Forthcoming book by Michael Mastrandrea and Stephen Schneider:  “Preparing for Climate Change”

Posted on Tuesday, September 07, 2010

In a new book on climate change preparedness, forthcoming from MIT Press this fall, Steve Schneider and his Stanford colleague Michael Mastrandrea argue that we need to start adapting to climate change, now. They write that these efforts should focus primarily on identifying the places and people most at risk and taking anticipatory action. They reject the approach of reactive, unplanned adaptation. They call for dealing equitably with the needs of the most vulnerable people worldwide, who are least able to pay and least responsible for the looming crisis.

Post by Rick Piltz

Steve Schneider had this in the works. We’re looking forward to seeing this little volume:

Preparing for Climate Change (MIT Press, publication date October 31, 2010)

By Michael D. Mastrandrea and Stephen H. Schneider

Publisher’s description:

Global momentum is building to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So far, so good. The less happy news is that Earth’s temperatures will continue to rise for decades. And evidence shows that climbing temperatures are already having serious consequences for vulnerable people and regions through droughts, extreme weather, and melting glaciers. In this book, climate experts Michael Mastrandrea and Stephen Schneider argue that we need to start adapting to climate change, now. They write that these efforts should focus primarily on identifying the places and people most at risk and taking anticipatory action—from developing drought-resistant crops to building sea walls. The authors roundly reject the idea that reactive, unplanned adaptation will solve our problems—that species will migrate northward as climates warm, and farmers will shift to new crops and more hospitable locations. And they are highly critical of “geoengineering” schemes that are designed to cool the planet by such methods as injecting iron into oceans or exploding volcanoes.

Mastrandrea and Schneider insist that smart adaptation will require a series of local and regional projects, many of them in the countries least able to pay for them and least responsible for the problem itself. Ensuring that we address the needs of these countries, while we work globally to reduce emissions over the long term, is our best chance to avert global disaster and to reduce the terrible, unfair burdens that are likely to accompany global warming.

About the Authors
Michael D. Mastrandrea is Research Associate at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. He contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.

Stephen H. Schneider was Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Professor of Biology at Stanford University. He was also Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC’s working group on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, from 1997 to 2001, and, with his IPCC colleagues, was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in 2007. He was the author or editor of many books, including Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate and co-editor of Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century (MIT Press, 2004; paperback edition 2008).

Schneider and Mastrandrea were also two of the co-editors of the recently-published collection, Climate Change Science and Policy (Island Press, December 14, 2009).  Publisher’s description:

This is the most comprehensive and current reference resource on climate change available today. It features 49 individual chapters by some of the world’s leading climate scientists. Its five sections address climate change in five dimensions: ecological impacts; policy analysis; international considerations; United States considerations; and mitigation options to reduce carbon emissions.

In many ways, this volume supersedes the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Many important developments too recent to be treated by the 2007 IPCC documents are covered here. This book considers not only the IPCC report, but also results of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bali in December 2007, as well as even more recent research data. Overall, Climate Change Science and Policy paints a direr picture of the effects of climate change than do the IPCC reports. It reveals that climate change has progressed faster than the IPCC reports anticipated and that the outlook for the future is bleaker than the IPCC reported.

In his prologue, John P. Holdren writes that the widely-used term “global warming” is a misnomer. He suggests that a more accurate label would be “global climatic disruption.” This volume, he states, will equip readers with all they need to know to rebut the misrepresentations being propagated by “climate-change skeptics.” No one, he writes, will be a skeptic after reading this book.

See CSW August 23 post, “Ehrlich on Schneider: Being a scientist doesn’t relieve one of the obligations of a citizen”, which also contains links to additional items on Schneider.

Also see May 28 post, “Text of remarks by Obama science adviser John Holdren to the National Climate Adaptation Summit”.

I recall discussing the need for climate change preparedness with Steve in 2008, at the National Council on Science and the Environment annual meeting in Washington DC, and suggesting the need for a new federal coordinating entity.  Steve spoke at the conference on the future role of the IPCC and on communicating climate science and solutions. I spoke on the future of the US Global Change Research Program. All issues still unresolved.

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CSW interview on IPCC and recommendations for ‘fundamental reform’

Posted on Friday, September 03, 2010

On August 30, Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz was interviewed on Al Jazeera English TV as part of their coverage of the important new report by the InterAcademy Council on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report calls for a number of needed changes in management, structure, procedure, and communications, to strengthen the IPCC in producing complex climate change assessments and to forestall further damage to the organization’s perceived credibility.

Post by Rick Piltz.  Thanks to Alexa Jay for editing and posting the video.

On August 30 the InterAcademy Council released its report Climate Change Assessments, Review of the Processes & Procedures of the IPCC. (IAC news release here – “InterAcademy Council Report Recommends Fundamental Reform of IPCC Management Structure”)  This is a good report with what appears to me at this point to be a solid set of recommendations.  We will have additional commentary in a follow-up post.  As part of their coverage of the report, I talked briefly with Al Jazeera English.

Earlier CSW posts:

(January 19) IPCC slips on the ice with statement about Himalayan glaciers

(January 21) Worldwide glacier melt a real concern; Himalaya controversy leaves questions about IPCC leadership

(February 5) Questions to an IPCC co-chair on ensuring the credibility of IPCC leadership and communications

(February 24) Sen. Inhofe inquisition seeking ways to criminalize and prosecute 17 leading climate scientists

(March 7) Robert Watson: IPCC is fundamentally sound; don’t let “skeptics” distract or derail action

(March 11) Open Letter to the U.S. Government from U.S. Scientists on climate change and the IPCC reports

(May 5) InterAcademy Council Names IPCC Review Committee

(May 7) Letter from 255 National Academy members on Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

(June 21) New study finds striking level of agreement among climate experts on anthropogenic climate change

(June 25) IPCC, key target of war on climate science, announces 831 experts to author Fifth Assessment Report

Al Jazeera English, a 24-hour English-language international news and current affairs channel, can be viewed in every major European market, and is available to 130 million homes in more than 100 countries via cable and satellite, in addition to live streaming on the Web. Al Jazeera English broadcasts from Washington, DC, London, Qatar, and Kuala Lumpur, without commercials and without endless pundit chatter.  It offers a global perspective that’s interested in what’s going on in, say, the Philippines, Kenya, or Poland, more than in, say, Sarah Palin’s latest ravings or whether Lindsay Lohan’s bail is being revoked. It’s also quite interested in the U.S., from a non-U.S.-centric perspective. Check it out. Best live-streaming here.

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Virginia judge tosses out Cuccinelli attempt to subpoena Michael Mann’s records

Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010

An Albemarle County Circuit Court judge has set aside a subpoena issued by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to the University of Virginia seeking documents related to the work of climate scientist and former university professor Michael Mann, the Washington Post has reported.

Washington Post coverage here.

Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that the subpoena failed to state a “reason to believe” that Mann had committed fraud, and thus that U.Va. does not have to respond to Cuccinelli’s subpoena for records linked to grant-funded research that Mann was involved with. The court’s ruling validates the position taken by the University to fight compliance with the subpoena, and the protests by faculty members, scientists, civil libertarians, and public interest advocates who characterized Cuccinelli’s move as an attack on climate science and academic freedom. It shows that those who unwisely advocated that Mann and the University should surrender to Cuccinelli without putting up a fight missed the essential point. 

See also this post on Climate Progress.

Earlier CSW posts:

May 28: University petitions court to quash Cuccinelli subpoena of climate scientist Michael Mann’s papers

May 21: Nine ways to undermine Virginia AG Cuccinelli’s McCarthyite demand for scientists’ communication

May 5: Free the Cuccinelli 40: Virginia AG demands e-mails of Michael Mann and 39 other scientists

July 6: Turning the tables: Virginia AG Cuccinelli under investigation for climate probe by Greenpeace

July 1: Interview with Michael Mann on the Penn State Final Report and the war on climate scientists

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America’s Climate Choices – Webinar on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change

Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2010

This May, CSW attended the National Academy of Science’s (NAS) release of the first three reports from the America’s Climate Choices suite of studies:  Advancing the Science of Climate Change, Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change, and Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change. Since then, the NAS has released a fourth report, Informing Effective Decisions and Actions Related to Climate Change,  and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has hosted webinars on three of the four reports. On August 23 we tuned into the the final UCS webinar, a discussion of the Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change report - a report focused largely on drawing our attention to the importance of adapting to irreversible climate change.

