, costing the world's economies - taking inflation into account - eight times and the insurance industry fifteen times as much. The Munich Re sees the main reasons for this trend in the increasing concentration of population and values in the cities, which are constantly growing in size and number and are often located in high-risk zones, and in the greater susceptibility of modern industrial societies to disruptions in the infrastructure."

And in this press release Munich Re was cautiously speculating at changes in climate as a factor contributing to the increasing disasters:

"What is more, in many regions of the world the increasingly discernible changes in the environment and climate are leading to a greater probability of new extremes in terms of temperatures, amounts of precipitation, water levels, wind velocities, and other parameters that are often finally reflected in catastrophes. This is why the Munich Re has long been pleading for measures to be taken with a view to curbing man-made changes in the environment."

But that same year the IPCC released its Second Assessment Report in which it found that while weather extremes varied over different times and places, it could find no coherent secular global trend of increasing extreme events:

"There are inadequate data to determine whether consistent global changes in climate variability or weather extremes have occurred over the 20th century. On regional scales there is clear evidence of changes in some extremes and climate variability indicators (e.g., fewer frosts in several widespread areas; an increase in the proportion of rainfall from extreme events over the contiguous states of the USA). Some of these changes have been toward greater variability; some have been toward lower variability."

So if extreme weather events were not clearly increasing in frequency or magnitude, but disasters were increasing dramatically, then the obvious explanation had to do with, as Munich Re stated, changes in characteristics of populations vulnerable to disasters. So we initiated a range of research projects to explore the sensitivity of trends and projections in disasters to climate factors and societal factors. The results of this research have been about 20 or so peer-reviewed papers that present a consistent message: The historical trend of growing disasters and disaster losses can be explained entirely by changes in society that create greater vulnerability to those losses. Given that the IPCC found in 1996 that there were no apparent trends in weather extremes, this conclusion makes perfect sense. When Munich Re speculated in 1996 about changes in the climate as a cause of increasing disasters, they were simply wrong. They were right when they concluded that the main reasons for the trend of increasing disasters was to be found in societal change.

Now, have things changed in scientific perspectives on extreme events over the past decade? No.

Losses have continued to increase, and the IPCC still has not identified any secular trends in weather extremes, with only one exception. The IPCC found no long-term global trends in tropical or extra-tropical cyclones (i.e., hurricanes or winter storms), in "droughts or wet spells", or in "tornados, hail, and other severe weather". What it did find was "a widespread increase in heavy and extreme precipitation events in regions where total precipitation has increased, e.g., the mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere." But perhaps paradoxically, it also found "an increase (or decrease) in heavy precipitation events may not necessarily translate into annual peak (or low) river levels". Indeed, while the IPCC found some changes in streamflow, it did not identify changes in streamflow extremes, i.e., floods, and concluded on a regional basis, "Even if a trend is identified, it may be difficult to attribute it to global warming because of other changes that are continuing in a catchment."

So the picture painted by the IPCC in 2001 had considerable more nuance than in 1996, but the underlying message changed very little. The IPCC found no trend in extremes that could explain any of the increasing losses related to extreme events. During this time I was participating in several projects looking at the complex relationship of precipitation and flood damages. We concluded,

" an analysis of the damage record shows that at a national level any trends in extreme hydrological floods are not large in comparison to the growth in societal vulnerability. Even so, there is a documented relationship between precipitation and flood damages, independent of growth in national population: as precipitation increases, so does flood damage. From these results it is possible to argue that interpretations in policy debate of the various recent studies of precipitation and streamflow have been misleading. On the one hand, increasing "extreme" precipitation has not been the most important factor in documented increase in flood damage. On the other hand, evidence of a lack of trends in peak flows does not mean that policy makers need not worry about increasing precipitation or future floods. Advocates pushing either line of argument in the policy arena risk misusing what the scientific record actually shows."

So yes, increasing precipitation contributes to increasing flood damage, but the precise amount of this increase is small and hard to identify in the context of the much larger effects of growing societal vulnerability to flood damages. For the details of our analysis, and an explanation for why regional and local trends are much more significant than global trends for considerations of flood damage, see this paper:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., and M.W. Downton, 2000: Precipitation and Damaging Floods: Trends in the United States, 1932-97. Journal of Climate, 13(20), 3625-3637.

And this report:

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that there is absolutely no scientific basis for attributing any part of the global, decades-long trend of an increasing number of disasters and disaster losses to changes in climate, irrespective of the reasons for those changes. As Dan Sarewitz and I argued in The New Republic this week those who perpetuate such claims, whether they are in the reinsurance industry, the UN, advoacy groups, or the scientific communtiy, are either "ill-informed or dishonest."

Having discussed the past, in Part III we will turn our attention to the future and ask, to what extent will climate change be responsible for increasing disasters and disaster costs in the future?

A Final Note:

To be fair I should be cautious about tarring the reinsurance industry with too broad a brush. Many in the industry are very responsible in making claims about the science of disasters. For example,

"Swiss Re is a specialist in reinsurance: it insures smaller insurers against large-scale disasters. Its records of disasters since 1970 indicate that the rate of natural catastrophes accelerated in the 1990s, which is also the decade when rising global temperatures have become clearly apparent. But Swiss Re executive Henner Alms said the company was "cautious" about attributing this directly to man-made climate change."

Posted on January 7, 2005 11:07 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 06, 2005

Climate Change and Reinsurance, Part I

Many scientists, policy makers and activists are quick to point out when industry misuses science or has a conflict of interest when making scientific claims. And right they should. Examples are familiar --smoking, drug approval tests, Erin Brockovich, the fossil fuel industryand climate change and so on. Even though conflicts in interest abound, Iam sure that the vast majority of folks in industry don't misuse science. But because industry can bring so many resources to promote its interests, its advocacy efforts can have a disproportionate impact.

However much to my surprise, not only does the reinsurance industry get what amounts to a free pass from scientists and advocates when they make claims about climate change and disasters, but the United Nations, home to the venerable IPCC, and advocacy groups often partner with reinsurance experts to advance their agenda. Not only does this not make sense for intellectual reasons, as the UN's IPCC is supposed to be the authority of climate science (why do they need reinsurance industry backup?) but also for pragmatic reasons. Doesn't the UN realize that if it partners with a conflicted reinsurance industry, whether or not its claims are correct, itsets the stage for people (like me in this post) to point out this uncomfortable fact? Before evaluating the substance of claims made by reinsurance companies about climate change and disasters, let's first ask if reinsurance has ac onflict in interest when making claims of increasing disasters related to climate change.

The reinsurance industry makes money, by and large, through income that it earns on its investments, and not through the differences between what it collects in premiums and pays out for disasters. But its premiums are important from the standpoint of not just being able to pay out when disasters strike, but crucially for creating a reserve of funds that can be invested and thus generate income for shareholders. The greater the reserve, then the greater the potential income. It seems like pointing out the obvious that the reinsurance industry has a powerful vested interest in charging the highest rates that the market will bear for its products. And the prospect of more disasters means a basis for charging higher rates. Thus, for the moment setting aside whether or not recent disasters are caused by climate change, it seems pretty clear that when the reinsurance industry say that disasters will get worse in the future, they have a clear conflict in interest. The following statements would appear to bear this out:

Consider the following Bloomberg news story from earlier this week:

"Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, expects damage from natural disasters to rise ``exponentially'' in the coming years, triggered by human-driven climate changes such as global warming. We're seeing, and this is also shown by the models, that climatic changes will speed up, and that damages will probably not rise just linearly but exponentially,''Peter Hoeppe, Munich Re's head of Geo Risks Research, said in an interview. Weather-related disasters will probably occur with greater frequency and intensity, prompting customers to boost insurance coverage,he said."

And consider this statement from a Deustche Welle article from last October:

"As a business, then, Munich Re says it has to take the current trend of global warming into account. One way to do this is to passing some of the risk on to the customer. "Premiums will have to be increased relatively,"[Munich Re's] Gehard Berz said. "And we have to let our customers know that we, as reinsurer, also have to take more big catastrophes into account, and thus need greater cash reserves. That is our main problem.""

When the reinsurance industry makes claims of increasing disasters, from the perspective of conflict of interest, this is no different than a fossil fuel interest promoting that science that best supports their interests. And it is important to point out that as interests, there is nothing wrong with industry or anyone else promoting its perspective as best it can. There are of course plenty of folks out there watching carefully induustry's scientific claims.

The situation becomes problematic when the supposed honest broker, the United Nations, partners with an industry that has a clear conflict of interest. So to the uniformed outsider a perception may be created of symmetry - oil and gas has its biases and matches up with corresponding political interests, and on the other side, the reinsurance industry has its biases and it also matches up with corresponding political interests. This symmetry lends itself to the view among some that climate change is all about competing political interests, and not much about science.

Because of the reinsurance industry's obvious conflict of interest on climate change, the UN and its IPCC should eschew partnering with it to promote science or politics (or both simultaneously), regardless of the truth or falsity of the claims being made by the reinsurance industry. If the UN IPCC wants to serve as an honest broker then it need to either partner inclusively with diverse set of stakeholders with conflicting interests or simply avoid partnering only with those selected industries that happen to share its biases. And the community of scientists and advocates who are quick to criticize the oil and gas industry (and rightlyso) when it has a conflict of interest or misuses science, should think carefully about giving a free pass to those industries whose conflict of interest happen to be more convenient.

All of this is more significant because the claims about disasters being made by some in the reinsurance industry, and promoted by the UN and others, are simply wrong. Stay tuned for Part II.

Posted on January 6, 2005 10:15 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

January 05, 2005

Naomi Oreskes Misquoted by VOA

Author: Naomi Oreskes

Dear Colleagues,

Some folks have been commenting unfavorably about a press release issued by Voice of America, to accompany a recent interview I did with them. I would urge you to listen to the interview, because the press release misrepresented my comments. In my interview, I was at pains to emphasize that the recent tsunami has nothing to do with global warming, and it would be a mistake to imply that it did. I did say, however, and stand by the comment, that these events do illustrate the extreme vulnerability of millions of impoverished people, who live in coastal areas, to the kinds of effects that global warming may produce, and that poor countries are less able than wealthy ones to protect themselves.

The press release also misquoted me with respect to the causes of global warming, saying that I said that "agriculture also contributes to Global Warming by producing carbon dioxide." In fact, I said that agriculture contributes to global warming through methane production, which was part of trying to make the point that we are all implicated in global warming, rich and poor, industrialized and non-industrialized, and therefore it behooves us to work together, rather than to point fingers.

Naomi Oreskes

Posted on January 5, 2005 11:05 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Climate Change

December 27, 2004

Shadow Boxing on Climate

I am amazed by the recent attention being paid to the issue of a scientific consensus on climate change. Naomi Oreskes wrote an article a few weeks back in Science, claiming that a literature review shows that a central statement of consensus reported in the IPCC is indeed a consensus. Since that article was published, debate and discussion (see here and here) has taken place on, among other things, whether it is in fact a unanimous perspective rather than the overwhelming view of most scientists.

Yesterday Oreskes published an op-ed in the Washington Post repeating her arguments. She writes,

“There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it. The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Program, the IPCC is charged with evaluating the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action. In its most recent assessment, the IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities . . . are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents . . . that absorb or scatter radiant energy. . . . [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."”

I agree 100% with her assertion that we need to “… start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.” But I have a hard time identifying those at the focus of Oreskes’ complaint. Who is it that objects to the IPCC consensus statement? And if these people can be found (one place to look first is climate-related blogs) why do they matter from a policy perspective? I can identify a few influential people who do not seem to be among the dissenters with respect to the IPCC statement Oreskes focuses on.

Bjorn Lomborg: “There is no doubt that global warming is happening or that it is important. Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels will increase Earth's temperature. That is likely to have an overall negative effect.”

Ronald Bailey: “The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide which is accumulating in the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 parts per million in 1750 to 372 ppm today. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat as it is being radiated out into space and re-radiate back toward the surface.”

Fred Singer: “In fact, the IPCC statement is in many ways a truism. There certainly must be a human influence on some features of the climate, locally if not globally.”

Patrick Michaels: “It has been known since 1872 that water vapor and carbon dioxide are the principal "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere, and that increasing their concentration should elevate the temperature in the lower atmosphere. What has been a subject of contention ever since, is the amount and character of the warming.”

George W. Bush: “First, we know the surface temperature of the earth is warming. It has risen by .6 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years. There was a warming trend from the 1890s to the 1940s. Cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s. And then sharply rising temperatures from the 1970s to today. There is a natural greenhouse effect that contributes to warming. Greenhouse gases trap heat, and thus warm the earth because they prevent a significant proportion of infrared radiation from escaping into space. Concentration of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have increased substantially since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity.”

Oreskes is absolutely right that we need to open discussion on climate policy options, because the ones now on the table are not up to the task (e.g., see this report by the Pew Center on Climate Change). But we are fooling ourselves if we think that trying to quiet any dissenting voices on the science of climate change is a prerequisite to action. As Oreskes has written in a recent paper on scientific proof in policy debates, “In recent years, it has become common for opponents of environmental action to argue that the scientific basis for purported harms is uncertain, unreliable, and fundamentally unproven. In response, many scientists believe that their job is to provide the “proof” that society needs. Both the complaint and the response are misguided.”

It may be that because the policy challenges of climate change are so frustrating and difficult, a natural reaction is to disengage from matters of policy and retreat to the familiar comfort of arguing about science. But it is thoughtful discussion of policy that we now need.

Posted on December 27, 2004 08:11 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 22, 2004

What is climate change?

In 2003 I made an argument that the FCCC definition of climate change is an obstacle to action. A short version of this argument was published here (the longer version in press as part of special issue in ESP):

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2004: What is Climate Change?, Issues in Science and Technology, Summer, 1-4.

Considerable evidence for this perspective can be found in the summary report from the IISD on COP-10, which includes the following telling excerpt:

"Least developed countries - some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change - failed for the second consecutive year to secure a decision for full-cost funding of adaptation through the Global Environment Facility (GEF). All financial resources for the LDC Fund are channeled through the GEF. The problems encountered by the LDC Fund shed light on the core problem of addressing adaptation in the context of the UNFCCC. Adaptation is an integral part of development, and as such, no project directed at adaptation will fall squarely within the scope of the UNFCCC, but will rather have components that include other aspects of development, such as disaster preparedness, water management, desertification prevention, or biodiversity protection. This problem was highlighted with great honesty by a GEF project director who said that when projects fall under many categories, rather than being easily adopted due to their clear synergies and multiple benefits, they become more complex and difficult to approve due to a series of successive revisions needed by different focal areas.

To add to this problem, adaptation projects are generally built on, or embedded in, larger national or local development projects and, therefore, the funding by the GEF would only cover a portion of the costs. In other words, if a country seeks funding for a project on flood prevention, the GEF would only be able to finance a portion proportional to the additional harm that floods have caused or will cause as a result of climate change, and the rest would have to be co-financed by some other body. The plea from LDCs, particularly the SIDS, lies precisely on this paradox, in that even if funds are available in the LDC Fund, their difficulty of finding adequate co-financing, and the costly and cumbersome calculation of the additional costs, renders the financial resources in the LDC Fund, in practice, almost inaccessible."

The FCCC’s narrow definition of climate change is incompatible with that used by the IPCC and is also a real obstacle to action. This needs more discussion in the community.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2004: What is Climate Change?, Issues in Science and Technology, Summer, 1-4.

Posted on December 22, 2004 10:46 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

National Post Op-Ed

Yestreday’s National Post, a Canadian newspaper, carried an op-ed by Terence Corcoran that discussed my 20 December 2004 post on Misuse of Science by UNEP.

