ClimateScienceWatch

Promoting integrity in the use of climate science in government

Climate Science Watch is a nonprofit public interest education and advocacy project dedicated to holding public officials accountable for the integrity and effectiveness with which they use climate science and related research in government policymaking, toward the goal of enabling society to respond effectively to the challenges posed by global warming and climate change. See Details

Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation

The U.S. "National Assessment"; the impacts and adaptation chapter of the U.S. National Communication required by Article 12 of the U.N. Climate Convention; and other major assessments.

Climate Science Watch guide to climate reports

Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The sheer number, depth, and breadth of the climate science assessments and U.S. government program reports released each year can be daunting, so we prepared an annotated guide to clarify the distinctions among some of the key reports: State of the Climate 2009; America’s Climate Choices; Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report; Our Changing Planet; Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States; U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change; and Climate Change 2007: Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

NRC: emissions choices today have implications for global climate on the scale of millennia

Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2010

Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia, a new report released by the National Research Council (the operational arm of the National Academy of Sciences) on July 16, starkly highlights the long-term global consequences of present-day choices about anthropogenic carbon emissions. The report concludes that “the world is entering a new geologic epoch, sometimes called the Anthropocene, in which human activities will largely control the evolution of Earth’s environment.”

IPCC, key target of war on climate science, announces 831 experts to author Fifth Assessment Report

Posted on Friday, June 25, 2010

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has announced its selection of 831 authors and review editors for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report to be published in 2013-2014. In light of the denial machine’s war on climate science, which seeks to delegitimize the IPCC and lay a predicate for rejecting any unwelcome conclusions of the forthcoming reports, we expect they will find a way to challenge the author selection and subsequent steps of the IPCC process.

AMS Climate Briefing Series takes on national security implications of climate change

Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010

On June 4 CSW was on Capitol Hill attending an American Meteorological Society (AMS) briefing – part of the Climate Briefing Series – on Climate Change and National Security. The event featured Rear Admiral David Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator of the US Navy and Dr. Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor of the journal Survival and Research Fellow for Environmental Security and Science Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Rear Admiral Titley stressed that we simply cannot wait any longer to take serious action on climate change. A reasonable probability of risk is enough, he said – true to the proactive preparedness approach of those who think in terms of national security. It is not wise to wait for a “perfect knowledge” of how things will play out.

InterAcademy Council Names IPCC Review Committee

Posted on Wednesday, May 05, 2010

The InterAcademy Council (IAC), an organization of the world’s science academies, announced May 3 that Harold T. Shapiro, an economist and former president of Princeton University and the University of Michigan, will chair a 12-member committee to conduct an independent review of the procedures and processes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The review was requested in April by the United Nations.

U.S. National Climate Change Assessment strategic planning kicks off in Chicago meeting

Posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010

The National Climate Assessment Strategic Planning Meeting held in Chicago from February 24-25 was part of the initial planning phase for the reactivation of the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts. The first National Assessment was completed in 2000, but the Bush Administration suppressed its use by the federal government. Climate Science Watch attended the Chicago planning meeting.

World Wildlife Fund statement on the IPCC and WWF’s scientific work

Posted on Friday, February 12, 2010

The World Wildlife Fund has issued a statement on the results of the organization’s inquiry into statements about Himalayan glaciers and the climate change threat in the Amazon attributed to WWF in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change impacts assessment report. The statement indicates steps WWF will take to ensure that the scientific community and the public can more easily distinguish between WWF’s voluminous peer-reviewed scientific reports and their general communications products, and to ensure their scientific publications continue to meet the highest standards for accuracy, and notes the broader context of the strong scientific basis for understanding climate change.

Questions to an IPCC co-chair on ensuring the credibility of IPCC leadership and communications

Posted on Friday, February 05, 2010

We asked Christopher Field, co-chair of IPCC Working Group II on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: To counter the effort by the global warming disinformation campaign to discredit and delegitimize the IPCC, how will the IPCC ensure that the public and policymakers see it as being impeccable, not in an advocacy mode, without conflicts of interest, and highly credible going forward? In his reply, Dr. Field said the IPCC “has been slow – is in the middle of being slow – to come up with a comprehensive strategy for the challenges that are being raised,” and stated his personal commitment to making needed changes.