By Rebeka Ryvola

The report signals a larger shift from the mentality that an increased focus on adaption efforts implies that mitigation of climate change is being abandoned. While mitigation is undeniably important, it has become abundantly clear that even the most zealous and comprehensive mitigation plan cannot stop the climate change that is already under way, the potential consequences of which - for both humans and ecosystems - are significant.

In the webinar, much of presenter and panel member Dr. Gary Yohe’s introduction into the content of the Adaptation report was covered by CSW in our post-NAS briefing write up. Here’s an excerpt from our coverage of panel co-chair Dr. Thomas Wilbanks’ presentation:

The biggest challenge to adaptation, Dr. Wilbanks said, is that adaptation activities are by nature highly context-specific. Further, “because adaptation received so little support until very recently, the knowledge base is still in its infancy,” he said.

Taking these challenges into consideration, the Adaptation panel made recommendations for the development of a national adaptation strategy that would be coordinated federally, and implemented locally. “We suggest that decisionmakers at every scale of government and every part of US society should look at climate change adaptation from a risk management point of view,” Dr. Wilbanks said. In the near term, activities should focus on vulnerability assessments for all contexts and the implementation of actions with co-benefits in that they meet existing economic and development goals. But in the longer term, the US must be prepared for the possibility of abrupt changes that cannot be accommodated through incremental adaptation.

“The most dramatic possible threat appears to be the recent projection by US government agencies that apparent sea level rise, including land subsidence, in the Gulf Coast could be 2-4 feet by 2050, plus the prospect of more intense coastal storms,” Dr. Wilbanks said. “We may need to consider contingency plans that go beyond what’s easy to do now.”

The panel recommended that a collaborative national adaptation strategy be implemented through a “national adaptation program that facilitates cooperation and collaboration across lines, between different levels of government, and between government and other key parties, including the private sector, community organizations, and NGOs. A national adaptation program should be one in which the federal government provides technical and scientific resources that are lacking at local and regional scales, incentives for state and local governments and other parties to begin adapting, attention to some current policies that may in fact be maladaptive, a clearinghouse for sharing lessons learned, and support scientific research to expand knowledge of both impacts and adaptation options,” Dr. Wilbanks said.

After introducing the report, Dr. Yohe (of Wesleyan University) gave the audience a run through of the contents, focusing on the main theme: the need for a National Adaptation Strategy that equips the State and local levels to make the best adaptation choices and manage for the risks of climate change.

Adaptation Choices

Dr. Yohe discussed adaptation efforts under way - Philadelphia’s early warning system for heat waves, and the Gulf Coast’s flood preparation, for example - and how many adaptation efforts often are win-win, offering “near-term co-benefits.” For instance, many adaptive measures that can be taken on a state and local level already exist as ways to address climate variability; undertaking these measures only increases resilience to natural climatic variations. However, Dr. Yohe talked about how many critical adaptation measures are difficult to implement because of:

(1) an inability to attribute many observed changes at local and regional scales explicitly to climate change (and therefore to document effects of adaptation in reducing those impacts)

(2) the diversity of impacts and vulnerabilities across the United States, and

(3) the relatively small body of research that focuses on climate change adaptation actions.

 

Managing for the Risks of Climate Change

The Adaptation report also focuses on the management of risk: “Adaptation to climate change calls for a new paradigm that manages risks related to climate change by recognizing the prospects for departures from historical conditions, trends, and variation.” Dr. Yohe spoke about adapting to climate change impacts before they are directly felt as an “insurance policy” against the unpredictable effects of a changing climate.

Dr. Yohe also discussed the cyclical process that will enable decision makers to attain optimal resilience with their adopted adaptive measures:

6 step adaptation planning as an iterative process leading to the best adaptive choices.

 

Need for a National Adaptation Strategy

Throughout the webinar, Dr. Yohe made it clear that a Federal policy directive is needed to lead adaptive action on the state and local level. Both the identification of proper adaptive measures for varying contexts, and the managing of the risks of climate change need a central strategy to ensure their success. A National Adaptation Strategy is of utmost importance because although lower levels of government can begin to adapt on their own, their efforts would be better informed if there was a central venue to track changes, allow “collaboration of adaptive activities” and sharing of lessons learned while providing “guidance and support of the scientific research needed to expand knowledge of impacts and adaptation.”

The report calls for the Federal government to step into the role of “catalyst and coordinator,” providing “information, technical resources, and incentives for adaptation decision-making and implementation; helping to avoid unintended consequences and inconsistent or inefficient investments and outcomes; continually evaluating needs for additional risk management at a national level; and serving as a role model by considering adaptations in federal programs.” Dr Yohe emphasized that with a National Adaptation Strategy, the role of the federal government would not be to tell state and local governments what to do, but rather to facilitate their adaptive efforts.

Above all, the report calls for a shift to a new way of thinking about adaptation - “one that considers a range of possible future climate conditions and associated impacts, some well outside the realm of past experience.”

———————

The Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change report PDF, summary, and panel info can be found here, along with a summary report and other panel information.

The final America’s Climate Choices report, a synthesis of the conclusions of the panel reports is set to be released in Fall of 2010.

Full CSW coverage of the release of the first three reports can be found here and the Informing Effective Decisions report webinar can be found here.

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International research group works to analyze weather extremes in real time

The spate of extreme weather events worldwide this summer has raised the profile of a major issue in climate change science: how does global warming impact weather and climate extremes?  Increases in the frequency and severity of climate and weather extremes have been observed over the last fifty years, including droughts, heavy precipitation events, extreme temperatures, and intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic, and are projected to continue.  However, most atmospheric scientists will not claim a given extreme weather event as “proof” of human influence on the climate based on the current evidence, and research continues on the complexities of attributing climate change to human activities versus natural climate variability.  A new international research initiative will seek to elevate the priority and visibility of attribution activities, and create a “research activity and a framework for an ‘operational’ activity, that sets forth a goal of providing a lot more concrete information in near real time about what has happened and why in weather and climate.”

Post by Alexa Jay

A group of atmospheric scientists, climate information users, and science communications experts met last week in Colorado for the first full session of the International Group on Attribution of Climate-related Events, a workshop convened by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the UK Met Office, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  The group will work to more accurately explain the complex causes behind extreme climate-related events, such as the recent flooding in Pakistan and intense wildfires induced by high heat and drought in Russia.  The ability to trace the human fingerprint in specific weather events could significantly raise awareness about the impacts of human-caused global warming on regional and local scales, and make explicit the need for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

As explained by Climate Central scientists, in taking the example of the deadly 2003 European heat wave, this event could have occurred without human influence on the climate—but human-caused forcing increases the likelihood of such an event occurring.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a similar connection recently, linking flooding in Pakistan and other extreme events to human influence on the climate.  “You can’t point to any particular disaster and say ‘it was caused by,’ but we are changing the climate of the world,” she said.

Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz spoke recently on Al Jazeera English Television on whether the 2010 extreme weather events were a sign of a changing climate.  “One of the main ways that we will experience long-term climate change is through the changes in the weather and the extremes that we are seeing now,” Piltz said.   

Increases in the intensity and severity of extreme weather events pose great risks to human society, above all in the developing world.  Our ability to build resiliency into our infrastructure depends on our awareness of the destructive potential of extreme events that are projected to move beyond the realm of modern human experience.

As quoted in The Guardian, Peter Stott of the UK Met Office said: “We need to be able to forecast events weeks or months ahead of their occurrence so people can mitigate their worst impacts.  We also need to consider the longer-term context and see if we need to build better sea defences at a particular location and assess how high dykes or walls need to be.  Certainly, one thing is clear: there is no time to waste.  The effects of global warming are already upon us.”