A few quick reactions to his discussion:

Mr. Corcoran overall does a nice job relating our perspective, though he is clearly opposed to the Kyoto Protocol, calling it a “giant dead albatross.” From my perspective, while Kyoto or any extensions are not effective tools for modulating the future impacts of climate, there are good reasons why emissions reductions make sense (read this article) and why Kyoto may be politically attractive for the United States (read this post).

He gets my perspective slightly wrong when he says that I am talking about “weather assertions.” My post was not about the frequency of extreme weather events per se, but about trends in the economic impacts associated with extreme weather events. The distinction may seem subtle, but it is absolutely essential to understanding long-term trends. Even so, as recently as the IPCC’s Second Assessment report the scientific community was unable to identify any global trends in the incidence of extreme weather events. But even if there are trends and projections showing an increase (or even a decrease!) in such events, the impacts associated with them both historically and in the future are dominated by social and demographic trends and not climate per se. In other words, expect the economic costs associated with weather extremes to increase dramatically in coming decades no matter what the climate does.

One point should be made clear. Our work on the impacts of extreme events does not lend support to or opposition to Kyoto Protocol, or any other policy related to emissions reductions. It only becomes relevant to this debate when those advocating for the Kyoto Protocol make allegations about past and future weather impacts that are completely contrary to our findings. Our work then becomes a valuable resource to cite for those who are opposed to the Kyoto Protocol. But thi would not occur if UNEP and others would properly justify their arguments in the first place. Meantime, our job is to call ‘em as we see ‘em and hope that this can be a constructive contribution to better aligning arguments made on all sides in political advocacy with the robust finding from our research.

Posted on December 22, 2004 10:39 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 20, 2004

Misuse of Science by UNEP

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a press release last week that clearly misuses science to advance a political agenda. On what basis do I make this claim? The UNEP press release contains assertions that are squarely contradicted by a substantial body of research colleagues and I have published in the peer-reviewed literature. The misuse of science here is unambiguous.

UNEP is linking the economic impacts of extreme weather in 2004 to human caused climate change and then suggesting that emissions reductions are central to reducing those impacts.

Our research (a concise introductory summary can be found here) clearly shows that a connection between emissions reductions, which may indeed be worth pursuing for other reasons, and future economic impacts related to climate is all but nonexistent. How can this be? Trends in the growth in impacts related to extreme events are dominated overwhelmingly by growing population and wealth in places exposed to weather events, and not trends in the events themselves. We simply cannot modulate future damages via emissions reductions. Instead it is necessary to focus on the reduction of damages by reducing vulnerability, a strategy long-advocated within the hazards community.

Here is what UNEP says in the press release:

“Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) … said: “Climate change is already happening with rapid melting of the Arctic and glaciers world wide. Climate scientists anticipate an increase and intensity of extreme weather events and this is what the insurance industry is experiencing resulting in year on year losses. In many developing countries the impacts of high winds and torrential rains are aggravated by a variety of factors ranging from the clearing for forests making hilly slopes more vulnerable to land slips and slides to a lack of enforcement of building codes. Reducing vulnerability and helping poorer nations cope with the ravages of climate change is vital. Some experts estimate that for every one dollar invested in disaster preparedness, you will save six dollars in reconstruction costs,” he said. “However, it cannot be an alibi for inaction on emission cut backs. In the end, many smaller countries like low-lying small island developing states and countries like Bangladesh, can only adapt for so long before they are eventually over come by the impacts of storm surges and rising sea levels,” said Mr Toepfer… Thomas Loster, a senior executive and climate expert with Munich Re which is part of UNEP’s Finance Initiatives, said: “As in 2002 and 2003, the overall balance of natural catastrophes is again clearly dominated by weather-related disasters many of them exceptional and extreme. Indeed 98 per cent of all losses for 2004 and about 100 per cent of insured losses were weather driven. We need to stop this dangerous experiment human-kind is conducting on the Earth’s atmosphere. According to our latest findings, economic losses from January to October are in the order of $ 90 billion. The average value of the last ten years has been $ 70 billion. Insured losses, driven by weather or climate-related disasters, will amount to more than $ 30 billion, making 2004 the costliest natural catastrophe year ever for the insurance industry world-wide. There are indications that the figures will further increase, “ he said. “I would urge delegates and governments here in Buenos Aires to make a strong commitment to a post Kyoto agenda otherwise the industry’s appetite to finance and insure projects under the instruments of the Kyoto Protocol, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, will be blunted,” said Mr Loster”

And here is how a Bloomberg news article reported on the release: “Hurricanes and other extreme weather caused more than $90 billion of losses in the first 10 months of the year, showing the economic cost of climate change caused by global warming, the United Nations said.”

When the head of UNEP (and the head of the IPCC, see here) insist on misusing science in support of a political agenda, it damages the overall credibility of the IPCC, UNEP and the climate science community generally. And it is made worse because the scientific community stands silently by.

Posted on December 20, 2004 12:28 AM View this article | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 15, 2004

IPCC-FCCC Issues at COP 10

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) performs an invaluable service by providing daily updates from the meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change. This week the IISD is providing daily updates from COP-10 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The IISD’s report of a briefing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change held on Tuesday, 14 December 2004, raises some interesting issues.

First, the report notes that in his presentation, “Rajendra Pauchari (sic), IPCC Chairman, described IPCC’s mandate, noting that its main purpose is to provide comprehensive scientific assessments that are relevant to policy makers without being prescriptive.” The notion of “relevant, but not prescriptive” is not a clearly defined concept in the IPCC, and it seems to mean in practice that the IPCC will lend support to those policies that it deems important and ignore others, without providing any transparency to this process to outside observers. This is not policy neutral, close to being policy prescriptive, and may or may not be policy relevant. We have discussed this challenge here. The IPCC needs some help thinking about and shaping its role in climate policy.

The IPCC’s odd stance on issues of policy means, oddly enough, that it does not engage in a systematic discussion of post-Kyoto options for climate change and instead focuses its attention on options already on the table, which is a guarantee that the IPCC will be politicized and a great waste of effort, given that the world needs new options on the table. Such a concern was made apparent in the IISD report: “Harald Dovland, Norwegian Ministry of the Environment … expressed concern over the number of [FCCC] SBSTA members attending IPCC meetings, noted the risk of politicizing the IPCC …” The concern expressed about the number of FCCC participants in the IPCC process suggests that the IPCC is increasingly view as a subsidiary instrument of the FCCC and not an independent, honest broker on climate change policy more generally. In its first assessment the IPCC played more of an honest broker role.

A second issue is a comment attributed to Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC Chairman, “Regarding the fourth assessment report due in 2007, he said the working group on basic science needs to reduce key scientific uncertainties.” Given that the IPCC doesn’t actually do any new research, it simply assesses existing research and provides a comprehensive synthesis; it is very difficult to understand how the IPCC can “reduce uncertainties.” At best it can characterize uncertainties. Pushing the IPCC to reduce uncertainties can itself foster politicization of the process. More generally, it is the very notion that reducing uncertainties is a prerequisite to effective policy action on climate change that has helped to foster the state of gridlock we are in today. It seems like gridlock is here to stay for a while.

A final comment is that Dr. Pachauri, “indicated that the IPCC reports are not subject to external evaluation.” Who evaluates the IPCC? Who is it accountable to?

It seems that some very fundamental issues related to the IPCC – its role in policy, its handling of uncertainties, its processes of evaluation and accountability -- are being overlooked.

Posted on December 15, 2004 07:38 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

December 08, 2004

Confusion, Consensus and Robust Policy Options

"Consensus science can provide only an illusion of certainty. When consensus is substituted for a diversity of perspectives, it may in fact unnecessarily constrain decision-makers' options."

Naomi Oreskes, a scholar who I have a lot of respect for, caused a stir last week when she published an article in Science making the shocking claim that the consensus reflected in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) appears to reflect, well, a consensus.

Like others, I think that it is clear Oreskes' claim that there are no papers in the climate literature that disagree with the consensus is simply wrong. In fact, logically, this would have to be the case. The word "consensus" means "the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned". Most is not all. The word "unanimity" means, "having the agreement and consent of all." I have seen in email traffic a claim made that there are some 11,000+ articles on "climate change" referenced in the ISI database, and of these about 10% somehow contradict the consensus position.

But so what?

If that number is more like 1% or more like 40% it doesn't seem to me to make any difference whatsoever from the standpoint of policy action. Of course, one has to be very careful using the imprecise phrase "policy action" because people tend to read into that a particular course of action that they themselves advocate. So let me be very clear. In the IPCC one can find statements to use in arguing for support of the Kyoto Protocol. But as well, in the IPCC one can find statements to use in arguing against supporting the Kyoto Protocol. And the same is true for any specific course of action on climate change. The IPCC does not point to, support, or lend credence to any single course of action. There is without a doubt an infinite array of policy options on climate change consistent with the knowledge represented in the IPCC.

So in addition to arguing about the science of climate change as a proxy for open policy debate, we now can add to that arguments about the notion of consensus on the science itself as a proxy for open political debate. My perspective is that neither of these debates should matter, are both a distraction from progress on climate change and a reflection of the tendency of all involved in the debates to politicize climate science. The actions that we take on climate change should be robust to (a) the diversity of scientific perspectives, and (b) the diversity of perspectives of the nature of the consensus. A consensus is measure of central tendency, but it necessarily has a distribution of perspectives around that central measure, and almost all of this distribution is well within the bounds of legitimate scientific debate. Our policies should not be optimized to reflect a single measure of central tendency, but instead, to be robust enough to accommodate the distribution of perspectives around that central measure, thus providing a bit of a buffer against the possibility that we might learn more in the future (on this see the excellent work of Rob Lempert).

For more on my perspective read this essay: Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2001: Room for doubt. Nature, 410:151.

Here is an excerpt from that essay:

"Consider once again global climate change. For many years, policy debate has centred on the degree of certainty that decision-makers ought to attach to competing visions of the future climate. Lost in this doomed enterprise is the point that climate will certainly have an increasingly strong effect on the environment and society, simply because of growing vulnerability related to factors such as population, wealth and use of land. If a goal of climate policy is to reduce the effects of climate on the environment and society, then effective action need not wait until we are more certain about details.

Seen in this light, efforts to reduce uncertainty via 'consensus science' - such as scientific assessments - are misplaced. Consensus science can provide only an illusion of certainty. When consensus is substituted for a diversity of perspectives, it may in fact unnecessarily constrain decision-makers' options. Take for example weather forecasters, who are learning that the value to society of their forecasts is enhanced when decision-makers are provided with predictions in probabilistic rather than categorical fashion and decisions are made in full view of uncertainty. As a general principle, science and technology will contribute more effectively to society's needs when decision-makers base their expectations on a full distribution of outcomes, and then make choices in the face of the resulting - perhaps considerable - uncertainty."

Posted on December 8, 2004 01:15 PM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science Policy: General

December 07, 2004

Research as Climate Policy

From an article in Voice of America News is this telling quote from U.S. Senior Climate Negotiator Harlan Watson:

“The United States has been criticized for not ratifying the protocol, but the climate negotiator says U.S. environmental efforts should not be scorned by other nations. "I challenge them to match us," he said. "As they say, we spend more on science and technology than anyone else in the world by far." He adds that the United States has spent roughly $23 billion on climate change science since 1990, more than the rest of the world combined.”

Last year Dan Sarewitz and I wrote of this approach to climate change,

“Our position, based on the experience of the past 13 years, is that although the current and proposed climate research agenda has little potential to meet the information needs of decisionmakers, it has a significant potential to reinforce a political situation characterized, above all, by continued lack of action. The situation persists not only because the current research-based approach supports those happy with the present political gridlock, but more uncomfortably, because the primary beneficiaries of this situation include scientists themselves. Things are unlikely to change for the better unless the climate research community adopts a leadership role that places societal responsibility above professional self-interest.”

What would this mean?

First and foremost it would mean abandoning the justification frequently advanced for climate change science that continued investments in climate research will lead to reduced uncertainty which will enable decision making.

Instead climate research has great, and largely untapped, potential to contribute to an expansion of climate policy options available for decision makers’ consideration. On climate change, policy makers don’t need more information, they need more choice.

Posted on December 7, 2004 02:17 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 29, 2004

Declare Victory and Move On?

The Kyoto Protocol is going to come into force. Yet many countries are failing to meet their emissions reductions targets. Thus, isn’t it a bit premature to be talking about Kyoto in the past tense?

“I don't want to water it down but (Kyoto targets) were the low-hanging fruits," Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Programme in a Reuters news story.

Posted on November 29, 2004 12:05 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 24, 2004

Clear Thinking on Climate Change

Oxford's Steve Rayner is one of the most brilliant minds around on the issue of climate change. This document, which we are pleased to provide in full, is an invited memorandum to the Environmental Audit Committee of the United Kingdom's House of Commons. The title of the memo is "The International Challenge of Climate Change: UK Leadership in the G8 and EU." Rayner writes,

"In the end, climate policy comes down to a question of values - not science. The decision to proceed with effective climate policies cannot wait for a dramatic precipitating event. In fact, it's hard to visualize what such an event might be. But without one it seems that public pressures on government and private sector decision makers may not be sufficient to get them to take and sustain necessary actions. We also know that the public is more likely to be moved by disaster to support emergency relief than it is to offer sustained support for development assistance. Mobilizing public values rather than scientific consensus is the key to successful climate action. These may be good reasons to focus more attention than hitherto on adaptation policies that are more directly linked in the public imagination to the consequences of climate change than is the issue of emissions."

The entire memo should be required reading for anyone interested in the realities of climate policy and clear thinking in the face of those realities. The whole memo can be found here.

Posted on November 24, 2004 05:44 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 18, 2004

Hyperbole and Hyperbole Police

A particularly interesting example of hyperbole on the climate issue was sent in by John Fleck (Thanks!). The incident is interesting no so much because of the hyperbole itself, but because scientists, including some closely affiliated with the IPCC, were willing to take a public stand on the hyperbolic statements.

Here is an excerpt from the New Zealand Herald article that discussed the incident:

""The winner of one of New Zealand's top science medals, Professor Peter Barrett, has backed off a controversial claim that humanity faces extinction within 100 years because of global warming.

Dr Barrett, who was presented with the Royal Society's Marsden Medal in Christchurch last night, gave the Christchurch Press notes for his acceptance speech in which he planned to say: "If we continue our present growth path we are facing extinction - not in millions of years, or even millennia, but by the end of this century."

After a storm of criticism, he changed the word "extinction" in his speech last night to "the end of civilisation as we know it".

Dr Barrett, 64, the director of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre, has used ancient air particles trapped in Antarctic ice to show changes in carbon dioxide are linked with changes in the polar ice sheets and the Earth's climate. His work has been widely cited in the world's scientific journals.

But his own colleagues were embarrassed yesterday after his initial speech notes were reported. "I certainly wouldn't be using that language," said Dr Jim Salinger, the lead author for the Australia and New Zealand chapter of the next global assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Good for Jim Salinger and good for the IPCC.

Posted on November 18, 2004 10:46 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 15, 2004

Hyperbole Watch

Following up from a post last week we thought it might be useful to post examples of excessive hyperbole on the climate issue – from all perspectives on the issue. We’ll do this when we see them or when you send them in. Here are a few:

Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas writing for Tech Central Station 11 November 2004 say, “A recent study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research by scientists from Princeton and Duke Universities indicates massive wind farms would significantly increase local surface drying and soil heating, which in turn would impact agricultural or range use on or near the wind farm… Wind farms may not be as benign to the environment and weather as its promoters say”. Question for Drs. Soon and Baliunas: Why so quick to highlight the implications of this single climate modeling study, when in the past you have criticized such models as not being “sufficiently accurate” to guide policy?