Worldwide glacier melt a real concern; Himalaya controversy leaves questions about IPCC leadership

Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2010

The IPCC on January 20 officially acknowledged “poorly substantiated rates of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers.” The controversy over the erroneous paragraph in the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report should not overshadow the large body of evidence about anthropogenic climate change and its likely disruptive consequences, nor the overall IPCC synthesis conclusion that “Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability … in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges (e.g. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes), where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives.” But, as we said to ClimateWire, the IPCC should re-examine how it vets information when compiling future assessment reports. And, while the official IPCC mea culpa statement on January 20 is a necessary step in the right direction, it is not dispositive of questions this incident raises about the IPCC leadership and the organization’s public communications capabilities.

IPCC slips on the ice with statement about Himalayan glaciers

Posted on Tuesday, January 19, 2010

In a chapter on climate change impacts in Asia, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007) relied on an error-riddled online article when it discussed the likely state of Himalayan glaciers in 2035. It did so despite questions raised by some reviewers. Details about the incident have come to light since early November when the Indian government published a report that contradicted the IPCC. The error and the IPCC’s initial response highlight the need to strengthen the IPCC review process, and its capacity to respond quickly and appropriately to such problems. Failure to do so may undermine public confidence in the IPCC and invite opportunistic attacks by those opposing meaningful action on climate change.

Capitol Hill briefing draws needed attention to challenges of climate change impacts and adaptation

Posted on Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A January 8 Capitol Hill briefing by four leading analysts on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation reflected a growing awareness that scientific research and assessment per se don’t necessarily lead to effective action to enhance resilience to the impacts of global climatic disruption. The briefing began with the scientific foundation for understanding climate change impacts and moved to an insightful discussion of the challenges of putting adaptive preparedness into practice.

White House Science Office reactivating U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change

Posted on Sunday, January 10, 2010

Katharine Jacobs, who chairs the forthcoming National Academy of Sciences report on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, is moving to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to play a lead role on climate change assessment and adaptation. OSTP is taking the first steps to reactivate the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, nine years after the first National Assessment was issued, then later essentially suppressed by the Bush Administration.

A New Year’s resolution for Obama: Figure out how to talk to the public about climate change

Posted on Thursday, December 31, 2009

In the U.S., public understanding of and support for climate science and its findings about the likely consequences of global climatic disruption is seriously underdeveloped, and even appears to have slipped during 2009. This may be due in part to the decision by President Obama and some of his strongest supporters to focus their message narrowly on the mantras of clean energy and green jobs, and their tactics narrowly on cap and trade legislation….

The economic costs of climate adaptation escalate with inaction, says bipartisan energy group

Posted on Tuesday, November 17, 2009

“Pay now, or pay more later” is the increasingly substantiated wisdom of addressing—and failing to address—the threat of global climate disruption. The bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) pulled together the findings of seven climate change impacts studies conducted around the country, and recently issued what amounts to yet another fair warning. Climate change impacts are wide-ranging and affect key resources Americans care about; the greater the warming, the greater the economic costs will be to society; but—we can avoid the worst impacts by ratcheting down heat-trapping pollution and planning for unavoidable impacts. Planning, preparing for, and building resilience against climate impacts is not getting the public policy attention it deserves. Today we cross-post from Nick Sundt at the World Wildlife Fund’s climate blog.

New report says many adaptation measures can be half as expensive as doing nothing

Posted on Saturday, September 19, 2009

Not only that, but doing nothing, thus further incurring myriad risks associated with climate change, could cost nations up to one-fifth (19%) of their GDP by 2030, with developing countries most vulnerable, according to a new report from the Economics of Climate Adaptation Working Group, created by the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility and the UN Environment Programme. The report says that some cost-effective adaptation measures already exist—some that are half as expensive as the eventual cost of inaction on climate change—and can prevent between 40 and 68 percent of the expected economic loss. Even higher levels of prevention are possible in certain areas, according to the report. As we debate climate legislation and head for international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, this report is a must-read for US policymakers—including President Obama, who so far has not warned US residents of the hazards and costs associated with unchecked climate disruption.

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