And according to Claudia Tebaldi from Climate Central: “An analysis that is able to drill into the specific events and their causes could not only make us more aware of the effects that our actions have on our local climate, but be the strong basis for saying something about what people on the scorched ground in Moscow, or feet deep in the water in Pakistan, should be prepared to face in a world where greenhouse gases are not kept in check (or not to face, if the result of event attribution concluded that the component from global warming was not significant).”

Another excellent resource is a podcast featuring Dr. Kevin Trenberth, the head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, discussing the meteorological dynamics at work in this summer’s heat wave in Russia and flooding in Pakistan, and the larger implications of climate change for extreme weather events. 

Presentations from the workshop, the agenda, and an executive summary can be found here.

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce again challenges legality of EPA greenhouse gas regulation

Posted on Wednesday, August 25, 2010

On August 13, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a petition for judicial review to challenge the legality of the EPA’s decision not to reconsider its determination that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health and welfare and are to be regulated under the Clean Air Act.  While claiming that the lawsuit “does not address the science of climate change,” the Chamber has a history of questioning climate science to fight off regulation, including the assertion that warming of even 3 degrees Celsius over the next century would be “beneficial to humans” and a call to put “the science of climate change on trial.”

Post by Alexa Jay

The Chamber of Commerce and nine other parties, including fossil fuel interests, anti-regulatory NGOs, and the state governments of Texas and Virginia, previously filed petitions for reconsideration of EPA’s “Endangerment Finding” issued in December 2009.  EPA released a statement on July 29, 2010 rejecting all petitions:

“The petitions to reconsider EPA’s “Endangerment Finding” claimed that climate science can’t be trusted, and asserted a conspiracy that calls into question the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. National Academy of sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.  After months of serious consideration of the petitions and of the state of climate change science, EPA found no evidence to support these claims.”

Regarding the current lawsuit, Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the Chamber’s National Chamber Litigation Center, said in a prepared statement:

“The Chamber’s lawsuit challenges the wisdom of regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, which simply was never intended to regulate something as complex as global climate change.  The Chamber’s lawsuit does not address the science of climate change.”

What appears to be an even-handed statement of policy is contradicted by the Chamber’s record of questioning the science of global warming.  A number of the Chamber’s members have resigned over its opposition to action on climate change, and the Chamber has since made the case that it has “never questioned the science behind global warming.”  Brad Johnson of Wonk Room details the Chamber’s history of climate change denialism.

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Ehrlich on Schneider: Being a scientist doesn’t relieve one of the obligations of a citizen

Posted on Monday, August 23, 2010

In a fine remembrance of his friend Stephen Schneider, Paul Ehrlich notes how he and Schneider “had many discussions of the responsibilities of ‘public scientists.’” They agreed: “Being a scientist does not relieve one of the obligations of a citizen to speak out,” Ehrlich says. “In my experience, no scientist felt that obligation more strongly, or showed more dedication and courage in meeting it, than Steve Schneider.”

Post by Rick Piltz

Prof. Paul Ehrlich, at the Center for Conservation Biology, Department of Biology, Stanford University, writing a “Retrospective” in the August 13 issue of Science (by subscription), on Schneider the scientist, friend, and ‘man for all seasons’ who touched so many of our lives for the better, leads with:

Stephen Schneider (1945-2010)

Most Science readers will know that Steve Schneider was a giant in atmospheric science who made seminal contributions in many areas, ranging from the roles played by cloud feedbacks in the climate system to the impact of aerosol particles in “nuclear winter” scenarios. They will also be aware that he was an indefatigable scientific educator, battling especially to ensure that climate disruption and humans’ role in it were explained properly to the public. They likely know that he was well recognized for his contributions to atmospheric science and public policy.  He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 1992. He was a contributor to all four of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and he was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change.

A less well-known side of Steve is that he was a stickler for getting the science right, regardless of the politics. When we were doing the nuclear winter studies in the early 1980s, he was constantly working to see that all public statements were as accurate as possible. When he and Starley Thompson reexamined the nuclear winter predictions a few years later, and found them to be less dire, Steve did not hesitate to make the revisions public, which led to the currency of the alternative term “nuclear autumn.” That’s the way he was on all issues. Given new data, he did not hesitate to modify his views.

In the 1970s, we had many discussions of the responsibilities of “public scientists.” We agreed that one must first explain the scientific consensus, then say if you agreed with it (and if not, why not), and then give your personal opinion of what policy choices should be made. Being a scientist does not relieve one of the obligations of a citizen to speak out. In my experience, no scientist felt that obligation more strongly, or showed more dedication and courage in meeting it, than Steve Schneider. To the very last, he worked to educate the public and decision makers, ignoring illness and anonymous death threats from persons who opposed the scientific consensus on climate change.

And concludes:

He was a climate researcher who was also a man for all seasons. His myriad friends will miss him intensely, and so, I’m afraid, will billions of people who never heard of him, whose lives he so determinedly strove to improve.

I agree with Schneider and Ehrlich on this. As I said in an earlier post, I believe the climate and environmental science community has an essential role to play in setting the record straight and influencing public discourse that goes beyond providing good science education, beyond contributing to the peer-reviewed literature, and beyond developing the IPCC and other scientific assessment reports—all of which are bedrock intellectual contributions, of course. It also includes intervening directly, in a citizen-scientist [or what Schneider called ‘scientist-advocate’] capacity—by which I mean, when you have a contribution to make, speaking as an advocate to policymakers and fellow citizens explicitly on the basis of bringing scientific expertise to the discussion—to address policy and societal implications of scientific understanding. It includes helping to keep the discussion honest by calling down high-level public officials and operatives of the global warming disinformation campaign when they misrepresent scientific evidence – to perform an integrity watchdog function. There are some outstanding exceptions, including a fair number of climate scientists, but I believe that, overall, the science community has underperformed in its scientist-advocate role, and the results are all too apparent.

I have noted earlier that, clearly, there is a divergence of views in the climate science community on this issue of the appropriate role of scientific expertise vis-a-vis the practice of citizenship—where citizenship involves taking a position on issues requiring policy decisionmaking.

Andy Revkin, in his New York Times DotEarth blog, touched on this divergence in a post focused on the eminent atmospheric scientist Richard Somerville (“The Road from Climate Science to Climate Advocacy”). Revkin wrote:

Richard C. J. Somerville, a climatologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography near San Diego, is one of a growing array of scientists who have chosen to move beyond studying heat transfer and cloud physics and take on the role of activist: prodding society to move aggressively to cut greenhouse gases….

“For me, and maybe for many, I think that ‘going public’ and making a statement as an individual, who is also a climate expert, is simply a next logical step,” Dr. Somerville said.

“After all, many politicians have said that scientists should be heard from more. As long as we are always at pains to make clear that we are speaking only as individuals, not on behalf of our employers or other organizations, then I think we are just behaving as good citizens.”

But Revkin noted:

Other scientists disagree with this kind of activism, most notably Susan Solomon, who was the co-leader of the 2007 I.P.C.C. assessment of climate trends. In an email exchange on the general issue of scientists and policy debate last weekend (just before she flew to Antarctica), she said: “If we as scientists go beyond what we know into our personal opinions and values, we begin to engage in the same sort of personal speculation masquerading as authoritative that we dislike when it is done by the skeptics.”

With all due respect to Susan Solomon, who has made an incalculable scientific contribution, it seems to me insufficient to speak in terms of a simple dichotomy between “what we know,” on the one hand, and “personal opinions” and “personal speculation,” on the other, as though there were no intellectual terrain between “knowing” something with, say, 95 percent confidence, and being reduced to something like speculative, amateurish punditry. It’s as though scientists, including those who write the IPCC assesssments, have nothing to offer to an actual dialogue with policymakers in terms of policymakers’ decisionmaking jurisdiction, or to a more general public audience.