"You can kiss the planet goodbye," James Gustave "Gus" Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, in The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky, 13 November 2004. Speaks for itself.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), speaking of the United States and arctic peoples in a 13 November 2004 BBC news article, "The short-term economic policy of one country should not be able to trump the entire survival of one people." The BBC article states, “Indigenous people from the Arctic have urged the US to cut greenhouse gas emissions to slow down the current thaw of the polar ice.” Questions for the cryospheric community: What is the relationship between U.S. economic policies and the rate of arctic ice changes? Can we modulate future arctic ice thickness with economic policies? Any studies on these questions?

Posted on November 15, 2004 12:15 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 09, 2004

A Hyperbolic Backlash

On occasion here at Prometheus we've observed that within the scientific community proponents of action to mitigate climate change have an increasing tendency to misjustify, overstate, or misuse science in support of their agenda. By engaging in such hyperbole, the scientist-advocates are, ironically enough, adopting some of the exact same tactics that opponents of action to mitigate climate change have been criticized for by many of the exact same proponents of action.

For example, today's Seattle Times contains an article that provides a window into the conflict that is festering within the scientific community about using hurricanes, and in particular the 2004 hurricane season, as a justification for changes to energy policies. Here is an excerpt:

""Four hurricanes in a five-week period could be a harbinger of things to come," said Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Epstein is among a group of scientists from Harvard and the National Center for Atmospheric Research - a consortium of 68 universities funded by government and private grants - who argue that a rise in global sea temperatures is putting more moisture into the air, increasing the chances not only for more intense hurricanes but also for more rain and severe storms throughout the year. And they say this is only the beginning. Warming, they contend, is an underlying factor contributing to droughts in the
Midwest, heat waves in Europe and typhoons in Japan. Other scientists dispute that gloomy appraisal... "You can never attribute a single season, or even several seasons, to something like global warming," said Gerry Bell, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. Bell and other NOAA scientists say it's wrong to blame warming for an increase in the number or severity of recent storms... Bell said that blaming global warming for recent storms is overlooking the obvious. "It's like if you see someone take a blowtorch to a house and the house burns down, then arguing that it was the summer heat that caused the fire and overlooking the blowtorch," Bell said. "We don't need to be looking for some amorphous signal that may or may not be there.""

Based on my own research, even if global warming has or will affect hurricanes it is a misjustification to assert that this supports changes in energy policies. The requisite corollary to this statement is that there are plenty of other good reasons for climate mitigation. And recently behind the scenes, I have become aware that this debate over hurricanes is having some implications for scientists within the IPCC and how some policymakers perceive the activities of scientists taking overt advocacy positions.

In addition, today a UK-based group called the International Policy Network (IPN) released a report titled, "The Impacts of Climate Change" which observes:

"The views of pundits and politically motivated activists from myriad disciplines are often aired in the debate about climate impacts. Raising fears of future harms, these people promote proposals which, if implemented by policymakers, would often be more detrimental to humanity than the alleged harms they seek to prevent."

The authors of this report have identified what they believe is some hyperbole in the climate debate and are using that hyperbole as an opening to advance their own political agenda. It is important to note that the IPN mission statement tells us a lot about their political perspective:

"International Policy Network believes that markets and their underlying institutions harness human potential better than any other institutional arrangement, and are the best way to address the poverty and tragedy faced by many people in the world." Their report seeks to head off ad hominem attacks on their work at the outset, writing in the introduction:

"... pundits and activists are able to offer a moral certainty to policymakers that scientists cannot likewise offer. Undoubtedly, some of the former will cast aspersions on the motives of those who contributed to this document. In their minds, those who choose to challenge the 'conventional wisdom' of human-induced climate apocalypse are either the mouthpieces of big corporations, or they are deluded, or both. Other critics will regurgitate the old chestnut that 2500 scientists of the IPCC have reached a consensus. Or, more absurd, 'most scientists' say this or that ... To those who choose the ad hominem approach to criticism: read this report and investigate the scientific literature The motivation of this report is to redress the balance in this debate, and to inspire
policymakers and others to take a more balanced approach."

Let me state that in no way do I endorse the political agenda of the IPN or their report on climate change. But I can say that in the areas of the IPN report that I have expertise (and 4 of my papers are referenced in the report's Section 5) they have not misused my work.

Criticisms such as those reported in the Seattle Times and the IPN are made possible by the hyperbolic excesses of those pushing for certain political outcomes related to climate change. A danger of using science to justify a political agenda is that, by itself, the science may not compel a certain outcome, and thus there are strong incentives to push the science into the realm of hyperbole. The consequences for both science and policy can be serious, with a loss of legitimacy at risk for the former and gridlock for the latter.

I remain optimistic that the IPCC scientific community will to some degree police the public hyperbole, at least among its own, but so far with only a few exceptions the community has remained mute.

Posted on November 9, 2004 03:47 PM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

November 02, 2004

Politics and the IPCC

Recently we discussed actions of the director of the IPCC and political advocacy, “If the IPCC's role is indeed to act as an honest broker, then it would seem to make sense that its leadership ought not blur that role by endorsing, tacitly or otherwise, the agendas of particular groups. There are plenty of appropriate places for political advocacy on climate change, but the IPCC does not seem to me to be among those places.”

Well a recent story from the Environmental News Network suggests that R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has continued to engage in political advocacy. Here is an except from the story:

“Although saved recently with Russian help, the Kyoto pact on global warming offers too little to arrest climate change and governments should adopt more radical solutions, the top U.N. climate expert said. "My feeling is that we will probably need to do more than most people are talking about" to combat climate change, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He welcomed ratification of the Kyoto pact by Russia's lower house of parliament, paving the way for the long-delayed 1997 accord to enter into force in the 126 nations that approved it, even though the world's greatest polluter, the United States, pulled out in 2001. "This mustn't lull us into thinking that the problem is solved," Pachauri said. "Kyoto is not enough. We now have to look at the problem afresh." Kyoto is a first step towards curbing emissions of gases like carbon dioxide, mainly from burning fossil fuels, that scientists blame for trapping heat in the atmosphere like the panes of glass in a greenhouse. Rising concentrations could melt icecaps, swamp low-lying coastal regions, and trigger catastrophic changes to the planet's climate with more volatile weather from typhoons to droughts. Pachauri urged the world to shift strategy from Kyoto's reduction targets for greenhouse gases to long-term global targets on how much of the gases the atmosphere should contain.”

Perhaps most troubling is that Dr. Pachauri explicitly linked his work under the IPCC to efforts in support of political advocacy:

“Pachauri leads work to produce a 2007 U.N. climate report based on research by more than 2,000 scientists, updating a 2001 assessment that concluded there was "new and stronger evidence" that human activities were to blame for rising temperatures. "My hope is that this (2007 report) will be able to fill gaps, reduce uncertainties, and produce a much stronger message," said Pachauri, who is based in New Delhi.”

These statements echo similar comments made by Dr. Pachauri in 2002 following his appointment as IPCC Director:

“There was a need for a dialogue on what commitments nations should make in a second wave after Kyoto, he said. "I think that the science must provide a compelling reason and a logic to take those steps, and this is what I hope the IPCC will be able to do in the future," he added.”

If the IPCC exists solely to motivate action on a particular policy alternative, then it risks becoming an instrument of marketing for decisions already made. This is a long way from where the IPCC was in 1990 when its Working Group III operated under a mandate to empower decision makers by “lay[ing] out as fully and fairly as possible a set of response policy options to global climate change and the factual basis for those options.” It is not at all clear what options on mitigation and adaptation are available for dealing with climate change in the post-Kyoto period, much less their relative costs and benefits, and if the IPCC determines what option should be advocated prior to an open and informed discussion, then it risks morphing into just another interest group selling a preferred solution on climate change, and in the process frittering away its science-based authority and legitimacy.

Folks in the IPCC ought to think carefully about continuing down the path of abandoning their role as honest broker.

Posted on November 2, 2004 12:45 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 25, 2004

More on Hurricanes and Climate Change

For some reason some members of the scientific community are pushing hard through the media to allege a direct connection between the Florida hurricanes of 2004 and human-caused climate change, so we’re going to revisit the topic (yet) again. Examples include here and here and here and here and here). This organized effort seems quite odd to me for two reasons:

1) There is a strong scientific consensus that if greenhouse gas emissions have an effect on hurricanes, these effects will be quite small as compared to the observed variability in hurricane frequencies and intensities. (See the primer below.)

2) There is overwhelming evidence that the most significant factor in trends in and projections of the damages associated with hurricane impacts is societal vulnerability to those impacts. (See this post and this post.)

One obvious reason for a group of scientists to invoke via the media a connection between this year’s storms and climate change is part of a strategy of political advocacy in support of greenhouse gas reductions. If the issue was simply scientific, then I’d assume that the scientists would just battle their differences out on the pages of peer-reviewed journals, far from the public eye. But the great irony here is that those who invoke the modulation of future hurricanes as a justification for changes to energy policies to mitigate climate change are their own worst political enemy. Not only do they provide a great opening for criticism of their reasoning and science, they are advocating a policy that simply won’t be effective. There are much, much better ways to deal with the threat of hurricanes than with energy policies. There are also much, much better ways to justify climate mitigation policies than with hurricanes.

Last week my colleague and occasional collaborator Chris Landsea, one of the world’s foremost experts on hurricanes, put together the following short primer on hurricanes and climate change, and I’ve shared it here with his permission:

Hurricanes and Global Warming
Chris Landsea (chris.landsea@noaa.gov)
---------------------------------------
There are no known scientific studies that show a conclusive physical link between global warming and observed hurricane frequency and intensity. Whatever suggested changes in hurricane activity that might result from global warming in the future are quite small in comparison to the large natural variability of hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones. For example, the latest GFDL global warming study suggested about a 5% increase in the winds of hurricanes 80 years in the future. This contrasts with the more than doubling that occur now in numbers of major hurricanes between active and quiet decades in the Atlantic basin.

Beginning in 1995, there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin. However, this increase is very likely a manifestation of a natural multi-decadal cycle of Atlantic hurricane activity that has been occurring likely for the last few hundred years. For example, relatively few Atlantic major hurricanes were observed in the 70s, 80s and early 90s, but there was considerable activity during the 40s, 50s and early 60s. Also, the period from 1944 to 1950 was particularly infamous for Florida - with 11 hurricanes hitting the state during those years.

Total U.S. direct damages from Atlantic hurricanes this year will be on the order of $30 billion, making it about equal to the most damaging year on record - 1992 with the landfall of Hurricane Andrew. However, such increased destruction from hurricanes is to be expected because of the massive development and population increases along the U.S. coastline and in countries throughout the Caribbean and Central America. There is no need to invoke global warming to understand both the 10 years of active hurricane seasons and the destruction that occurred both in Florida and in Haiti this season. The former is due to natural cycles driven by the Atlantic Ocean and the latter is due to societal changes, not due to global warming.

Posted on October 25, 2004 10:59 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Others | Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 12, 2004

On Cherry Picking and Missing the Point

In an op-ed for the Scripps-Howard news service 27 September 2004, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas cite the paper by Dan Sarewitz that was part of the special issue on “Science, Policy, and Politics” that I guest co-edit for the journal Environmental Science and Policy. They write:

“An upcoming journal paper in Environmental Science & Policy sheds some light on the distortion of climate science by "consensus" politics. Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State University, who was on one panel that authored a 2003 climate report for the National Academies of Sciences' National Research Council (NRC), provides an inside view of the NRC report's publication process, and details what outsiders may get as "consensus."”

Soon and Baliunas are well known for their political activities opposed to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. In particular they have highlighted the case that the scientific evidence does not justify regulation of emissions of greenhouse gases. As such they have, along with their colleagues and opponents, contributed to the “scientization” of the political controversy on climate change. Here is what Sarewitz has to say about “scientization”:

“Scientization of controversy also undermines the social value of science itself. In the absence of agreed upon values that can inform the articulation of social goals, we cannot recognize the broad range of policy options that might be available to achieve those goals, nor can we possibly know how to prioritize scientific research in support of the goals. Scientific resources end up focused on the meaningless task of reducing uncertainties pertinent to political dispute, rather than addressing societal problems as identified through open political processes.”

So my interpretation of Sarewitz’s paper is that he offers no support for Soon and Baliunas (or, for that matter, their opponents who lean on science) effort to suggest that the “science” compels a particular political outcome. Instead, he is suggesting that we instead need a “third way” on science in politics. A good concise perspective by Sarewitz can be found here.

For Soon and Baliunas to cite Sarewitz in support of their political agenda seems to me to be an example of “cherry-picking” his text and completely missing the main point of his paper.

Posted on October 12, 2004 08:41 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 07, 2004

Interesting Email

The announcement below appeared in my email inbox from the Climate-L folks. Note who is responsible for funding the upgrade of the UN FCCC website. Give the U.S. stance on Kyoto, I wonder what is going on there, perhaps a paving of the way for a reentry into the negotiations?

"The UNFCCC secretariat is pleased to announce the relaunch of its official website, which will take place on 11 October 2004.

This relaunch will conclude a major project designed to make information more accessible, introduce a revised navigation structure and automate information management.

The relaunch has been made possible through a generous contribution from the United States of America and has benefited from feedback provided by 450 Party representatives, IGOs and NGOs.

The secretariat hopes that the new website will enhance communications and access to information about the climate change process."

Posted on October 7, 2004 10:00 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

(Mis)Justifications for Climate Mitigation

Last week’s Science has a very interesting exchange (subscription required) between Indur M. Goklany, of the Office of Policy Analysis, U.S. Department of the Interior and Sir David A. King, Chief Scientific Adviser to U.K Prime Minister Tony Blair and Head of the Office of Science and Technology.

Goklany writes that King justifies action to mitigate climate change on the argument that because "of continued warming, millions more people around the world may in future be exposed to the risk of hunger, drought, flooding, and debilitating diseases such as malaria. Poor people in developing countries are likely to be most vulnerable." Goklany responds to this justification by considering the case of malaria:

“… the population at risk of malaria (PAR-M) in the absence of climate change is projected to double between 1990 and the 2080s, to 8,820 million (2). However, unmitigated climate change would, by the 2080s, further increase PAR-M by another 257 to 323 million (2). Thus, by the 2080s, halting further climate change would, at best, reduce total PAR-M by 3.5% [=100 x 323/(323 + 8,820)] (3). On the other hand, reducing carbon dioxide emissions with the goal of eventually stabilizing carbon dioxide at 550 ppm would reduce total PAR-M by 2.8% (2) at a cost to developed nations, according to King, of 1% of GDP in 2050 (p. 177), or about $280 billion in today's terms (4). But malaria's current annual death toll of about 1 million could be halved at an annual cost of $1.25 billion or less, according to the World Health Organization, through a combination of measures such as residual home spraying with insecticides, insecticide-treated bednets, improved case management, and more com!
prehensive antenatal care (5). Clearly, implementing such measures now would provide greater malaria benefits over the next few decades than would climate stabilization at any level. It would also reduce vulnerability to malaria from all causes--man-made or natural--now and in the future (3).”

This is a powerful point that deserves a response. Does it make sense ethically and scientifically to invoke malaria as a primary justification for climate mitigation? King’s extremely weak response is to avoid the issue:

“There is no real choice between action on climate change and action on poverty, disease, hunger, and other millennium development goals. These are part of the same sustainable development agenda. Climate change is already affecting developing countries, and it is the poorest regions of the world--such as Africa and Southeast Asia--that are most at risk. The many people who have died and the millions now homeless through the monsoon flooding in Bangladesh will bear witness to that. This kind of event can be expected to become more frequent and more extreme as global warming accelerates, exacerbated by rising sea levels.”