On the contrary, what policymakers and the public need from the climate science community includes scientists’ synthesis of and expert judgments about the state of knowledge in terms of its implications for policymaking and societal decisionmaking – even though that involves a necessary element of subjectivity. Policymakers need scientists to advise them in the context of assessing and managing the risks of climate change – in particular, on the implications of their decisions about adaptation and mitigation response strategies.

The problem of global climatic disruption is far too serious to think that society is well-served by a separation between scientists and decisionmaking, or between scientists and a wider public – with scientists speaking only the language of “what we know” and failing to speak of “here are what we see as the implications for your decisionmaking of what we know, and the implications for society of your actions.”

I’ve been spending some time re-reading Steve Schneider’s personal website at Stanford. Most of its substantial content was posted prior to 2005 and amounts essentially to his own very readable primer on climate change science, impacts, and policy. Only a few more recent items are posted. Given the frequent emphasis, in the many tributes that have been written about Steve’s life and work, on his highly valuable (and to some, controversial) contribution as a public communicator of climate science, I found it interesting to revisit what he had to say in his essay “Mediarology,” dated February 2005.

It would be interesting to gather reflections of other scientists working on climate change issues, from their experiences in communicating with policymakers, the media, and nonscientist audiences. The experience of contributing as a public scientist should be more widely shared and the art and craft of doing so should become more highly developed.  Steve’s experience as a public scientist was so extensive and so deep that his 15-page essay only scratches the surface, though it identifies key themes that are persistent.

Schneider’s home page

The Overview of the Climate Change Problem section of the site contains a summary of the key themes of “Mediarology.”

Full-length essay “Mediarology: The Roles of Citizens, Journalists, and Scientists in Debunking Climate Change Myths”

Follow it up, of course, with his last book, the memoir Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate, published in late 2009.

Earlier CSW posts:

July 25: Stephen Schneider: Eulogies and Tributes

July 12: Interview with Stephen Schneider on climate science expert credibility study

June 21:: New study finds striking level of agreement among climate experts on anthropogenic climate change

July 19: Stephen Schneider in 1979

July 5: Leading US climate scientists are being subjected to a barrage of right-wing lunatic hate mail

May 21: Climate scientists tell House committee: We know the risk, now it’s up to policymakers to act

March 11: Open Letter to the U.S. Government from U.S. Scientists on climate change and the IPCC reports

March 5: E-mails show climate scientists struggling with push-back on anti-science political assault

December 30, 2009: Stephen Schneider: Climate Denier Gate a case of Science as a Contact Sport

October 14, 2009: Stephen Schneider comments on the CEI and Pat Michaels petition on the global warming data record

June 22, 2009: Open Letter to the President and Members of Congress from 20 leading scientists and scholars

And finally:
August 9, 2005: Radio Open Source: Politics of Climate Change
When I had the rare opportunity to join Steve Schneider and author Ross Gelbspan for a discussion of climate change, on Public Radio International (audio here).

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Sec. of State Clinton attributes Pakistan flooding, other extreme events in part to climate change

Posted on Saturday, August 21, 2010

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview on Pakistan TV, said “there is a linkage” between the recent spate of deadly natural disasters and climate change… “We are changing the climate of the world.” Notwithstanding the scientific complexities of attribution of patterns of meterological events to ongoing global climatic disruption, and how this relationship can be most appropriately framed in public communication, this is an interesting high-level Obama Administration statement.  To what extent does Secretary Clinton’s statement suggest a commitment by the President to substantial follow-on policy responses, both to immediate events and to developing adaptive preparedness for anticipated consequences of climatic change over time?

Post by Rick Piltz

Earlier CSW post with links to additional statements:

August 13: Are 2010 weather extremes a sign of global climate change? CSW interview on Al Jazeera English TV

Fox News reported August 21 (excerpt):

Clinton Invokes Climate Change Debate to Explain Pakistan Floods

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other officials are pointing to the devastating floods in Pakistan and other extreme weather events as signs that climate change is getting worse.

Clinton, in an interview with Pakistan’s Dawn TV, said “there is a linkage” between the recent spate of deadly natural disasters and climate change.

“You can’t point to any particular disaster and say, ‘it was caused by,’ but we are changing the climate of the world,” she said.

Clinton said that on top of the Pakistan floods, which have forced millions out of their homes, the forest fires in Russia stand as another example. She said there’s no “direct link” between the disasters in Pakistan and Russia but that “when you have the changes in climate that affect weather that we’re now seeing, I think the predictions of more natural disasters are unfortunately being played out.” …

ClimateWire/New York Times reported August 18 on an interview with Dr. Ghassem Asrar, Director of the World Climate Research Programme in Geneva (excerpt):

Pakistan—A Sad New Benchmark in Climate-Related Disasters

By Nathanial Gronewald of ClimateWire

UNITED NATIONS—Devastating flooding that has swamped one-fifth of Pakistan and left millions homeless is likely the worst natural disaster to date attributable to climate change, U.N. officials and climatologists are now openly saying.

Most experts are still cautioning against tying any specific event directly to emissions of greenhouse gases. But scientists at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva say there’s no doubt that higher Atlantic Ocean temperatures contributed to the disaster begun late last month.

Atmospheric anomalies that led to the floods are also directly related to the same weather phenomena that a caused the record heat wave in Russia and flooding and mudslides in western China, said Ghassem Asrar, director of the World Climate Research Programme…. And if the forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are correct, then Pakistan’s misery is just a sign of more to come, said Asrar.

“There’s no doubt that clearly the climate change is contributing, a major contributing factor,” Asrar said in an interview. “We cannot definitely use one case to kind of establish precedents, but there are a few facts that point towards climate change as having to do with this.” …

The hottest summer ever recorded in 130 years has sparked thousands of wildfires in Russia, burning some entire villages to the ground, killing 53 and leaving 3,500 homeless, according to Russian state media. Cooler temperatures are finally bringing some relief, shrinking the extent of the flames from more than 100,000 acres down to about 54,000 acres.

Next to Pakistan, record rainfall and subsequent flooding and mudslides in western China are estimated to have left roughly 1,200 dead and scores more homeless. China’s government has been handling that crisis on its own and has yet to appeal for international support.

Russia’s drought has reduced its wheat crop by 20 percent, and droughts in Canada are anticipated to reduce the crop there by an equal proportion.

Less reported, on Aug. 5, a sensor on a NASA satellite recorded a massive chunk of ice breaking off a glacier in Greenland. The huge block measures more than 77 square miles in size and is one of the largest calving incidents witnessed in the Northern Hemisphere.

Asrar and other [World Meteorological Organization] officials argue that the evidence linking all these events to climate change is strong….

[read the rest of the article here]

Dr. Asrar, as the principal representative from NASA, was Vice-Chair of the U.S. Global Change Research Program/Climate Change Science Program (where I worked in the coordination office) during the Bush-Cheney Administration. In that role, under those political circumstances, he (like the other senior program leaders) was not known for being so straightforward in his public statements about climate change.

See also this August 19 post by Prof. Ricky Rood at (my alma mater) the University of Michigan’s Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, on Nick Sundt’s World Wildlife Fund Climate Blog – Pakistan Floods “a Case Study of a Climate Disaster” Showing Need to Slow Climate Change, Prepare for Impacts. Prof. Rood leads with:

What is happening in Pakistan cannot be described in a single word – like disaster or catastrophe. We are watching a combination of climate, weather, population, societal capacity, and geopolitics whose scope and ramifications are far beyond a “historic flood.”

And concludes:

If we reduce our emissions, then maybe we will responsibly reduce these events for our grandchildren – reduce the cost. It is imperative that we start to build adaptive capacity. In our efforts to develop and maintain and sustain our infrastructure, consider what extreme climate events will mean.

The post includes numerous links to additional online resources.

 

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Judge hears Virginia AG Cuccinelli’s climate science ‘fraud’ case, will rule within 10 days

After hearing oral argument August 20 on the University of Virginia’s petition to block Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s document demands relating to research of former UVa climate scientist Michael Mann, Judge Peatross ruled that he would need more time to make a decision. One has to wonder how many Virginia voters are following this story and finding Cuccinelli’s anti-science inquisition offensive, or realizing how retrograde it makes their state look to have a right-wing prosecutorial zealot as Attorney General.

Post by Rick Piltz

As Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, put it, “If the court permits the attorney general to gain access to the private communications among scientists whenever he disagrees with their ideas, the scientists will simply stop sharing their ideas. The chilling effect on academic freedom and scientific inquiry is incalculable.”

The Charlottesville (VA) Daily Progress reported August 20:

…During Friday’s hearing, attorneys for UVa and Cuccinelli reiterated their positions outlined in a series of briefs filed over the last several months. Cuccinelli has been trying to subpoena a mass of data, documents and correspondence relating to the research of Michael Mann in an attempt to investigate whether Mann violated Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act by accepting $466,000 through four federal and one state research grants between 1999 and 2005.

Chuck Rosenberg, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing the university, said in court that Cuccinelli’s demand fails the statutory requirements of an investigation under the act — a statement of “the nature of the conduct constituting the alleged violation” and a “reason to believe” that UVa as the CID recipient has data about a violation of Virginia’s anti-fraud law.

The attorney said case law shows that would require “more than an intuition” of wrongdoing….

From the Washington Post’s August 21 coverage:

…“It’s frankly offensive to be attacked by a sitting attorney general in a state I know and love,’’ Mann said in a phone interview after the hearing. “These charges continue to be made by climate-change deniers. There is no grounds whatsoever for the claims they are making.” …

Mann worked at U-Va. from 1999 to 2005 and now works at Penn State.

“Calling scientific findings ‘fraudulent’ because you don’t agree with them is dangerous,’’ said Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Earlier CSW posts:

August 19: Univ. of Virginia protest against Cuccinelli climate scientist witch hunt August 20

May 28: University petitions court to quash Cuccinelli subpoena of climate scientist Michael Mann’s papers

May 21: Nine ways to undermine Virginia AG Cuccinelli’s McCarthyite demand for scientists’ communication

May 5: Free the Cuccinelli 40: Virginia AG demands e-mails of Michael Mann and 39 other scientists

July 6: Turning the tables: Virginia AG Cuccinelli under investigation for climate probe by Greenpeace

July 1: Interview with Michael Mann on the Penn State Final Report and the war on climate scientists

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Univ. of Virginia protest against Cuccinelli climate scientist witch hunt August 20

Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2010

University of Virginia faculty, students and alumni will gather Friday afternoon August 20 to protest against Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s witch hunt against former UVA Professor and leading climate scientist Michael Mann.  The protest is timed to coincide with the ruling of a Virginia Circuit Court judge who is set to rule on whether to allow Cuccinelli’s frivolous investigation to continue.

Re-posted from DeSmogBlog August 19:

UVA Students, Faculty and Alumni To Protest Ken Cuccinelli Witch Hunt Against Climate Scientist On Friday

By Brendan DeMelle

University of Virginia faculty, students and alumni will gather Friday afternoon to protest against Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s witch hunt against former UVA Professor and leading climate scientist Michael Mann.  The protest is timed to coincide with the ruling of a Virginia Circuit Court judge who is set to rule on whether to allow Cuccinelli’s frivolous investigation to continue.

Cuccinelli’s political attack on climate science has two ongoing fronts right now, one targeting climate scientist Michael Mann, and another involving a lawsuit filed by Cuccinelli against the EPA attempting to block the agency’s efforts to regulate carbon dioxide pollution.
Charlottesville, Virginia ABC affiliate WHSV reports:

Students, faculty members and alumni of the University of Virginia will gather to protest Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation of UVA and former UVA Professor Michael Mann Friday at 1 p.m. on the north (street) side of the University’s Rotunda at 1826 University Ave.

Four groups recently filed an amicus brief asking the Albemarle County Circuit Court judge to put an end to Cuccinelli’s politically-motivated charade, including the ACLU of Virginia, American Association of University Professors, Union of Concerned Scientists and Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

“If the court permits the attorney general to gain access to the private communications among scientists whenever he disagrees with their ideas, the scientists will simply stop sharing their ideas,” said Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia. “The chilling effect on academic freedom and scientific inquiry is incalculable.”

Previously, a group of 675 Virginia professors signed a letter asking Cuccinelli to drop his “burdensome and entirely unwarranted” demands to probe years’ worth of Mann’s email, research papers and other documents.

But Cuccinelli has pressed on with his attempts to harass climate scientists and waste Virginia taxpayer dollars to suit his own political agenda. 

Details on the UVA protest tomorrow afternoon [Friday August 20]:

Protest begins at 1 p.m. on the north (street) side of the University’s Rotunda at 1826 University Ave.

The Circuit Court judge is expected to release his statement at 2pm on the decision whether to allow Cuccinelli’s witch hunt to continue.

Earlier CSW posts:
May 28: University petitions court to quash Cuccinelli subpoena of climate scientist Michael Mann’s papers

May 21: Nine ways to undermine Virginia AG Cuccinelli’s McCarthyite demand for scientists’ communication

May 5: Free the Cuccinelli 40: Virginia AG demands e-mails of Michael Mann and 39 other scientists

July 6: Turning the tables: Virginia AG Cuccinelli under investigation for climate probe by Greenpeace

July 1: Interview with Michael Mann on the Penn State Final Report and the war on climate scientists

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Latest NRC report charts path for federal government in supporting national climate preparedness

Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change, the latest report in the National Research Council’s America’s Climate Choices suite of studies, is a commendable effort to draw more attention to an issue that is often overlooked in mainstream climate policy discussions: the tools, networks, and coordination needed to build a national response to climate change and inform climate decisions at all levels.

Post by Alexa Jay and Rick Piltz

The report was released on June 22 with little fanfare.  The Union of Concerned Scientists hosted a webinar on August 17 with Dr. Diana Liverman, co-chair of the report panel and an expert on the human dimensions of global climate change, to discuss the panel’s findings and answer questions. 

The report can be read in full online, or purchased for download as a PDF. 

Dr. Liverman said that rather than assessing agency plans for climate communication and information services, the panel looked at information that is publicly available and is actually being used by a range of users, asking the following questions to focus their inquiry: 

(1) Who is making decisions and taking action on climate change in the United States; what are their needs for information and decision support, and what are the barriers to good decisions?

(2) What decision making frameworks and methods are being used, and which are the most effective?

(3) How might climate and greenhouse gas information systems and services support more effective decisions and actions?

(4) What is known about the most effective ways to communicate about climate change, especially with the public and through formal and informal education?

The panel found that current information and reporting systems are inadequate for aggregating and evaluating the effectiveness of America’s climate choices to date, Dr. Liverman said, especially those made by the private sector.  The federal government has a role to play in developing those systems.  The federal government has the infrastructure for data collection and analysis that can support a national monitoring system for greenhouse gas emissions, provide tailored climate information services, and bring together information about international mitigation and climate response efforts. 

The panel found that “the federal government has the responsibility and opportunity to lead and coordinate the response to climate change, not only to protect the nation’s national security, resources, and health, but also to provide a policy framework that promotes effective responses at all levels of American society,” according to the report summary. 

The panel’s main recommendations for the federal government were: 

•  Coordinate a comprehensive, nationwide response to climate change
•  Adopt an iterative risk management approach to climate change
•  Improve the range and accessibility of tools to support climate choices
•  Create information systems and services to support limiting emissions, adaptation, and evaluating the effectiveness of decisions and actions
•  Improve the communication, education, and understanding of climate choices

Right now the U.S. has no “comprehensive, nationwide response to climate change,” no coherent policy that informs action by the federal government, on either emissions reduction and a clean energy transition or on adaptive preparedness to deal with the impacts of global climatic disruption. The U.S. has no “iterative risk management approach to climate change,” i.e., the type of approach long championed by our dear friend the late Stephen Schneider and others.