Goklany’s more general conclusion on the importance of vulnerability reduction is well supported by our own research. He writes:

“Similarly, reducing present-day vulnerabilities to the other risk factors mentioned by King (i.e., hunger, water shortage, and flooding) could well provide larger benefits at lower costs over the next few decades than would climate change mitigation efforts that go beyond so-called "no-regret" actions, that is, actions that are worth undertaking on their own merits unrelated to any climate change-related concerns (e.g., elimination of subsidies for fossil fuel usage or land clearance) (3).”

Goklany’s letter is much stronger when he discusses what we ought to be doing on malaria, rather than what we ought not to be doing on energy policy. Goklany misses the fact that the same sort of argument that he presents on vulnerability can also be applied to energy policy, i.e., there are powerful reasons to address energy policy, and climate mitigation is but one of them

The reality is that justifications advanced by folks like King for climate mitigation matter a great deal. They matter for resource allocation decisions on climate policies as well as on science policies. Decisions must be made because allocated because money, time, attention, etc. are scarce, and contrary to what King says, choices about priorities have to be made.

But there is a deeper reason why justifications matter having to do with symbolism, science, democracy, and the framing of problems in a way that motivates particular actions. If the justifications used to advance a particular cause don’t stand up to close scrutiny, then it probably makes sense to rethink policy as the actions advocated may not address the concerns explicit in the justifications. Further, when justifications do not match results, it raises the possibility that those doing the justifying have some unstated agenda. This opens the door for gridlock and a lack of accountability in the decision making process.

Of course, I am squarely in the camp that thinks that climate mitigation policies are presently hopelessly misjustified, but I also believe that that there are strong and valid justifications for changing our approach to energy policies in ways that will reduce the human influence on climate. The biggest challenge facing real (not symbolic) progress climate policy today is not political or technological, but in how we think about the problem.

Posted on October 7, 2004 09:42 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 06, 2004

Scientists and the Politics of Global Warming

Let’s do an experiment …

Last week Von Storch et al. published a paper (registration required, PDF) in ScienceExpress that claimed that the so-called “hockey stick” temperature record of the past 1,000 years is flawed (for a popular summary of the “hockey stick” see this BBC story and for scientific details see the home page of Michael Mann. Yesterday in the New York Times Andy Revkin provided a nice summary of the new paper and its scientific significance.

Last year when a paper by Soon and Baliunas (PDF) was published in the journal Climate Research that criticized the so-called “hockey stick” record of global temperature trends, I commented in an article by David Appell in Scientific American, “You'd be challenged, I'd bet, to find someone who supports the Kyoto Protocol and also thinks that this paper is good science, or someone who thinks that the paper is bad science and is opposed to Kyoto."

(Aside: Von Storch resigned (Thanks to D. Appell for the link) as incoming editor of Climate Research over CR’s handling of the Soon/Baliunas paper, and was paraphrased saying of Soon/Baliunas “[Their conclusions] may be true, Von Storch said, but it is not supported by evidence cited in the paper.”)

And I wrote of the CR dust up in a recent paper (PDF) on the politicization of science by scientists, “… advocacy groups opposed to the Kyoto Protocol predictably hailed the [Soon/Baliunas] research as “sound science,” while advocacy groups in support of the Protocol called the paper “junk science”. In this case, more troubling than the “cherry picking” of scientific results by advocates is that many scientist’s evaluations of the scientific merit of the Climate Research paper correlated perfectly with their public expressions of support or opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. Acceptance of the paper’s conclusions was equated with opposition to Kyoto, and correspondingly, rejection of the paper’s findings was equated with support for Kyoto.”

Today one advocacy group funded by the fossil fuel industry and on record as being against emissions reductions states bluntly in a moment of candor their view why this putatively scientific debate matters: “Why are so many researchers concerned with reconstructing a thousand years of Earth's climate history? Some will argue it's actually a political debate; to the winner goes the spoils - passage of or withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol by governments worldwide.”

So, in this highly politicized atmosphere, given how many scientists spoke out in support of or against Mann et al.’s “hockey stick” it will be very interesting to see reactions among scientists to Von Storch’s new paper. (It won’t be so interesting to see how advocacy groups react, as it will be completely predictable.) Specifically, given the close connection of support or refutation of the earlier paper with explicit political agendas, scientists who were critical of Soon and Baliunas may be very hesitant to comment on Von Storch et al., except in a negative way. Conversely, we can expect howls of support from those scientists who supported Soon/Baliunas. So, this suggests a few hypotheses to test in our little experiment:

1. From scientists critical of Soon/Baliunas and supportive of Mann et al. (and for the most part supportive of Kyoto), expect very little in the way of public comment on Von Storch et al.

2. From scientists supportive of Soon/Baliunas and critical of Mann et al. (and for the most part opposed to Kyoto), expect to be hearing lots of reaction to Von Storch et al.

In other words, let’s see if the scientists behave just like the advocacy groups. If these hypotheses are anywhere close to reflecting what goes on, we’ll have some good evidence for how it is that politics influences that practice of climate science. Here at Prometheus we’ll be watching and will report back soon.

Posted on October 6, 2004 08:53 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

October 04, 2004

Exemption Requested from Data Quality Act

The 29 September issue of the Wall Street Journal (p. 18) has a short editorial (subscription required) that observes:

“We've long been skeptics about the science behind the political campaign to regulate greenhouse gasses, so imagine our surprise to discover that some of the global warmists seem to agree. How else to read a paragraph that was included in a recent Senate spending bill exempting climate programs from having to pass scientific scrutiny? The legislative language excuses any "research and data collection, or information analysis conducted by or for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration" (the agency charged with monitoring climate change) from the Data Quality Act, a new law that requires sound science in policymaking. This is the sole exemption in the bill.”

I have no information on this requested exemption other than what the WSJ reports, however, if their interpretation of events has some truth to it …

“Nobody is rushing to take credit for the proposed exemption. But our sources say it was included at the request of Democrats on the Senate subcommittee that wrote the spending bill in question, but that now the exemption is getting the attention of Chairman Judd Gregg, who says he intends to remove it.”

… then whatever the underlying justification, the mere act of trying to win an exemption from the DQA is likely to enhance the legitimacy of the DQA as a “filter” on science and, in my view, may enhance rather than reduce the politicization of science. Stay tuned.

Posted on October 4, 2004 01:20 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 29, 2004

Hurricanes and Climate Change: On Asking the Wrong Question

Today’s New York Times editorializes on hurricanes and global warming, a popular topic these days.

“Mr. McCain, a co-sponsor with Senator Joseph Lieberman of a bill to impose mandatory caps on industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, also ventured where few politicians have dared to go, drawing a link between this calamitous hurricane season and climate change. This is not farfetched: because hurricanes draw their intensity from the heat in ocean waters, and because the oceans (like the rest of the world) are gradually getting warmer, a growing number of reputable scientists say hurricanes are likely to grow in intensity and destructive power, if not frequency.”

Most everyone’s attention is focused on the question, “Will global warming lead to more and/or more intense hurricanes?” and, just as implied in the Times editorial, the answer to the question is received as a proxy for support or opposition to efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. But this is the wrong question. A more appropriate question in the context of policy is the following, “When compared to other available options, how effective are greenhouse gas regulations as a means to modulate future impacts associated with hurricanes (given that the future incidence of hurricanes may indeed be affected by greenhouse gases)?”

This question is almost never asked or answered. In 2000 with colleagues Bobbie Klein and Dan Sarewitz I sought to address this question in our research and we published the following paper:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., R.A. Klein, and D. Sarewitz, 2000: Turning the Big Knob: Energy Policy as a Means to Reduce Weather Impacts. Energy and Environment, Vol. 11, No. 3, 255-276.

I also provide a less technical summary of the same analysis in my 2002 Senate Testimony:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2002: Statement of Dr. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. to the Committee on Environment and Public Works if the United States Senate, Hearing on Economic and Environmental Risks Associated with Increasing Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

In that testimony I conclude:

“An implication of this work is that policy related to societal impacts of climate has important and under-appreciated dimensions that are independent of energy policy. It would be a misinterpretation of this work to imply that it supports either business-as-usual energy policies, or is contrary to climate mitigation. It does suggest that if a policy goal is to reduce the future impacts of climate on society, then energy policies are insufficient, and perhaps largely irrelevant, to achieving that goal. Of course, this does not preclude other sensible reasons for energy policy action related to climate (such as ecological impacts) and energy policy action independent of climate change (such as national security, air pollution reduction and energy efficiency). It does suggest that reduction of human impacts related to weather and climate are not among those reasons, and arguments and advocacy to the contrary are not in concert with research in this area.”

To my knowledge these findings are extremely robust from a scientific standpoint, having been published in a wide range of peer-reviewed literature, and have not been refuted. Yet, such findings are just about completely ignored. Very interesting.

Posted on September 29, 2004 10:02 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 20, 2004

Climate Models, Climate Politics

An article (registration required) in the New Scientist from this past summer highlights how politicized the practice of climate modeling has become (thanks to John Fleck for the link). The article focuses on how understandings of climate models have become more complex as models become more sophisticated. Here are the story’s last two paragraphs:

“Some climate scientists find these new figures disturbing not just for what they suggest about the atmosphere's sensitivity to greenhouse gases, but also because they undermine existing predictions. Uncertainty about those predictions is stopping politicians from acting to halt global warming. So, they argue, even suggesting that the model results are less certain could be politically dangerous.

But other climate scientists fear creating a spurious certainty about climate change. Since we don't know what the future holds, they say, we shouldn't claim to know. These people see the predictions of climate models as less like a weather forecast and more like a bookmaker setting odds for a high-stakes horse race. There are no "dead certainties". They say that humanity has to act prudently and hedge its bets about future climate change in the absence of certainty. We will, they argue, never be able to see through the clouds, and politicians will just have to accept that.”

An opinion in today’s Tech Central Station by Anthony Lupo shows how climate models are used to political effect:

“Indeed, most of the reporting about catastrophic consequences of climate change are said to have been produced by the latest and most advanced computer modeling technique, so called Climate Circulation Models, or GCMs … Some are optimistic that the support for the global warming theory among the faithful scientists and activists may be about to collapse on itself and it is possible that the increase in frightening rhetoric coming from this crowd through the media is a sign that they are growing more desperate. If this is true, that is a good sign, but it must be cautioned that it took years to build up support for the theory among the general population through these scary scenarios. Since these activists tend to have a political agenda that accompanies their support for policies intended to fight global warming, they will not stop trying to implement this agenda, at least until "The Day After November 2nd".”

Of course, characteristics and output of climate models are used also by proponents of action on climate change. From the WWW site of the Union of Concerned Scientists is this blurb, “California Must Act. A new UCS study shows the Golden State's economy, environment, and public health could suffer severe consequences if it fails to reduce the heat-trapping emissions that cause climate change.”

An irony of this situation is that those who criticize models as inadequate to guide policy are made possible by those who invoke models as windows to the future. This circle of conflict is reinforced by the scientific community as it presses ahead with model development leading to new models, new projections, and new uncertainties that sustains the rhetorical needs of both sides. Missed in this debate, at least by the proponents of action, is that if you are arguing about climate models, you have lost your focus on climate policy, because victory in the scientific debate over models will not lead automatically to a political or policy consensus on climate. For the opponents of action on climate change, mobilizing debate on climate models means control over the scope of discussion on climate policy (and crucially, whether or not the modeling debate is won or lost). And for proponents of action, arguing about models has thus far been an irresistible trap.

But perhaps in the future we’ll be hearing more from those largely silent scientists who espouse the following, unattributed perspective in the New Scientist article (registration required), “There are no "dead certainties". They say that humanity has to act prudently and hedge its bets about future climate change in the absence of certainty. We will, they argue, never be able to see through the clouds, and politicians will just have to accept that.”

Posted on September 20, 2004 08:48 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 13, 2004

Hurricanes and Climate Change

Since I’ve been asked a few times I thought that it might be worth posting an analysis of hurricanes and climate change from work I’ve been involved in. Below is an extended excerpt from a 1999 paper I collaborated on, looking at trends in hurricane incidence and their policy relevance. Even though the paper was published more than five years ago, I think that the analysis remains sound.

Landsea, C. L., R. A. Pielke, Jr., A. Mestas-Nuñez, and J. Knaff, 1999: Atlantic Basin Hurricanes: Indicies of Climate Changes. Climate Change, 42, 89-129.

Here is a link to the paper in PDF.

The paper can also be found here in HTML.

Begin extended except …

“Climate change policy

In 1996, Working Group III of the IPCC estimated increased worldwide damages and loss of life related to hurricane impacts in a doubled CO2 world at $630 million and 8,000 additional lives lost (Watson et al. 1996). Working Group III concluded that these economic losses and lives lost would be prevented with the adoption of emissions reductions policies. There is an obvious inconsistency between the projections by IPCC Working Group III of increased impacts and the conclusions of Working Group I, which stated that ``the state of the science does not allow assessment of future changes" in tropical cyclone indices.

Setting aside for the moment this inconsistency, the logic of the IPCC Working Group III is fundamentally flawed. Even if there were valid theoretical reasons to expect more tropical cyclones in the future related to human-caused climate change, the climatological record gives no indication that society can modulate hurricane impacts through energy policies. That is, as atmospheric CO2 levels have increased, ``there is currently no evidence that there has been systematic changes in the observed tropical cyclones around the globe" (Landsea 1998). The suggestion by the IPCC that a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will lead to less or less intense tropical cyclones and therefore less impacts to society begs several further questions of relevance to the policy community which have thus far gone unasked and unanswered:

Can the scientific community reliably differentiate future hurricane frequencies and magnitudes based on the various scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations (i.e., IS92a-f from Houghton et al. 1992)?

The analysis of climatological information presented in this paper suggests that for many decades to come, detection of a human-forced signal in the tropical cyclone record will be extremely difficult to detect because of both the relatively modest size of the predicted changes in MPI and the rather large apparently natural multidecadal variability (cf. Henderson-Sellers et al. 1998). Therefore, it is unrealistic for policy makers to expect in the near term (i.e., in the next few years) that the scientific community will be able to reliably predict future hurricane incidences differentiated by various emissions scenarios. As Henderson-Sellers et al. (1998) have noted ``global and mesoscale model-based predictions for tropical cyclones in greenhouse conditions have not yet demonstrated prediction skill."

Is there reason to believe that policy makers should expect the policy actions now being contemplated (e.g., the Kyoto Accord to the Framework Convention on Climate Change) will reduce the number of and intensities of future hurricanes that will impact society?

There is no evidence to suggest that society can intentionally modulate tropical cyclone frequencies and magnitudes through energy policies2. Therefore, policy responses to hurricanes ought to focus on the reduction of society's vulnerability to hurricanes, rather than on prevention of the storms themselves (Pielke and Pielke 1997b). For instance, in the context of insurance, Henderson-Sellers et al. (1998) recommend a focus on ``appropriate reserves and restrictive underwriting" rather than on accurate predictions, or by extension, on controlling future hurricane incidences.

Answers to these questions do not exclude the possibility that an anthropogenic forcing might lead to changes (Henderson-Sellers et al. 1998). They do strongly suggest that reliable prediction of future hurricane indices (much less societal impacts) differentiated by various emissions scenarios is beyond the capabilities of the scientific community. Further, if a policy objective is to reduce society's vulnerability to hurricane impacts, then decision makers would be wiser to consider better adapting to documented variability, rather than preventing storms from occurring (Pielke 1998)3.