Developing a U.S. climate policy calls for a Congressional action component that does not appear to be in the cards for the immediately foreseeable future.  But in the absence of new legislation, progress can be made on these recommendations under existing executive branch authority, and by better marshalling existing resources (although appropriation of additional resources will be required both for climate change mitigation and for implementation of a preparedness strategy).

The Obama Administration has been taking some steps in the right direction on climate change preparedness and informing a response strategy.  We participated in the White House-sponsored National Climate Adaptation Summit in late May, which brought together federal, state, and local officials and nongovernmental advocates and experts in constructive dialogue on steps forward. The second National Climate Change Assessment is beginning to get off the ground, and is being developed with a good set of priorities under the leadership of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.  NOAA is developing its Climate Service capability, which could potentially play a leading role in providing data and information services in support of climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts nationwide. The federal Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, under White House and NOAA leadership, has taken the first steps toward developing a national strategy.

This activity is pretty much under the radar as far as media and public attention is concerned, and these efforts are proceeding for the most part with little if any new resources, and little high-profile political leadership.

The America’s Climate Choices reports provide a scientifically based analysis and vocabulary to underpin the kind of communication the country should be getting from high-level political and corporate elites. In particular, what the Academy panel in its report calls “a comprehensive, nationwide response to climate change” will not be developed, adopted, and implemented without strong, steady support and sustained public communication about the problem by the President and other high-level government officials – as we should expect on any issue of national security concern. 

Climate Science Watch post on the release of earlier America’s Climate Choices reports: “NRC: US should act now to cut emissions, develop a national strategy to adapt to inevitable impacts”

 

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Climate Science Watch Weekly Update, August 16

Posted on Monday, August 16, 2010

A brief update on research findings and events we’re keeping track of this week.

Post by Alexa Jay and Rebeka Ryvola

Climate change in the news

Over the weekend, a front-page story in the New York Times discussed the connection between the recent spate of extreme weather events worldwide and global warming.  The Times referenced this summer’s heat waves in the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia, and in particular Russia, where massive forest fires have burned through large areas of the country.  Intense flooding in Pakistan has killed more than a thousand people and displaced millions, and the U.N. reports that a shortage of aid funds is leaving some six million people at risk from potentially lethal waterborne diseases.

Photo credit: Akhtar Soomro/REUTERS

In a warming world, events of this magnitude may become commonplace, with serious implications for human security worldwide.

“Theory suggests that a world warming up because of [greenhouse] gases will feature heavier rainstorms in summer, bigger snowstorms in winter, more intense droughts in at least some places and more record-breaking heat waves. Scientists and government reports say the statistical evidence shows that much of this is starting to happen,” the Times said.

Climate and weather observation

World Meteorological Organization

A recent World Meteorological Organization (WMO) statement similarly weighed recent weather extremes against IPCC predictions for a warming climate.

Despite the long time scale required to gauge whether individual extreme events can be attributed to climate change, recent “severe weather-related events”—including the Pakistan floods, Russian fires, and calving of the Greenland glacier, among many others—are consistent with IPCC projections of increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, the statement said. 

About whether this recent cluster of extreme weather could be attributed to natural variance, the WMO statemenmt says: “Climate extremes have always existed, but all the events cited above compare with, or exceed in intensity, duration or geographical extent, the previous largest historical events.”  Further, these events have led to an “unprecedented loss in human life and property.”

NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that the combined global land and ocean surface temperature average for July was the second warmest on record, and the global average land surface temperature for July and January-July average was the warmest on record. 

NASA

Last week, NASA released data showing that average surface temperature in July 2010 in the Northern Hemisphere broke the previous record for July set in 2005.  Nick Sundt at WWF has more details.

Climate Denier Arguments

An interesting August 16 cross-post on Climate Progress from Skeptical Science app creator John Cook investigates the causes of the mid 20th century cooling period. The scientific papers featured by Cook show how it’s possible that global temperature decreased in the 1950s while CO2 emissions continued to increase.

Global dimming and brightening, phenomena caused by “various factors can affect how much sunlight gets through to the Earth’s surface, with the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere being the main contributor”. The findings in the papers presented here dispute the often-used argument that the mid-century increases in CO2 are not matched by simultaneous increases in temperature.

The above GISS figure illustrates how the presence of aerosols from pollutants in the atmosphere contributed to cooling as CO2 continued to accumulate in the atmosphere “while we were sleeping.” Once those pollutants were regulated and the aerosols diminished, the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 became apparent.

See here for John Cook’s full Climate Progress post.

Upcoming Events

America’s Climate Choices: Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change Webinar
August 17, 1-2 PM EDT
Dr. Diana Liverman will present the findings in Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change, the newest report in the America’s Climate Choices suite of studies, which focuses on climate change information needs, information systems, and communications.  Dr. Liverman is Co-director, Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona and Senior Research Fellow, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University.
RSVP for the webinar here.

You can also RSVP for a webinar next week on the findings of another America’s Climate Choices report:

Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change
August 23, 2-3 PM EDT
Dr. Thomas Wilbanks of Oak Ridge National Laboratory will present the main findings of Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change.  He will be joined by Dr. Gary Yohe, a professor at Wesleyan University, and Dr. Claudia Mengelt, Study Director, National Research Council.

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Are 2010 weather extremes a sign of global climate change? CSW interview on Al Jazeera English TV

Posted on Friday, August 13, 2010

On August 8 we talked with Al Jazeera in connection with their prominent coverage of 2010’s wave of extreme weather—flooding in Asia, heat wave and wildfires in Russia, and record temperatures in many parts of the globe. Are these events a sign of human-caused climate change? (See Details for links to additional commentary.)

Post by Rick Piltz

Had the Q&A gone beyond discussing the weather to raise the question of policy implications, I would have said something on these themes:

First, of course, we should be taking steps to end the contribution to global climatic disruption that results from our burning of coal in electric power plants and oil in our transportation systems. Our actions today have very long-term consequences. How to do this in a way that is consistent with meeting the material needs of people worldwide is a huge problem that so far appears to be too much for the governments to come to a strong international agreement on how to do.

Then there is what I call “adaptive preparedness”—making infrastructure, social systems, and natural resources more resilient to changing climate conditions. This can be done to some extent but there’s a limit if changes are too great, or come too fast. The climate assessments suggest that the most vulnerable populations will be hardest hit by the impacts. If we’re spending more of our resources on adapting to the damages from extreme weather and climate change, or cleaning up after disasters, that’s less to go into developing society. In this the highly developed more wealthy countries have a particular responsibility to those who are most vulnerable. But in the U.S., for example, we have no real climate change policy even to prepare for the impacts of climate change here, let alone any meaningful national discussion about international responsibilities.

Some observations from the science community:

From Jim Hansen at NASA, on “What Global Warming Looks Like” —

Climate anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2010, including the heat in Eastern Europe and unusually heavy rainfall and floods in several regions, have received much attention. Are these climate anomalies an example of what we can expect global warming to look like? Maps of temperature anomalies, such as Figure 1, are useful for helping people understand the role of global warming in extreme events.

The location of extreme events in any particular month depends on specific weather patterns, which are unpredictable except on short time scales. The weather patterns next summer will be different than this year. It could be a cooler than average summer in Moscow in 2011.

But note in Figure 1, and similar maps for other months, that the area warmer than climatology already (with global warming of 0.55°C relative to 195 1-1980) is noticeably larger than the area cooler than climatology. Also the magnitude of warm anomalies now usually exceeds the magnitude of cool anomalies.

What we can say is that global warming has an effect on the probability and intensity of extreme events. This is true for precipitation as well as temperature, because the amount of water vapor that the air carries is a strong function of temperature. So the frequency of extremely heavy rain and floods increases as global warming increases. But at times and places of drought, global warming can increase the extremity of temperature and associated events such as forest fires.

From the World Meteorological Organization—

[T]he IPCC Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007…stated that “…the type, frequency and intensity of extreme events are expected to change as Earth’s climate changes, and these changes could occur even with relatively small mean climate changes. Changes in some types of extreme events have already been observed, for example, increases in the frequency and intensity of heat waves and heavy precipitation events” (Summary for Policy Makers, WG I, FAQ 10.1, p. 122).