Natural disaster policy

One of the most striking features of the information presented in section four of this paper are the 19 years which passed between intense hurricane landfalls on the U.S. East Coast from 1966 through 1984. These decades saw much of the population growth and development of coastal communities. Overall, the 19 years prior to 1966 saw 14 intense hurricanes strike the U.S. East Coast. Most of the historical economic losses are the result of storms striking the U.S. East Coast rather than the Gulf Coast (Table 7). Consider also that over the seven year period 1944 to 1950, the state of Florida saw $44.2 billion (normalized to 1995 values, see Pielke and Landsea 1998) in losses, or more than $6 billion per year, while the 46 year period 1951 to 1997 saw a similar total amount of normalized damages, $49.3 billion or about $1.1 billion per year. Most of the damages of the latter period were the result of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

The review of indices for hurricane climatic changes reveals that from the perspective of societal impacts, recent decades are indeed anomalous. But contrary to conventional wisdom of some in the media, public, and policy communities, recent decades are unique because of the relative infrequency of U.S. landfalls of strong hurricanes, and not because of any upsurge in strong storms (cf. Landsea et al. 1996). Hurricanes arguably are the natural hazard with the greatest potential for economic disruption in the United States, and further, the potential for a large loss of life related to a hurricane's landfall is increasing with coastal development (Pielke and Pielke 1997a). Because the nation's hurricane policies have been typically developed in the immediate aftermath of a disaster (Birkland 1997, Simpson 1998), it would be prudent for the policy community to assess whether or not the lack of hurricane impacts in recent decades has led to an atrophying of the nation's hurricane policies. Some questions to consider include:

Are national, state, and local hurricane policies supported by public and private decision makers in a manner commensurate with the documented vulnerability of society?

How prepared is the U.S. east coast for 14 intense hurricanes in 19 years as occurred in the 1940s-1960s?

How prepared is the nation, and Florida specifically, for a recurrence of the hurricanes of the late 1940s?

Is the time ripe for the United States to develop a national hurricane policy?

Asking and answering questions like these are important steps in reducing the nation's vulnerabilities to hurricane impacts. One benefit of past hurricane impacts is that society has learned many lessons. These lessons provide a basis of experience on which to reduce the nation's vulnerability to hurricane impacts (Pielke and Pielke 1997a). What seems to be lacking is awareness of whether the nation's risk is matched by its response.”

… end of extended excerpt.

Posted on September 13, 2004 12:20 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

September 03, 2004

Population, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and US-Europe Negotiations

Have international negotiations on climate change failed to adequately address the role of population growth in they structure of international policies?

Consider that the Kyoto Protocol is currently being negotiated on the basis of individual countries contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions based on a 1990 reference point. But this approach biases the Protocol in favor of countries with low population growth rates, as population growth is a significant factor in growing greenhouse gas emissions. Consider these facts:

According to the Population Reference Bureau from 2004 to 2025 the United States is expected to increase in population from 294 million to 349 million (1990 = 249 million). Over this same period, Europe is expected to decrease in population from 728 million to 722 million (1990 = 722 million).

What this means is that assuming that European greenhouse gas emissions remain constant on a per capita basis, then Europe need only follow business-as-usual to equal its 1990 emissions in 2025, as its population is expected to decrease back to 1990 levels. By contrast, the United States is projected to see a 40% increase in its population between 1990 and 2025. This means that for the U.S. to revert back to its 1990 level of emissions it would need to see about a 30% decrease in its per capita emissions.

Based on expected population trends, any treaty based on the total greenhouse gas emissions of countries will strongly favor Europe over the United States. Perhaps this helps to explain not only why U.S. policy makers have not signed on to Kyoto, but also why it has been so easily embraced by European policy makers.

(On per capita emissions see this post.)

Posted on September 3, 2004 09:25 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | International

September 02, 2004

You Heard it Here First

I have no idea who is going to win the upcoming election (though for perspectives see this site and this site). However, if George W. Bush wins, Gregg Easterbrook thinks that “A reelected Bush, if he wants to win favor with historians, will have to do something impressive, statesmanlike, and out of character. Which is why I think a second-term Bush will be the president who imposes global-warming controls.”

While Mr. Easterbrook is most likely not a Prometheus reader, should Bush win a second term and engage the climate issue, just remember our commentary from July 12, 2004:

“While the United States is all but certainly not going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol under any conditions, is just a matter of time, perhaps less than a year, before the United States reengages in the Kyoto process under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. I think that this reengagement in the process will likely occur under a President Kerry or a President Bush.”

If Bush loses or wins and stands fast on his climate policies … well, never mind.

Posted on September 2, 2004 08:22 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 31, 2004

Climate Models and Policy

The primary justification for public investments in climate models is that these tools will help to inform decision making related to climate. Of course, for many scientists, climate models are worth creating and studying regardless of their possible utility. But I think it is safe to say that the resources devoted to climate models would be much less if they were only of intrinsic merit.

In this light an article by Andy Revkin in today’s Science Times of The New York Times raises some difficult questions for the climate modeling community. The article carries with it the headline, “Computers Add Sophistication, but Don't Resolve Climate Debate.” The article observes, “…advances in research on climate change do not guarantee that a consensus will soon be reached on what to do about it. Computer models of climate, particularly, have become a lightning rod in the climate debate, and are likely to remain so for years to come.”

In fact, ASU’s Dan Sarewitz makes the provocative case in a recent paper that advances in science in fact may make environmental controversies worse. It is an article of faith among many that more climate science, and in particular, predictive (or projective, or scenario generation, etc.) results from computer models, will facilitate action on climate change. But what if this assumption is wrong?

One difficult question that might be asked is how we might evaluate the policy utility of climate models. [For some thoughts on this see this book.] By contrast the evaluation of climate models scientific progress according to scientific standards is fairly straightforward. A recent article in the UCAR Quarterly on the new version of the NCAR climate model describes some of these criteria:

Resolution: “The high-res CCSM3 features four times the number of data points as CCSM2 for its land and atmosphere components.”

Speed: “Benchmark tests using CCSM's atmosphere and ocean components showed Lightning to be 30% to 40% faster per processor than Blue Sky, the larger IBM cluster used since 2001 for much of NCAR's climate modeling.”

Expandability: “Much of the improvement in CCSM3 is in the model's foundation for follow-up work, such as in biogeochemistry and land-atmosphere interactions.”

But the article provides some reasons for thinking that the science of modeling can never be completed. Consider the following statements:

“The quest for resolution continues, especially in the realm of clouds and convection. Cloud particles form on scales of microns (0.00004 inches), while cloud formation is now simulated in global models on scales closer to 100 km (60 mi). "So there are 11 orders of magnitude separating us from the fundamental phenomena. What we're trying to do is start bridging that gap," says [NCAR scientist William] Collins.”

“Of course, each improvement in a component model makes it more challenging to produce full interactivity in the overall model. That task promises to keep Collins and his colleagues busy for model generations to come. "We're building a railroad from the east to west coast," he says, "and we haven't yet driven the golden spike."”

“Preliminary results indicate that the new version yields greater surface warming than the last version when carbon dioxide is increased to twice its present-day value. Several scenarios for emissions suggest that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 could double by 2100. Researchers have yet to pin down exactly what is making the CCSM3 more sensitive to CO2 …”

[Comment: Today’s climate models are so sophisticated that virtual worlds created in the models can be studied by climate modelers in as much detail as other climate scientists study the real earth.]

And according to NCAR’s Collins, "The model development never ends."

From the perspective of policy makers, never ending model development may not seem particularly attractive. This places climate modelers in a difficult position. If on the one hand, they make the case that models are currently good enough for the needs of policy makers, then they undercut their best justification for significant funding. But on the other hand, if they say that models are not good enough for the needs of policy makers, then they undercut justifications for action on climate change.

I am on who thinks that climate models are very important to both science and policy, just not in the way that has been conventionally assumed. For more on this see our book on Prediction.

Posted on August 31, 2004 08:19 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 27, 2004

USGCRP and Policy Relevance

Some additional thoughts on the latest climate change flap resulting from an article in yesterday’s New York Times …

The USGCRP was developed in the late 1980s and formalized in legislation in 1990. (I have a lot of background information on this program because I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in 1994 on its attempts to structure scientific research to inform policy.) The program’s legal mandate calls for it to provide “usable information” to policy makers in response to the challenges of global change, and in particular climate change.

The program’s administrators and participants has treated issues of policy a bit like the proverbial “third rail” – stay away at all costs! It has proven politically expedient to focus instead almost exclusively on scientific research on the global earth system, which has led to a great deal of very good science, but very little information that might be considered “usable” by policy makers. In fact, the research done by the USGCRP has fed endless debate about the science of climate change -- a debate that at least in the eyes of the public, has long been settled.

In an article in today’s Washington Post, following yesterday’s New York Times article, the president’s science advisor John Marburger says the USGCRP annual report has, "no implications for policy." (Thanks to Chris Mooney for the link.)

Marburger’s statement that the USGCRP’s annual report, which reflects approximately $30 billion in public investment in the USGCRP over more than a decade, has “no implications for policy” can be interpreted as nothing other than a massive science policy failure.

How is it possible that the USGCRP was created to inform policy and a leading government official is able to dismiss the program as having no implications for policy? (For answers see this paper, this paper, and this paper.) Can we expect members of the scientific community who have benefited from billions of dollars in public investment in research justified by its policy relevance to stand up and argue that the program does in fact have a mandate to inform policy? (For an answer see this paper.)

Last year, Dan Sarewitz and I wrote of the USGCRP and its umbrella program the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP):

“As a member of Congress asked more than a decade ago: “How much longer do you think it will take before [the USGCRP is] able to hone [its] conclusions down to some very simple recommendations, on tangible, specific action programs that are rational and sensible and cost effective for us to take . . . justified by what we already know?” The organization of the current CCSP offers the following answer: Forever.”

If people desiring action on climate change policies want action, then rather than trying to “box in” the Bush Administration with science, they should instead use the words in law (Public Law 101-606) to hold the government accountable for developing “usable information for policy.” As it currently stands the President, Congress, scientists, and environmental and industry interest groups are happy to argue about the science as if settling that debate will bring us closer to addressing issues of climate and energy policy. It won’t. But a lever for action exists in plain sight.

Posted on August 27, 2004 10:20 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Striking shift? I don’t think so.

Yesterday we commented on a New York Times story that claimed to have identified a “striking shift” in the Bush Administration’s position on climate change. Today’s New York Time’s contains the President’s reaction to this claim:

“On environmental issues, Mr. Bush appeared unfamiliar with an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global warming. The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, "Ah, we did? I don't think so." Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, said later that the administration was not changing its position on global warming and that Mr. Bush continued to be guided by continuing research at the National Academy of Sciences.”

I think that our interpretation of events on this issue holds up pretty well.

Posted on August 27, 2004 10:14 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 26, 2004

The New York Times and Our Changing Planet

Every year since 1989 the U.S. Global Change Research Program has released a report titled “Our Changing Planet” which provides a concise overview of research conducted under the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) as well as a summary of program activities and agency budgets. (The reports from 1995 are available online here.)

Yesterday the USGCRP released its 2005 “Our Changing Planet” report. Somewhat surprisingly the New York Times today, in an article by Andy Revkin, sought to portray this report as a “striking shift in the way the Bush administration has portrayed the science of climate change.”

This is a surprise because the 2003 edition of “Our Changing Planet”, while perhaps somewhat more staid in comparison to the 2005 report, nonetheless contains numerous references to human-caused climate change and predictions of its future, negative impacts. The USGCRP is after all a multi-billion research program motivated by evidence that humans are causing climate change and the desire to develop policy responses. It is hard to see what the news here is. The fact that the 2005 report echoes much of the language of earlier reports does not seem to me to be a striking change or motivated by any possible “shift in focus” of the Bush Administration.

More fundamentally, it appears that some are trying to “box in” the Bush Administration by getting it to admit the consensus view on climate change. Highlighting the scientific consensus as reflected in federal agency documents has been one such strategy (e.g., see this 2003 NPR interview with Andy Revkin on his earlier reporting about how the Administration excised some text on climate change from an EPA repot). The thinking may be that if the Administration is forced to admit the science then particular policies are necessarily compelled. This is a good example of the “linear” thinking that I described (and criticized) in a recent paper on science in politics and policy. The thinking behind such strategies may be that if agreement can be reached (or forced, in this case) on the science, then agreement among political opponents must follow on policy actions.

But what if scientific consensus doesn’t compel political consensus? Specifically, what if the Bush Administration decides to publicly accept the scientific consensus on climate change but then maintains its business-as-usual approach to climate policy justified in terms of jobs or economics, or international trade? This concern was raised by one representative of an environmental group in the Times article:

“At the same time, the report did not please environmental groups, which have repeatedly criticized Mr. Bush for opposing efforts to require restrictions on the gases linked to global warming, though he has gradually come around to the position that warming is at least partly caused by emissions. "The Bush administration on the one hand isn't doing anything about the problem, but on the other hand can't deny the growing science behind global warming," said Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation.”

The New York Times' apparent strategy of playing “gotcha” with agency documents on the science of climate change is sure to set off an (another) extended series of debates about the science of climate change and who believes or admits what. If so, then score another point for those who desire inaction on climate change because endless debate over the science is about as close a proxy to inaction as you can find. In the end, those pressing the Bush Administration to admit the science of climate change may very well achieve this goal, but they will likely find it to be an empty victory as the Bush Administration can very easily admit the science and then justify its actions on a range of legitimate, non-scientific factors.

Posted on August 26, 2004 09:42 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 13, 2004

The Insanity of the Climate Change Debate

One definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. The climate debate is full of people who repeat the same behavior but expect different results.

On the one hand we have the self-described skeptics who seem to think that by highlighting uncertainties in science they can turn around the freight train that is public opinion, scientific consensus, and policy maker’s beliefs that human influences on the climate are worth addressing. In an essay published yesterday on TechCentralStation some familiar skeptics write, “The science is settled. The "skeptics" -- the strange name applied to those whose work shows the planet isn't coming to an end -- have won.”

I’d ask (or perhaps more accurately, request), does this victory mean that skeptics no longer feel a need to debate the science?

On the other hand are the technocrats who seem to think that solving the climate problem is simply a matter of “tuning” climate policies to the desired concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, presumably via some giant control panel with a big knob labeled (Global Atm. CO2 PPM) that policy makers can set like a thermostat. An example of this sort of view appears in an essay in today’s issue of Science where the authors write that “Humanity can solve the carbon and climate problem in the first half of this century simply by scaling up what we already know how to do.” Examples of such “simple” solutions include:

*Increase fuel economy for 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 mpg
*Add 700 GW (twice the current capacity) of nuclear power
*Decrease tropical deforestation to zero instead of 0.5 GtC/year, and establish 300 Mha of new tree plantations (twice the current rate)

What the technocrats fail to appreciate is that even as “solutions” such as increasing fuel economy, adding nuclear power, and eliminating tropical deforestation may be technologically feasible, seeing their actual implementation represents social and political challenges. Solving poverty, disease, and wars are also similarly “simple.” Overcoming these sorts of challenges are in reality not so simple, irrespective of the state of technology.

So if the climate debate were sane we’d stop arguing about issues of science and technology and instead start talking about society and politics, because we’d recognize that all the discussion of science and technology, no matter what side of the debate you are on is unlikely to lead to improvements in energy policies or a reduction in vulnerability to climate impacts. However, I have a sense that we will continue to debate the science and technology of the climate issue and expect different results than we’ve seen to date.

Posted on August 13, 2004 10:58 AM View this article | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

August 06, 2004

Follow up On Fate of TRMM

NASA issued a press release today detailing a reprieve of sorts for the TRMM satellite. (For our earlier discussions of this topic see this post. The press release states that "NASA will extend operation of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) through the end of 2004, in light of a recent request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."

But the press release also states that "NASA and NOAA have asked the National Academy of Sciences to convene a workshop next month to advise NASA and NOAA on the best use of TRMM's remaining spacecraft life; the overall risks and benefits of the TRMM mission extension options; the advisability of transfer of operational responsibility for TRMM to NOAA; any requirement for a follow-on operational satellite to provide comparable TRMM data; and optimal use of GPM, a follow-on research spacecraft to TRMM, planned for launch in 2011."

This statement seems a bit odd to me because it appears that NASA has already decided when and how to deorbit TRMM. And it seems unnecessary to convene a workshop in September to provide advice on how to use TRMM for its last 2 months (through November) after 7 years of successful operations. NASA and the scientific community know very well how to use TRMM.

The press release includes this statement, which seems to contradict the above, from Dr. Ghassem Asrar, Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, "It's important to note that we are able to extend TRMM for this brief period and are vigilant in maintaining our requirement for a safe, controlled re-entry and deorbit of the spacecraft." So what role exactly will the NRC Workshop play?

One concern is that the NRC Workshop will be used to provide a post-hoc rationalization for decisions already made about the future of TRMM. If so, then this would amount to a form of politicization of the NRC. By paying attention to who is invited to participate in this workshop (and who is not) we can get a sense of what perspectives are being advanced and which are not. As I have argued here in an earlier post the NRC would be better served by not recommending a single option, but a diversity of choices and their implications for decision makers to consider.

Posted on August 6, 2004 11:03 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Space Policy

August 03, 2004

Radio Interview Q&A

A Prometheus reader posted a few questions after listening to a radio interview on climate change I participated in last week. Here are a few replies:

Comment: “Your points about separating climate and energy policy are interesting. You argue that the climate problem, for a variety of reasons, hasn't galvanized the necessary support for mandatory GHG reductions. You then posit energy independence could serve as the real impetus. You may be right, but do you have any data (public opinion or otherwise) to support this argument?”

Reply: I don’t have any data simply because the approach I am recommending has not been tried. There is some indirect evidence, however. Opinion polls routinely show that among the public, national security is considered more important than climate change. Here is a recent example of such a poll conducted in the U.K. from the BBC. What we do have is considerable evidence on how well the current approach is working. And the evidence shows, as discussed here on numerous occasions, that the current approach is not working very well. At some point it may be worth considering alternative strategies, even if they are untested (or perhaps because they are untested). This was the gist of our 2000 article in the Atlantic Monthly. It may be that the current approach to climate is the best one possible; however, it seems that such an argument is an increasingly hard case to make, particularly since there are many options yet untried.

Comment: “Also, with increasing mandatory action on GHG emissions at the state level (with climate change serving as the rationale) and growing support for legislation like McCain/Lieberman, might we be near a tipping point where the climate problem resonates with politicians enough to influence energy policy effectively ? Or do you still believe energy independence/efficiency arguments will make a more compelling, sensible case?”

Reply: The latter. The state actions and McCain/Lieberman are in my view watered down versions of the current, failing approach to climate policy. For many folks these policies are no doubt symbolically important and emotionally satisfying, but from the standpoint of addressing future climate impacts, these policies are, to say the least, substantively wanting. Ultimately, the proof of performance of any of these policies will lie in (a) the global level of greenhouse gas emissions, and (b) the vulnerability of people and ecosystems to climate.

Posted on August 3, 2004 10:11 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Hodge Podge

July 28, 2004

Radio Interview

Today at 12:30 PM Pacific I’ll be appearing on a radio show called Against the Grain which is carried on KPFA 94.1 FM & KFCF 88.1 FM in Northern and Central California. The topic will be global warming. The program has a nice web archive, so we’ll post a link when available. You can also listen to it live online from this link.

Posted on July 28, 2004 09:39 AM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Hodge Podge

July 27, 2004

Distinguishing Climate Policy and Energy Policy: Follow Up

In a post of mine earlier this week I observed that the climate mitigation community has largely ignored the geopolitical rationale for reducing dependence on fossil fuels. In a comment a reader asks for links to a bit more detail on this assertion. Here are a few articles of mine on this topic.

See this 1998 paper and also a related analysis now under review that updates and extends the 1998 argument:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 1998: Rethinking the Role of Adaptation in Climate Policy. Global Environmental Change, 8(2), 159-170.

Pielke, Jr., R. A. (submitted). Misdefining Climate Change: Consequences for Science and Action, Environmental Science and Policy.

For a somewhat less wonky discussion see this 2000 article in The Atlantic Monthly I co-authored with Dan Sarewitz:

Sarewitz, D., R. A. Pielke, Jr., 2000: Breaking the Global-Warming Gridlock. The Atlantic Monthly, 286(1), 55-64.

Comments welcomed!

Posted on July 27, 2004 10:29 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

July 26, 2004

Distinguishing Climate Policy and Energy Policy

Yesterday’s New York Times included interesting story on the expected costs of climate change regulations to the auto industry. This excerpt is worth highlighting:

“"As a U.S. auto analyst, I'm very concerned about the risk side of the equation,'' said [John A. Casesa, an analyst at Merrill Lynch]. "For the domestic auto companies, we've had an accommodating energy policy, but there are new issues like climate change, and there are new geopolitical issues, defense issues, that relate to our energy policy.

"There's the potential for a confluence of events to occur,'' he added. "Americans could be more concerned about climate change, while at the same time we try to reduce our dependence on the Middle East for oil, for national security or political reasons. If these two strands come together, that would put a lot of pressure on policy makers, which would invariably lead back to higher fuel-economy standards.''”

For the most part, advocates of climate mitigation policies have ignored one of these strands.

Posted on July 26, 2004 09:35 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Energy Policy

Bipartisan Call to Save TRMM

Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chairman of the House Science Committee, has sent a letter to the President's Science Advisor, John Marburger, asking for his intervention to help prolong the TRMM satellite mission. The appeal to save TRMM is bipartisan. We'll link to Representative Boehlert's letter and press release when we find it on the House Science Committee site.

Posted on July 26, 2004 09:27 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Space Policy

July 23, 2004

An Appeal to the President to Save TRMM

A press release from the minority of the House Science Committee announces:

“Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), Ranking Member of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, sent a letter today asking President Bush to reverse NASA’s decision to terminate the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) later this year.”

The letter can be found here.

Rep. Lampson writes, “In the United States, both the National Hurricane Center and the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center use TRMM to reduce risk to lives and property from hurricanes and typhoons… I hope that you will intervene to help protect our citizens from the increased risk that would result from a termination of TRMM’s operations this year.”

Of course, if the President asks for hard evidence of increased risk, in response he will only get a suggestive anecdote or two. Three years ago we advised the TRMM community to conduct rigorous research on TRMM’s benefits to society specifically for situation such as this. You can lead a horse to water ...

Posted on July 23, 2004 11:01 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Space Policy

July 16, 2004

Clear Thinking on U.S. and Kyoto

Debra Saunders at the San Francisco Chronicle has this very perceptive essay on U.S. climate policy and politics in yesterday’s edition. An excerpt:

“WHEN SEN. JOHN Edwards addressed The Chronicle editorial board in February before the Democratic primaries, I asked him if he would ask the Senate to ratify the Kyoto global warming treaty. "Yes," the presidential candidate answered. Then, he added, he believed Sen. John Kerry shared his position. Wrong. The next day, when presidential candidate Kerry talked to The Chronicle editorial board, he said that he would not ask the Senate to ratify Kyoto. Now the Democratic Party has dropped support for Kyoto (a plank in the 2000 party platform) from the initial draft of the national platform for 2004… While Europeans generally see President Clinton as supporting Kyoto -- after all, his administration signed the pact -- Clinton never sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification, hence it was never official U.S. policy. More important, when Clinton left office in 2001, emissions were 14 percent higher than 1990 levels. Clearly Clinton was never serious about meeting the Kyoto goals. Clinton, no fool, knew how compliance with Kyoto would damage the U.S. economy. Emissions have fallen during the Bush years to 11.5 percent higher than 1990 levels…”

Read the whole essay.

Thanks to David Appell for the link.

Posted on July 16, 2004 10:19 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Update on European GHG Emissions

The European Environment Agency (EEA) released a report on Wednesday titled Annual European Community greenhouse gas inventory 1990-2002 and inventory report 2004 which contains some interesting data on GHG emissions in Europe. The EEA provided an overview of its findings in its press release announcing the report:

“The fall in 2002 took total EU15 emissions to 2.9% below their level in the base year used for calculations - 1990 in most cases. This represents an improvement on 2001, when emissions were only 2.1% lower than in the base year. But it still leaves the EU with a long way to go to meet its commitment, under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, to bring emissions in the period 2008-2012 to 8% below their base year level. Assuming the 8% reduction between the base year and 2008-2012 were to follow a linear path, emissions should have fallen 4.8% by 2002. On this basis, only four countries are on track to comply with the national targets that all pre-2004 member states have accepted under an agreement to ensure that the EU as a whole fulfils its Kyoto commitment. The four are France, Germany, Sweden and the UK (see annex for details). On the same basis, the other 11 pre-2004 member states are heading towards overshooting their emission targets, some by a substantial margin. This is the case particularly for Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Denmark and Greece. Spain faces a greater challenge to meet its target than any other member state. Its emissions in 2002 were 39.4% above their base year level – well over double the 15% increase it is allowed between the base year and 2008-2012 under the EU agreement.”

If you’d like to do some comparing, here are the U.S. estimates, and the U.S. Energy Information Agency press release is here.

It is data like this that led me earlier this year to write:

“Much has been made about the apparent differences between the United States and Europe on the issue of climate change. A close look reveals that from a practical standpoint these differences, while real and significant, may be more symbolic than substantive… The point here is not simply that Europe is struggling to meet its Kyoto commitments or that the United States is a profligate emitter of greenhouse gases, but that under the current approach to climate policy the stated intentions of policy makers and the general populace do not appear to make a large difference in policy outcomes with respect to in actual greenhouse gas emissions. In short, with very few exceptions industrialized countries that have signed on to Kyoto have seen their emissions increase and so too have countries that have turned down Kyoto.”

Reference: Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2004: L'Apocalisse Prossima Ventura (Italian Version). Darwin, May, 52-59. (Also available in English.)

Posted on July 16, 2004 10:04 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

July 12, 2004

Follow Up on Politics and the Kyoto Protocol

Today, Andrei Illarionov, advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was quoted in the Moscow Times today as saying, “[President] Putin didn't say he supports the Kyoto Protocol, he said he supports the Kyoto process."

Last month I posted the following perspective on Russia and Kyoto:

“Politically, there are plenty of reasons for Russia to participate in Kyoto. By committing to participate in the Kyoto process without giving up very much at all as Russia effectively negotiated for other outcomes it desires in the international arena.

Similar incentives exist for the United States to participate, particularly now as the U.S. looks to the international community for help in Iraq. Before you dismiss this argument consider this amazing fact: if President Bush in 2001 had, instead of pulling out of the Kyoto process, simply committed the United States to participate and then did nothing else differently since that time, then the United States would be closer to meeting its Kyoto targets than EU members Ireland, Spain, Austria, Portugal, and about even with Denmark.”

What will the U.S. do on Kyoto under an administration of John Kerry or George W. Bush’s second term?

An op-ed in the International Herald Tribune last April by Nigel Purvis, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment and Science under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, makes some very good points about the U.S. and Kyoto:

“On global warming, Bush is on the wrong side of history. Europe is not, but its focus on the Kyoto process as the vehicle for engaging the United States is unhelpful. While the climate policies of the United States would improve with a Kerry presidency, Kyoto is not in the cards for the United States, regardless of who sits in the White House.”

Making predictions is a dodgy business, but here is one that may be a pretty good bet, even though is runs contrary to conventional wisdom:

While the United States is all but certainly not going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol under any conditions, is just a matter of time, perhaps less than a year, before the United States reengages in the Kyoto process under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. I think that this reengagement in the process will likely occur under a President Kerry or a President Bush. (Of course the terms of reengagement would be like night and day under the two different administrations.) The politics of participation are just too compelling.

Posted on July 12, 2004 09:25 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | International

July 08, 2004

Two Different Perspectives on EU Action Under Kyoto

Does the fact that the EU approved 5 of 25 of its member country plans for emissions trading portend EU success or failure under the Kyoto Protocol?

An excerpt from the first article in EUbusiness.com:

“European Union ambitions to start trading in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions next year to help meet targets under the UN's global warming pact cleared an important hurdle in Brussels on Wednesday, the European Commission said. The EU executive announced it had approved eight national plans for sharing out emissions for energy-intensive industrial plants, a vital preparatory step for setting up a "carbon market" next January… "Today's decision is a crucial step as it clears the way for almost half of the plants which will be part of the pan-European emissions trading system," Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said in a statement. "The decision shows that we are serious about our climate change policy and that we can start the emission trading the first of January next year, as planned." ”

An excerpt from the article from AP:

“The European Union (news - web sites) head office said Wednesday only five EU states are ready to implement a 1997 United Nations (news - web sites) accord next year limiting carbon-dioxide emissions and chided other members for dragging their heels. "I am disappointed some member states are slow in taking the measures necessary to ensure a smooth start," EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said.”

It looks like the EU action can be spun a couple of different ways.

Posted on July 8, 2004 10:44 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 29, 2004

Frames Trump the Facts

The July/August, 2004 issue of Sierra Magazine has an interesting interview with Berkeley’s George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics, on the “framing” of environmental issues. (A side note, Lakoff seems to be a hot commodity as he also appears in the July/August issue of The Atlantic Monthly in an excellent article by James Fallows on the upcoming presidential debates.)

After being asked to define “framing,” Sierra asks Lakoff “How about "protecting the environment"? Is there a frame embedded there too?” Lakoff’s reply includes the following:

“Environmentalists have adopted a set of frames that doesn’t reflect the vital importance of the environment to everything on Earth. The term "the environment" suggests that this is an area of life separate from other areas of life like the economy and jobs, or health, or foreign policy. By not linking it to everyday issues, it sounds like a separate category, and a luxury in difficult times.”

Then Sierra asks “What’s the alternative?” Lakoff replies:

“When environmental issues are cast in terms of health and security, which people already accept as vital and necessary, then the environment becomes important. It’s a health issue–clean air and clean water have to do with childhood asthma and with dysentery. Energy that is renewable and sustainable and doesn’t pollute–that is a crucial environmental issue, but it’s not just environmentalism. A crash program to develop alternative energy is a health issue. It’s a foreign policy issue. It’s a Third World development issue.

If we developed the technology for alternative energy, we wouldn’t be dependent on Middle East oil. We could then sell or give the technology to countries around the world, and no country would have to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund to buy oil and then owe interest. This would turn Third World countries into energy producers instead of consumers. And it’s a jobs issue because it would create millions of good jobs in this country. So thinking and talking about environmentalism in limited terms like preservation of wilderness is shooting yourself in the foot.

That’s why the frame is so important. Most environmentalists believe that the truth will make you free. So they tell people the raw facts. But frames trump the facts. Raw facts won’t help, except to further persuade the people who already agree with you.”