(h/t Nick Sundt, WWF Climate Blog)

Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at UK’s Met Office, writing in the Guardian: 

There have always been extremes of weather around the world but evidence suggests human influence is changing the odds….

Over the past week or so, Pakistan has been devastated by its worst floods for generations [30] and Moscow has suffered under a blanket of smog [31] after its hottest day in 130 years of records. What is causing these and other recent extreme weather events and are they linked to climate change?....

Analysing the observational data shows clearly that there has been a rise in the number of extremely warm temperatures recorded worldwide and that there have been increases in the number of heavy rainfall events in many regions over land. Evidence, including in India and China, that periods of heavy rain are getting heavier, is entirely consistent with our understanding of the physics of the atmosphere in which warmer air holds more moisture. Our climate change predictions support the emerging trend in observations and show a clear intensification of extreme rainfall events in a warmer world.

It can still be problematic to blame a specific individual extreme weather event on climate change, because there have always been extremes of weather around the world. However, if the likelihood of a particular extreme weather event has changed it is possible to say something. … While still relatively rare, the odds of such extreme events are rapidly shortening and could become considered the norm by the middle of this century.

Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, quoted in Wired Science: “Russian Heat, Asian Floods May Be Linked”

Events like these fit with general forecasts of weather trends in a warming climate. But some observers have wondered whether Russia’s heat wave and Asia’s floods are linked not just by a vague trend, but by specific cause-and-effect meteorological dynamics. They will undoubtedly be studied in detail for years to come, but according to Trenberth, there’s good reason to think the extremes are connected.

“The two things are connected on a very large scale, through what we call an overturning or monsoonal circulation,” he said. “There is a monsoon where upwards motion is being fed by the very moist air that’s going onshore, and there are exceptionally heavy rains. That drives rising air. That air has to come down somewhere. Some of it comes down over the north.”Fueling the monsoons’ intensity are warmer-than-usual temperatures in and above the Indian Ocean. At 2 Fahrenheit degrees above late-20th century levels, the air can hold about 8 percent more water. At higher temperatures, the air is also more buoyant, and “invigorates the storms,” said Trenberth.

“Air rises faster than before. It sucks more air in. It changes moisture flow onto land even more. You can almost double the effect,” he said. “From that 8 percent more water, there can be 16 percent more rainfall.”

Jeff Masters at Weather Underground, on “Pakistan’s Katrina”—

Are the this year’s monsoon floods due to global warming?
No single weather event can be attributed to climate change, but a warming climate does load the dice in favor of heavier extreme precipitation events. This occurs because more water vapor can evaporate into a warmer atmosphere, increasing the chances of record heavy downpours. In a study published in Science in 2006, Goswami et al. found that the level of heavy rainfall activity in the monsoon over India had more than doubled in the 50 years since the 1950s, leading to an increased disaster potential from heavy flooding. Moderate and weak rain events decreased over the past 50 years, leaving the total amount of rain deposited by the monsoon roughly constant. The authors commented, “These findings are in tune with model projections and some observations that indicate an increase in heavy rain events and a decrease in weak events under global warming scenarios.” We should expect to see an increased number of disastrous monsoon floods in coming decades if the climate continues to warm as expected. Since the population continues to increase at a rapid rate in the region, death tolls from monsoon flooding disasters are likely to climb dramatically in coming decades.

References
Goswami, et al., 2006, ” Increasing Trend of Extreme Rain Events Over India in a Warming Environment”, Science, 1 December 2006:Vol. 314. no. 5804, pp. 1442 – 1445 DOI: 10.1126/science.1132027

(Thanks to Andy Revkin, New York Times Dot Earth blog, “Scientists See Links From Asian Floods to Russian Heat”, and Joe Romm, Climate Progress, “Media Wakes Up to Hell and High Water: Moscow’s 1000-year heat wave and ‘Pakistan’s Katrina’.”)

 

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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.

Post by Alexa Jay and Rebeka Ryvola

National Academy of Sciences Reports

America’s Climate Choices reports 2010 - four reports released as of 8/22/10

Organization: National Academy of Sciences.

Authors: U.S. scientists from diverse but interrelated fields.

About: America’s Climate Choices consists of four coordinated activities that examine the “serious and sweeping issues associated with global climate change, including the science and technology challenges involved, and provide advice on actions and strategies the nation can take to respond.” 

Each of the four reports covers one of the following questions:

1) What can be done to limit the magnitude of future climate change?
2) What can be done to adapt to the impacts of climate change?
3) What can be done to better understand climate change and its interactions with human and ecological systems?
4) What can be done to inform effective decisions and actions related to climate change?

Significance: The America’s Climate Choices suite of studies was requested by Congress and aims to produce a broad, action-oriented, and authoritative set of analyses to inform and guide responses to climate change across the nation.

Major Conclusions: The four NAS reports confirm that climate change is underway, will have long-term consequences, and requires urgent efforts to reduce emissions and prepare for impacts that cannot be avoided.

Next Report: A final summary report simply entitled America’s Climate Choices will tie together main ideas and answer the main questions from the four existing reports. This final report will also answer the following questions:

5) What short-term actions can be taken to respond effectively to climate change?
6) What promising long-term strategies, investments, and opportunities could be pursued to respond to climate change?
7) What are the major scientific and technological advances needed to better understand and respond effectively to climate change?
8) What are the major impediments to responding effectively to climate change, and what can be done to overcome these impediments?

This is the first round of America’s Climate Choices studies to come out. It has not yet been announced whether there will be a second round of reports.

U.S. Government Reports

State of the Climate 2009, released 7/27/2010

Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Climatic Data Center

Authors: More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report.

About: The report is a compilation of research creating a broad and comprehensive look at “the earth’s climate from the top of the atmosphere to depths of the ocean.” The primary goal of the annual report is to document weather and climate events from that year and put them in an historical perspective, with a particular focus on unusual or anomalous events.  Because 2009 marks the end of the decade, this year’s report also analyzes decadal trends.

Significance: The report brings together research done by many different institutions around the world gathering data in multiple ways - including weather balloons, satellites, buoys, and field surveys. While small differences exist between the diverse data sets, the overall picture is the same: that of a warming world.

Major Conclusions: The report confirms that the past decade has been the warmest on record, and that the Earth has warmed over the past 50 years.  The report used 10 measurable global indicators that observe changes in global temperature, all of which are consistent with a warming world.  Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface.  Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

Next Report: Reports come out annually: State of the Climate 2010 will be released in the summer of 2011.

Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report submitted under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010 CAR), 6/1/2010

Agency: U.S. Department of State

About: Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) must submit CARs reporting on the implementation of the Convention to the Conference of the Parties.  The U.S. has submitted CAR reports every 3 - 5 years since ratification of the convention in 1994. 

Significance: The national reports typically contain information on national circumstances, vulnerability assessment, financial resources and transfer of technology, and education, training and public awareness; but reports from Annex I parties also contain information on policies and measures.  Accurate reporting is considered essential “for the international community to take the most appropriate action to mitigate climate change, and ultimately to achieve the objective of the Convention.  Communicating relevant information on the most effective ways to reduce emissions and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change also contributes towards global sustainable development.” 

Major Conclusions: “At the federal level, since assuming office in January 2009, President Obama has renewed the U.S. commitment to lead in combating climate change. The Obama administration, together with the U.S. Congress, has taken major steps to enhance the domestic effort to promote clean energy solutions and tackle climate change.” Examples:

•  Through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the U.S. allocated over $90 billion for investments in clean energy technologies.
•  President Obama announced a commitment to develop the first-ever joint fuel economy and carbon dioxide tailpipe emission standards for cars and light duty trucks in the U.S.  These standards will boost fuel efficiency on average 4.3% annually and approximately 21.5% over the term of the standards, starting in 2012 and ending in 2016.
•  The U.S. EPA issued findings under the Clean Air Act that the current and projected greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere threaten the health and welfare of current and future generations.  The EPA is currently preparing to regulate emissions from large stationary sources of greenhouse gases.

Next Report: Reports are submitted to the UNFCC every 3 - 5 years.

Our Changing Planet 2010 (OCP), 10/28/2009

Agency: United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), formerly the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP)

Authors: Federal scientists and science program managers in USGCRP participating agencies, in coordination with the USGCRP Integration and Coordination Office, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Office of Management and Budget.

About: An annual report to Congress on the activities of USGCRP participating agencies, produced since 1989.

Significance: The report is required under the Global Change Research Act of 1990 as a supplement to the President’s annual budget request and summarizes recent achievements, near-term plans, and progress in implementing long-term goals.  It also provides an overview of recent and near-term expenditures and requested funding.

Major Conclusions: The report highlights recent advances and progress supported by participating agencies in the USGCRP in each of the program’s research and observational elements, as called for by the 2003 Strategic Plan for the program.  The report also describes USGCRP’s contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR4), progress in understanding Earth system components of the global climate system, how these components interact, and the processes and forces bringing about changes to the Earth system, and efforts to understand the ongoing and projected impacts of climate change on nature and society.

Next Report: Reports come out annually. Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2010, was released in October of 2009.  However, this year’s OCP report release has not yet been announced.

Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States, 6/16/2009

Agency: United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), formerly the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP)

Authors: A panel of federal and nongovernmental scientists synthesized research findings under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

About: The report summarizes research conducted by the USGCRP, founded upon a series of 21 synthesis and assessment reports on climate change produced under the Bush Administration intended to address key policy-relevant issues in climate science. The report discusses climate-related impacts on the level of various societal and environmental sectors and the different regions of the United States.  The report also draws from other peer-reviewed scientific assessments. 

Significance:  Under the 1990 Global Change Research Act, the USGCRP is required to produce a report that evaluates, integrates, and interprets its research findings every four years. The last such report—the First U.S. National Assessment—was released in 2000. The Bush Administration delayed the production of the following report for years, avoiding acknowledgment of and responsibility for addressing the climate problem. Three environmental groups successfully sued the government to compel the release of the report, and the Bush Administration cobbled together a draft version issued on May 28, 2008.  The report was released in its final form under the Obama Administration. 

Major Conclusions: The authors identified ten key findings:

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
4. Climate change will stress water resources.
5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
7. Threats to human health will increase.
8. Climate change will interact with many societal and environmental stresses.
9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

Next Report: The next USGCRP assessment will be the second US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, to be released in 2014.

U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (NCA) - to be released in 2014

Agency: U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)

Authors: The NCA was developed within the Interagency National Climate Assessment (INCA) Task Force. The NCA task force is made up of representatives from 18 agencies and departments. Full list of participants and agencies here.

About: Created as a result of the Global Change Research Act of 1990, which called for a report detailing the findings of the federal program on climate change (USGCRP) be submitted to the President and Congress.  The purpose of the NCA is to “evaluate, integrate and interpret the findings of the $2.6 billion federal research program on global change.”

Significance: NCA reports are intended to provide summaries of the current state of climate change science and impacts. By collecting data from across the country and comparing it with projections from climate models, the NCA process aims “to incorporate advances in the understanding of climate science into larger social, ecological, and policy systems, and with this provide integrated analyses of impacts and vulnerability.”  A major goal of the NCA is to help the “federal government prioritize climate science investments” to inform sustainable and environmentally sound planning for the future.                                             
Next Report: A NCA is currently underway, set to be released in 2014.

International Reports

Climate Change 2007: Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR4)

Organization: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading body for assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Authors: More than 500 Lead Authors and 2000 Expert Reviewers from over 100 countries.

About: IPCC reports contain 4 reports, one each from Working Groups I, II, and III, as well as a synthesis report.

Working Group I assesses the physical scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change.
Working Group II assesses the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, negative and positive consequences of climate change, and options for adapting to it.
Working Group III assesses options for mitigating climate change through limiting or preventing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing activities that remove them from the atmosphere.

Significance: The IPCC collects and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change. Because thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC, differing viewpoints existing within the scientific community are reflected in the IPCC reports.

“The IPCC is an intergovernmental body, and it is open to all member countries of UN and WMO. Because of its scientific and intergovernmental nature, the IPCC embodies a unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision makers. By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content. The work of the organization is therefore policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive.”

Major Conclusions: From the Synthesis Report:

•  Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.
•  Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (>90% confidence level) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.
•  Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely (>90% confidence level) be larger than those observed during the 20th century.
•  Altered frequencies and intensities of extreme weather, together with sea level rise, are expected to have mostly adverse effects on natural and human systems.
•  Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if GHG concentrations were to be stabilized.
•  Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change.
•  There is high confidence (about an 8 out of 10 chance) that neither adaptation nor mitigation alone can avoid all climate change impacts; however, they can complement each other and together can significantly reduce the risks of climate change.
•  Responding to climate change involves an iterative risk management process that includes both adaptation and mitigation and takes into account climate change damages, co-benefits, sustainability, equity and attitudes to risk.

Next report: The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) will be released in 2014. The Working Group I report will be finalized in September 2013, the Working Group II report in March 2014 and the Working Group III report in April 2014.

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Climate Science Watch Weekly Update, August 9

Posted on Monday, August 09, 2010

A brief update on climate science news, legislation, and media resources.

Legislation

EPA emissions regulation

On August 3, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) announced that the Senate will vote in September on his measure to suspend EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources for two years.  Rockefeller’s bill has little chance of passing, and the Obama administration has already made clear that the President would veto legislation suspending EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

In June, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) tried and failed to pass a measure that would strip EPA’s regulatory authority over greenhouse gases outright.

Climate Science

An emissions budget in billions of tons

According to a new study published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have used coupled climate-carbon cycle models to determine the maximum volume of carbon dioxide humans can emit to remain below the two degrees Celsius threshold.  Emissions must peak at around ten billion tons annually by 2015, will have to be reduced by 56 percent by the year 2050, and approach zero by 2100, the researchers said. 

This approach echoes the “emissions budget” strategy recommended by the National Research Council’s Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change report published recently as part of the America’s Climate Choices suite of studies.  The panel of authors recommended that the US use an emissions budget—a specific amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted over a fixed period of time—as a framework for developing domestic mitigation strategies.  This would equip policymakers with a scientific underpinning for developing an emissions reduction regime, without dictating specific policies. 

Glacial melting

Last week, in the largest release of ice in the Arctic since 1962, Greenland’s Petermann glacier calved an ice island four times the size of Manhattan.  Nick Sundt of WWF has the full story.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice extent in July was the second lowest for the month in the satellite record after 2007, consistent with the dramatic decline in sea ice seen over the last thirty years.  The “rate of decline of July ice extent over the period 1979 to 2010 is now 6.4% per decade,” says NSIDC.

Harmful weather extremes exacerbated by a warming climate

And from Reuters: “Devastating floods in Pakistan and Russia’s heatwave match predictions of extremes caused by global warming even though it is impossible to blame mankind for single severe weather events, scientists say.”

“’We will always have climate extremes.  But it looks like climate change is exacerbating the intensity of the extremes,’ said Omar Baddour, chief of climate data management applications at WMO [U.N. World Meteorological Organization] headquarters in Geneva.”

Media

Skepticism versus denialism

Alison Stewart hosted a Climate Desk discussion with NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt, “Skepticism versus denial about climate change,” taking on the role of climate experts in countering attacks on the integrity of climate science.  Schmidt described climate change denialism as an abusive tactic used by those whose interests are threatened by the societal response needed to combat climate change, preying on ignorance and a weak defensive effort.  “The more people we have out there who are talking about what they know, then the less these kinds of ‘science by defamation’ ideas and tactics will work,” Schmidt said.  Schmidt is one such advocate for bringing climate science knowledge to the public, and blogs frequently at RealClimate.   

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