This seems right on to me (as my students will attest!). Four years ago, here is how Dan Sarewitz and I characterized the global warming debate in an article titled “Breaking the Global Warming Gridlock” which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly:

“In politics everything depends on how an issue is framed: the terms of debate, the allocation of power and resources, the potential courses of action. The issue of global warming has been framed by a single question: Does the carbon dioxide emitted by industrialized societies threaten the earth's climate? On one side are the doomsayers, who foretell environmental disaster unless carbon-dioxide emissions are immediately reduced. On the other side are the cornucopians, who blindly insist that society can continue to pump billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with no ill effect, and that any effort to reduce emissions will stall the engines of industrialism that protect us from a Hobbesian wilderness. From our perspective, each group is operating within a frame that has little to do with the practical problem of how to protect the global environment in a world of six billion people (and counting). To understand why global-warming policy is a comprehensive and dangerous failure, therefore, we must begin with a look at how the issue came to be framed in this way. Two converging trends are implicated: the evolution of scientific research on the earth's climate, and the maturation of the modern environmental movement.”

Here are links to the Sierra interview with Lakoff and to our 2000 paper on climate change. (And for a more recent and wonky analysis of framing and climate change policy see this paper of mine, just out in Issues in Science and Technology.)

June 22, 2004

Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Emissions

A very interesting paper crossed my desk from The Australia Institute titled, “Greenhouse gas emissions in industrialised countries: Where does Australia stand?” by Hal Turton, a researcher in Environmentally Compatible Energy Strategies at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria.

The paper focuses on the following:

“The international climate change community is increasingly turning its attention to proposals to base future greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations at least in part on a per capita principle… This paper reports calculations showing per capita greenhouse gas emissions on a comprehensive basis for all industrialised (Annex I) countries. The data are drawn from national communications and greenhouse gas inventory submissions to the UNFCCC secretariat. The paper presents the most recent and consistent estimates of per capita emissions, covering the years up to and including the year 2001. It also presents historical data on the per capita emissions of all Annex I countries for the years 1990-2001 inclusive.”

The paper concludes that Australia has the highest per capita emissions, Canada has the fastest growth in emissions (since 1990), and the U.S. is relatively high in both categories. Geopolitical events show dramatically in the trend data with large decreases in per capita emissions among counties that comprised the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc.

The paper has one glaring weakness – it does not discuss uncertainties in the data, which undoubtedly are quite large in comparison to the estimates. For example, scientists who study the carbon cycle disagree about sources and sinks of CO2, sometimes quite dramatically. Even so, the paper provides an interesting compilation of FCCC data, some of which challenges conventional wisdom.

Posted on June 22, 2004 11:07 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

June 16, 2004

Fast and Loose on Climate

Sometimes it seems that proponents of greenhouse gas mitigation are their own worst enemies. In particular, when mitigation proponents cherry pick among available science to make their political case, it opens the door for mitigation opponents to argue legitimately about science instead of policy and politics. But even worse are cases when mitigation proponents play fast and loose with the science in much the same way as mitigation opponents sometimes do.

A good example of playing fast and loose with science can be found in a recently released report on climate change and the insurance industry by the Association of British Insurers (ABI). The report discusses consequences of climate change for the insurance industry. The report includes a characterization of a recent U.K. government report on floods as an important justification for greenhouse gas mitigation policies. I praised the U.K. Foresight report here on April 28, “All assessments of climate science and policy should be as well done as this one.”

It was apparently so well done that the Association of British Insurers found it necessary to mischaracterize its results. The ABI report’s mischaracterization of the Foresight project’s conclusions on flooding is on page 9:

“The recent Government Foresight report on future flooding estimates that annual average damage from flooding could increase from £1 billion to £2 - 21 billion by the end of the century if no action is taken to tackle climate change and its impacts (Box 2). Initial calculations suggest that future claims costs could be two or three times higher than today's levels (Table 2). These estimates ignore the effects of socio-economic changes, such as the location and value of assets, and any substantial changes in Government policy.”

It is simply mistaken to say that the Foresight’s estimates “ignore the effects of socio-economic changes, such as the location and value of assets.” In fact the opposite is true.

The Foresight report observes on pages 23-24 that of the 19 different factors that might influence future flooding considered in its work “Precipitation will increase risks across the country by 2 to 4 times, although specific locations could experience changes well outside of this range.” By contrast, “these are difficult to quantify, but the analysis showed a large increase in social risks in all scenarios, by 3 to 20 times.” This suggests that over the next 80 years Foresight concludes that societal factors are likely more significant drivers of flood impacts that climate change per se. This is why the Foresight report called for a portfolio of policy responses that include both adaptation and mitigation.

The ABI report is either grossly mistaken or playing fast and loose with the facts. Either way, they have left the door wide open for their opponents to argue about science rather than policy.

A post script: The author of the AIB report is a former chief author for the IPCC. Perhaps this helps to explain why the section of the IPCC Third Assessment report dealing with Attribution Analyses of Loss Trends, which heavily cited work I and colleagues have done on this subject, concluded rather weakly and a bit fast and loose when compared to the peer-reviewed literature on this subject:

“Based on the findings of TAR WGI, the information summarized in Table 8-1, and the analysis presented above, we conclude that some part of the upward trend in the cost of weather-related disasters illustrated in Figure 8-1 is linked to socioeconomic factors (increased wealth, shifts of population to the coasts, etc.) and some part is linked to climatic factors such as observed changes in precipitation and drought events.”

By contrast we concluded:

“Societal impacts from weather and climate extremes, and trends in those impacts, are a function of both climate and society. Comprehensive assessments of losses and results from several recent studies of extremes establish that losses related to most weather–climate extremes have been on the rise. But, after adjustment of the data for major societal changes, most losses from weather–climate extremes are not increasing. This indicates that most upward changes are due to a mix of societal factors.”

Posted on June 16, 2004 02:03 PM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

June 02, 2004

A Lesson in International Politics

Russia's commitment to accelerate its ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change provides George W. Bush and John Kerry with a lesson in international politics.

Last week Russia reached an agreement with the European Union (EU) to gain entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in exchange for, among other things, a commitment from Russia to move toward ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Russia’s membership in the WTO requires the support of the EU. The EU wants Russian participation the Kyoto because it cannot come into effect without either United States or Russian participation. So with both George Bush and John Kerry on the record as being opposed to participation to the Protocol, Russia has a powerful bargaining chip.

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, commented, "The fact that the EU has met us halfway in negotiations on the WTO could not but have helped Moscow's positive attitude to the question of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol," and he committed Russia to "support the Kyoto process . . . [and] we will try to speed up Russia's ratification."

President Putin and his advisors are no doubt aware that almost all countries participating in the Kyoto Protocol are struggling to meet their commitments. For example, Japan committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% from its 1990 levels and has instead seen them rise by 8% causing Japan's environment minister Yuriko Koike to comment last week that Japan faces an uphill battle meeting its Kyoto target.

And many EU countries face challenges to meeting their Kyoto targets. In December 2003 European Environment Agency reported that while Great Britain and Sweden were on target to meet their targets, "all other Member States, including Germany, the EU's biggest emitter, would miss their Kyoto targets. Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Austria and Belgium would all exceed theirs by more than 20 %." Last week the EU's environment minister announced plans to initiate legal action against six EU countries for not submitted required plans for meeting Kyoto targets. Because Russia has seen its emissions actually decrease since 1990 it has emissions "credits" to sell to Japan and the EU. Having these credits available via Russian participation would help Japan and the EU meet the accounting requirements of Kyoto as an alternative to actual emissions reductions.

Russia must see the difficulties faced by countries meeting Kyoto targets, meaning that Russia would likely face little criticism if it participates but falls short of any renegotiated Kyoto targets. Politically, there are plenty of reasons for Russia to participate in Kyoto. By committing to participate in the Kyoto process without giving up very much at all as Russia effectively negotiated for other outcomes it desires in the international arena.

Ironically, expressing support for the Kyoto process but not taking dramatic action to implement it is the exact climate policy pursued by the Administration of Bill Clinton whose approach to climate policy is substantively very similar to the approach of the Bush Administration. But the two administration's approaches to climate politics could not be more different.

Of course, success in international politics does not necessarily mean good policy will result. The challenge of climate will be with us for the foreseeable future because even if it is fully and successfully implemented it can only result in a very small step. It is what happens next that matters more. From the perspective of those who seek emissions reductions new policy options will be needed no matter what happens with the Kyoto Protocol. It is almost a certainty that the United States will be involved at some level whatever process follows Kyoto.

For all of these reasons, as Russia has apparently decided about its participation, there is exceeding little political reason for the U.S. not to participate in the Kyoto process. And as the Clinton Administration learned, within that process there would be plenty of room to debate differences in climate policy in such a manner so as to shore up either Bush's or Kerry's electoral bases, some member of which care about Kyoto.

Of course, climate policy matters beyond its role in international politics because whether the cause greenhouse gas emissions or something else there is very little doubt that climate will change and vary in coming years and decades, perhaps significantly. We need only look to the past to observe that the term "climate change" is redundant.

More fundamentally, we continue to place ever more property and people in vulnerable locations both in the developed and developing world. The challenge of climate will require thoughtful action over many decades not just in energy policy, but also in addressing our vulnerabilities to the vagaries of climate. Meeting this policy challenge will not be easy. It will be just about impossible without greater sophistication in international climate politics.

Posted on June 2, 2004 12:55 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | International

May 31, 2004

Reducing Uncertainty: Good Luck

For a while now there has been a debate going on about how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change out to project forward into time economic growth. Such projections are important for developing scenarios of carbon emissions that are used as input to climate models. The debate involves differences between market exchange rates (e.g., $1 = 1.26 Euro) and what is called Purchasing Power Parity, e.g., a Big Mac = $2.90 in the U.S. but only $1.26 in China. (On these differences see this article.)

This week The Economist reminds us why this debate matters for the issue of climate change.

“The IPCC's forecasts of global output are based on national GDP converted to dollars using market exchange rates. They also bravely assume that most of the gap in average income between rich and poor countries will be closed by the end of this century, even while the rich continue to get richer. Because using market exchange rates overstates the initial gap in average income between rich and poor countries, this results in improbably high projections of GDP growth in developing countries, much faster than has ever been achieved before. As a result, the IPCC's projections of future carbon emissions, on this basis alone, are probably overstated.

The IPCC claims that measuring at PPP or market exchange rates does not affect the economy any more than a switch from degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit alters the temperature. But the analogy is wrong. PPP and market exchange rates, unlike Celsius and Fahrenheit, are measuring different things. That should not be too hard an idea for scientists to grasp.”

(Those with deep interests in this topic can learn much more here, here, here, and here.)

A group of researchers in Norway explored what the implications would be if IPCC were to switch to PPP from MER. They found that, “the use of PPP instead of MER has significant effects on the emission development paths. In fact, the emissions in 2100 are reduced by 38 to 50 percent, depending on choice of scenario. However, due to the accumulative effect of emissions, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is not to the same extent influenced. The CO2-concentration in 2100 is reduced by 16 to 24 percent in 2100. The projected temperature increases are lowered by 0.5-1 °C relative to the original SRES scenarios.”

While it is unlikely that the IPCC would switch growth metrics, it is not unreasonable to expect that it might in the future include scenarios based on PPP. If so, all else being equal, the inclusion of such scenarios would mean that the IPCC’s projected temperature range for 2100 would expand. And while the “global warming: yes or no” crowds would have plenty of fun with this, the real lesson would be that climate science, rather than moving towards deterministic predictions of the future climate, i.e., reducing uncertainty, is instead providing us with considerable knowledge about how uncertain the future actually is. Decisions about climate will have to be made in the face of profound, irreducible uncertainty.

Today, we know enough to act. But of course, the question that we face is: how to act? Fortunately, we know what to do, it just seems that doing it is the hard part.

Posted on May 31, 2004 11:25 PM View this article | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

May 28, 2004

A New Essay on Climate Policy

I have a new essay online about climate policy that uses The Day After Tomorrow as a point of departure. The essay, titled L'Apocalisse Prossima Ventura, appears in a new Italian science magazine called Darwin (note: I serve on its editorial board). We have online both the published version in Italian and the original text in English. Here are a few excerpts:

“Contemporary climate policy debate is dominated by two issues: the Kyoto Protocol and climate science. This is problematic for several reasons. First, no matter how debate over the Kyoto Protocol is resolved – either in its failure or in its implementation – the subsequent challenge of reducing greenhouse emissions will remain much the same under either scenario. And second, as debate over climate policy often takes place under the guise of science, the scientific debate on climate change has become irrevocably politicized, even as a scientific consensus has emerged that human activity does indeed affect the climate. Both the politicization and the existing scientific consensus suggest that a political consensus is unlikely to emerge from new scientific findings.

If we are to improve policies in the context of climate change, this means that our thinking about climate change necessarily needs to evolve. Evolution in our thinking is difficult because all sides of the current climate debate have become very comfortable with the familiarity of debating the Kyoto Protocol and debating the science. As in a long-running stage production, the participants know their roles, they are familiar with their rhetoric, and their opponents are predictable and play to their stereotypes. And more troubling, many of the current participants also benefit mightily from the status quo, whether they are advocates or scientists. Consequently, change is uncomfortable. It is no exaggeration to observe that in the status quo of contemporary debate over climate policy a consensus already exists. But if the issue is to become more than symbolic, then change we must, because today’s climate policy debate is going nowhere soon.”

Read the whole thing:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2004: L'Apocalisse Prossima Ventura (Italian Version). Darwin, May, 52-59. (Also available in English.)

Posted on May 28, 2004 09:33 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 26, 2004

Op-ed on Kyoto

I am trying to place an op-ed on Russia’s pseudo-decision to participate in the Kyoto Protocol process. If I don’t place it soon I’ll post it here next week. Meanwhile, here is an excerpt:

“In Russia's decision to participate in the Kyoto process, and the political calculus behind its decision, lies a critical lesson for the Bush Administration. Consider this fact: if President Bush in 2001 had, instead of pulling out of the Kyoto process, simply committed the United States to participate and then did nothing else differently since that time, then the United States would be closer to meeting its Kyoto targets than Ireland, Spain, Austria, Portugal, and about even with Denmark.

In a May 11 speech to a climate change conference in Brussels, Harlan L. Watson, Senior Climate Negotiator in the State Department underscored the U.S. commitment to reducing the growth of emissions and to international collaboration, but expressed concern that the U.S. commitment had been misunderstood. Rather than being seen by the international community as a pariah, by committing to participate in the Kyoto process the U.S. might be able negotiate, as Russia so effectively has, for other outcomes it desires in the international arena. Ironically, expressing support for the Kyoto process but not taking dramatic action to implement it is the exact climate policy pursued by the Administration of Bill Clinton whose approach to climate change is substantively very similar to the approach of the Bush Administration. But the two administration's approaches to climate politics could not be more different.

Of course, success in politics does not necessarily mean good policy will result. The challenge of climate will be with us for the foreseeable future no matter what happens with the Kyoto Protocol…”

For any opinion page editors with an interest in the whole, riveting piece, I’ll part with it cheap: pielke@colorado.edu.

Posted on May 26, 2004 08:18 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 21, 2004

Blurring Fact and Fiction: Ingenious

In a commentary on the upcoming movie, The Day After Tomorrow, Sandy Starr writes on Spiked-Online:

“So is this film the work of an inventive bunch of storytellers out to entertain, or the work of environmentalist crusaders out to debate science? The answer you get from the filmmakers depends on whether they stand to gain publicity from a scientific debate about the film (in which case, it's serious), or whether you're taking them to task over the film's scientific accuracy (in which case, it's just entertainment). You have to hand it to the marketing department - the blurring of fact and fiction is an ingenious promotional technique. But serious scientists wouldn't fall for it - would they?”

The blurring of fact and fiction is indeed an ingenious promotional technique. But the movie’s producers aren’t the first to put this technique to work: its business as usual across the political spectrum on the issue of climate change.

Examples:

Left taking right to task here.

Right taking left to task here.

A better approach: Climate Change Fact or Fiction? It Doesn’t Matter.

Read our article from 2000 in The Atlantic Monthly, Breaking the Global Warming Gridlock.

Posted on May 21, 2004 12:33 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 20, 2004

Kyoto Protocol Watch

-From the Japan Times:

“The data also show that emissions in fiscal 2002 were 7.6 percent higher than in fiscal 1990, the base year under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls for emission cuts as a means of halting global warming. Japan, required to reduce its emissions by 6 percent from the 1990 level between 2008 and 2012 under the protocol, will now have to cut emissions by 13.6 percent of the fiscal 2002 figure. [Environment Minister Yuriko] Koike said Cabinet ministers who attended the meeting expressed concern that Japan faces an uphill battle in achieving its Kyoto Protocol requirements.”

-From the Financial Times:

“The European Commission is to start legal action against six European Union states for not submitting plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Margot Wallström, the environment commissioner, yesterday said her preliminary analysis of plans submitted was that many were too generous in allocations to companies. ‘Too many allowances and a resulting low price will create little incentive to change behaviour,’ she said.”

-From The Guardian:

“Leading Russian scientists told President Vladimir Putin yesterday that the Kyoto emissions treaty discriminates against Russia, would damage its economy and would not significantly reduce global warming, increasing the chance that the Kremlin will refuse to ratify the agreement…. Experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences submitted a report to the Kremlin containing their long-awaited assessment of the scientific virtues of the pact for Russia… They said the total benefit to Russia would be a small drop in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air over the next 10 years, but the total cost of the pact's emission-reduction measures would be "tens of trillions of dollars over a hundred years".

-From the aSydney Morning Herald:

“The [Australian] Federal Government has opposed the protocol and recently quashed moves to institute an alternative carbon trading system that would have reduced greenhouse emissions by forcing producers, and consumers, to pay a price for them.”

Lesson: Argue about Kyoto if you must, but it is what comes next that matters more.

Posted on May 20, 2004 09:44 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 17, 2004

Generic News Story on Climate Change

Instructions to editor: Please repeat the below every 3-4 weeks ad infinitum.

This week the journal [Science/Nature] published a study by a team of scientists led by a [university/government lab/international group] [challenging/confirming] that the earth is warming. The new study looks at [temperature/sea level/the arctic] and finds evidence of trends that [support/challenge] the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Scientist [A, B, C], a [participant in, reviewer of] the study observed that the study, [“should bring to a close debate over global warming,” “provides irrefutable evidence that global warming is [real/overstated] today,” “demonstrates the value of climate science”]. Scientist [D, E, F], who has long been [critical/supportive] of the theory of global warming rebutted that the study, [“underscores that changes in [temperature/sea level/the arctic] will likely be [modest/significant],” “ignores considerable literature inconvenient to their central hypothesis,” “commits a basic mistake”]. Scientist [A, B, C or D, E, F] has been criticized by [advocacy groups, reporters, scientific colleagues] for receiving funding from [industry groups, conservative think tanks]. It is unclear what the study means for U.S. participation the Kyoto Protocol, which the Bush Administration has refused to participate in. All agreed that more research is necessary.

Posted on May 17, 2004 08:11 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 10, 2004

What if the Russians Don’t Ratify Kyoto?

An interesting report crossed my desk from the Netherlands National Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP) of the National Institute of Public health and the Environment (RIVM). The paper is titled "What if the Russians don't ratify?" (RIVM report no. 728001028, by M.M. Berk and M.G.J. den Elzen), and will soon be available at: www.rivm.nl.

An announcement accompanying the report observes:

“The report shows that some of these alternatives may be environmentally more effective than in the case of the present KP, due to the amount of surplus emissions (hot air) avoided when Russia does not participate. They could also result in more Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) revenues for developing countries, without leading to higher costs for the participating industrial countries. However, both setting up an alternative framework outside the KP and amending the KP raise legal and practical problems that pose serious obstacles for preserving the KP without Russian participation.”

On the U.S. the report concludes (p. 25):

“The US resistance to the KP not only stems from the Republicans, but also finds general support among the Democrats as was illustrated by the Bird-Hagel resolution in 1997 and reconfirmed in the recent senate debate on the McCain-Liberman Act. It is possible that a Democratic Administration may be willing to re-negotiate its re-entrance to the KP.
However, it probably would not only demand a revision of the US targets, but also new commitments for some major developing countries, like China, which would open up the KP deal altogether. This would not be acceptable for most other Parties. Thus given the expected US conditions for re-entrance to the KP, it is likely that this will eventually result in a complete re-opening of the negotiation process and abandoning of the KP. With that prospect, the KP coalition may prefer focussing the issue of US re-entrance on the post-2012 period and try to go ahead with the KP without the US.”

Posted on May 10, 2004 07:40 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

Lomborg on The Day After Tomorrow

Bjorn Lomborg, of The Skeptical Environmentalist fame, weighs in on the upcoming global warming movie, The Day After Tomorrow:

An Excerpt:

"“Now, although it is not going to kill us the day after tomorrow, global warming certainly is a reality. It is caused at least partly by mankind's use of fossil fuels. The effects will be predominantly adverse …So what is wrong with using a piece of popular entertainment to campaign for action to save people from that? … The problem is that if we overestimate the risk that climate change poses, then we will pay less attention to the other challenges that face us...

If politicians were to see The Day After Tomorrow and act on its agenda, what would happen? Implementing the Kyoto agreement on climate change would cost at least $150 billion each year, yet would do no more than postpone global warming for six years by 2100... Even if the film's creators are right - and the scientists are wrong - and the Gulf Stream current does collapse within a decade, then Kyoto would have made no difference.

There is another reason why it is wrong - I would even say amoral - to overplay the case for combatting climate change. We cannot do everything… For the cost of implementing Kyoto in just one year, we could permanently provide clean drinking water and sanitation to everyone on the planet. Of course it is unlikely that Emmerich will cast Brad Pitt as a sewage engineer in Kenya for his next glamorous movie. Nor are there many good plotlines to be made from tales of a government which invests in malarial vaccines, or of a global conference called to remove trade barriers. But these are real options that policy-makers face every time they spend a dollar with the intention of easing human suffering.”

Posted on May 10, 2004 07:39 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 07, 2004

Remind me what we are arguing about

An article in the Boston Globe, linked by Quark Soup, illustrates how confused the climate debated has become. The article reports,

“During a news conference at which he formally announced the Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan, Romney said he decided not to take sides in the debate about ‘is there global warming or is there not, and what's causing it.’ His hedging on the issue surprised some activists, who had praised the state plan for accepting greenhouse gases as a significant cause of global warming.”

Is the battle about global warming about effective action in the context of diverse values and beliefs or is it about changing underlying those underlying values and beliefs?

The letter from the Governor in the Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan (in PDF) states:

“Since taking office in January 2003, this Administration has embarked on a “no regrets” policy towards climate change. Rather than focusing our energy on the debate over the causes of global warming and the impact of human activity on climate, we have chosen to put our emphasis on actions, not discourse. If climate change is happening, the actions we take will help. If climate change is largely caused by human actions, this will really help. If we learn decades from now that climate change isn’t happening, these actions will still help our economy, our quality of life and the quality of our environment.”

I’m not an expert on the Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan (in PDF), but if it moves debate beyond simply arguing about the science and towards debating new policy alternatives, that is a good thing, right?

Posted on May 7, 2004 11:54 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

A Myth about Public Opinion and Global Warming

I have heard the argument too many times to count. It goes something like this: Because of the nefarious efforts of “climate contrarians” the public doesn’t believe in global warming and because of the public’s lack of belief, the U.S. government has not taken action on climate change. If you buy this public opinion argument, then the corresponding remedy is both to better educate the public about the existence of global warming and to defeat the contrarians before the public.

And so we see statements like the following quote yesterday in the Seattle Times from the lead author of a paper in Nature that has ignited the latest global warming tempest:

"I believe this shows the satellite temperatures can no longer be used as evidence to claim that global warming is not happening in the atmosphere. I think this could convince not just scientists but the public as well."

Well let’s look at some opinion polls about whether or not the public thinks global warming is happening. The data is very consistent and overwhelming, and doesn’t bode well for the public opinion argument:

1997 74% believe global warming is happening

1999 79% believe global already or will in the future have serious impacts

2000 72% … “of those who have seen, heard or read about global warming say that they believe in the theory that increased carbon dioxide and other gases will lead to global warming and an increase in average temperatures.”

2001 75% …“of those who have seen, heard or read about global warming say that they believe in the theory that increased carbon dioxide and other gases will lead to global warming and an increase in average temperatures.”

2002 74% … “of those who have seen, heard or read about global warming say that they believe in the theory that increased carbon dioxide and other gases will lead to global warming and an increase in average temperatures.”

2003 75% are somewhat or very concerned about global warming

Granted that the public is not at all scientifically literate about climate change, and granted as well global warming is not among the environmental issues that the public is most concerned about. However, the battle over public opinion about the existence of global warming has been won. Efforts made trying to convince the public that global warming is “real” are pretty much wasted on the convinced. The public overwhelmingly believes global warming to be real and consequential. In fact, I’d even hypothesize that when compared to what the public actually believes about climate change and the future, the IPCC reports would seem pretty tame.

Posted on May 7, 2004 11:52 AM View this article | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

May 04, 2004

Tony Blair Comments on Climate

Last week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a short speech (in PDF) on climate change. The speech included a few notable comments:

“Here we’re talking about climate change which is, I think, probably long term, the single most important issue that we face as a global community.”

“We are committed to the Kyoto Protocol. We believe it is essential that we have that implemented. We in our country will abide by our Kyoto targets, but I just want to make one point to you. When I asked for an analysis to be done by David King and his colleagues of what the true scale of the challenge was, we learned that even if we were to implement the Kyoto Protocol, it falls significantly short of what we will need over the next half century if we are to tackle this problem seriously and properly. So even, and this is a tall order in some ways at the moment, if we succeed in getting support for the Kyoto Protocol, we are still, even having done that, only in the position of having achieved a first step. It will be an important recognition, but it is only a first step and we need to be building a clearer understanding of the fact that even with Kyoto we are still a long way short of what we actually need to do.”

“…for Britain’s chairmanship of the G8 next year, there should be two issues for us: one is Africa, the other is climate change. Now I think it is important that we take a clear case on climate change to the G8 next year.”

“…the research indicated that this problem was, if anything, greater than I had
realised. I don’t think, as I said before, there is any bigger long-term question facing the global community.”

The full speech is available here.

Posted on May 4, 2004 11:08 AM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 26, 2004

More Devil in the Details: Climate Change

A discussion paper from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research at the University of Oslo, Norway examines the consequences for climate science and policy of different definitions of “vulnerability.” The paper observes the term “vulnerability serves as a flexible and somewhat malleable concept that can engage both research and policy communities. Yet the extensive use of vulnerability in the climate change literature hides two very different interpretations of the word, and two very different purposes for using it.”

The paper presents two different definitions of the term vulnerability, “On the one hand, vulnerability is sometimes viewed as an end point – that is, as a residual of climate change impacts minus adaptation… On the other hand, it is sometimes viewed as a starting point, where vulnerability is a characteristic or state generated by multiple environmental and social processes, but exacerbated by climate change.”

The authors argue, “We make the case in this paper that the two interpretations of vulnerability – as an end point or as a starting point – confound the issue of climate change… the two definitions not only result in two different diagnoses of the climate change problem, but also two different kinds of cures.”

The paper concludes, “the end-point interpretation [of vulnerability] focuses on technology and transfer of technology, rather than on development… When vulnerability is taken as the starting point of the analysis, the focus of the assessment is quite different. Vulnerability to climate change is recognized as a state, generated not just by climate change, but by multiple processes and stressors. Consequently, there are multiple points for intervention. Technological adaptations to climate change represent only one of many options – albeit a problematized one due to existing social, economic and political structures that may increase inequality in a community and exacerbate vulnerability for some. Addressing climate change means enhancing the ability to cope with present-day climate variability and long-term climate uncertainty.”

This paper is worth reading. It is consistent with our own work focused both on vulnerability as well as the different definitions of climate change held by the IPCC and FCCC. There are signs that the pathologies resulting from the dominant framing of the climate issue are no longer flying under the radar.

Posted on April 26, 2004 12:12 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Environment

April 21, 2004

Beyond Kyoto: Yes or No

Robert Mueller, in an essay in Technology Review, presents a perspective on climate policy refreshingly outside of the Manichean “Kyoto: Yes or No?” framing of the climate debate.

“… scientific discussion on this issue has become rude and nasty. Ad hominem accusations abound. Is global warming real? Are humans responsible? One side says, ‘Yes, and if you don’t believe that, you are not a non-scientific troglodyte.’ The other side says, ‘It isn’t proven, and if you act prematurely you’ll kill our economy, you liberal communist tree-hugger.’ A symbolic word in this argument is ‘Kyoto.’ … People are categorized by their stand on this treaty—for it or against it—even though the issue is subtle and complex. I hold an unusual position. I believe carbon dioxide emissions should be brought under control—not because they are the scientifically proven cause of global warming, but because they could be responsible. Yet I dislike the Kyoto approach, since I believe it does not address the real issue. In fact, complying with the Kyoto treaty might lull us into thinking we had taken a valuable step, when in fact a substantially different direction is needed.”

Of course, I highlight this article because for a while now we’ve also been “unusual” in making a case for a third way on climate policy. But perhaps the realities of the climate debate are turning the unusual third (and fourth, etc. ..) ways into options at least worth discussing.

Posted on April 21, 2004 06:10 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

A FCCC Perspective on Climate Policy

Joke Waller-Hunter, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change writes in the OECD observer, “I must admit to being surprised at some experts and leaders – including at the OECD – who argue that we should focus more on adaptation, because the Kyoto Protocol would not solve the climate change problem. Yet, no one has ever claimed that the Kyoto Protocol would achieve that.” But isn’t this exactly why adaptation is needed to complement mitigation policies on climate change? Waller-Hunter even notes, “Helping countries to adapt to climate change has become a key component of overall climate change policy, but much remains to be done to implement it, in such areas as infrastructure development and land management.” As economist William Nordhaus once said, “mitigate we might, adapt we must.”

Posted on April 21, 2004 01:44 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 15, 2004

A Devil in the Details: Climate Change

From a forthcoming essay of mine in Issues in Science and Technology:

Read the whole thing.

Posted on April 15, 2004 11:38 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change

April 14, 2004

Climate Change Prediction and Uncertainty

An interesting article about the limitations to regional climate predictions and corresponding irreducible uncertainty:

Nature 428, 593 (08 April 2004); doi:10.1038/428593a
Modellers deplore 'short-termism' on climate
By QUIRIN SCHIERMEIER

"Projections of climate change in, say, Florida or the Alps carry more political weight than vague warnings about global warming. And for almost two decades, specialists in regional climate assessment have sought to make such projections.

But their success has been limited, a meeting of regional-climate modellers in Lund, Sweden, acknowledged last week. Our understanding of regional climate change will remain uncertain, the modellers said. And, some speakers suggested, policy-makers' expectations of precise local projections need to be dampened down."

Full story:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/Dynapage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v428/n6983/full/428593a_fs.html

Posted on April 14, 2004 04:59 PM View this article | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Risk & Uncertainty

Category:

« Climate Change »

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A Few Bits on Cap and Trade

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Idealism vs. Political Realities

Air Capture in The Guardian

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Nature Letters on PWG

World Bank and UK Government on Climate Change Implications of Development

IPCC Predictions and Politics

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An *Inconsistent With* Spotted, and Defended

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Real Climate's Bold Bet

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