California’s Adaptation Strategy shows leadership that Senate climate bill should follow

Posted on Friday, December 11, 2009

The final version of the 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy released last week puts forth a set of wide-ranging recommendations for managing and adapting to a set of difficult climate change impacts throughout the state.  Meanwhile, a recent framework for climate legislation put forth by Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman does not address dealing with impacts at all.  The US will put itself in a perilous position if California’s advice is not heeded:  “To effectively address the challenges that a changing climate will bring, climate adaptation and mitigation…policies must complement each other, and efforts within and across sectors must be coordinated.”

post by Anne Polansky

Our earlier post on the draft version released in August for public comment:
California draft climate change adaptation strategy a step ahead of House-passed climate bill

Billed as a “first-of-its-kind multi-sector strategy to help guide California’s efforts in adapting to climate change impacts,” the 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy synthesizes scientific knowledge of climate change impacts in seven sectors and provides recommendations on how to best prepare for and manage them.  Developed by multiple state agencies with heavy stakeholder input, California’s plan represents a more comprehensive approach toward climate change planning and preparedness than any taken so far by the Obama White House or Congress, including the lengthy adaptation provisions in any of the major climate bills in play.

California’s adaptation website

Download the Executive Summary (.pdf)

Download the full report:  2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy (200 pages, .pdf)

The seven sectors covered in the strategic plan include:

•  public health
•  biodiversity and habitat
•  ocean and coastal resources
•  water management
•  agriculture
•  forestry
•  transportation and energy infrastructure

The adaptation titles in Waxman-Markey (HR 2454), and Kerry-Boxer (S 1733) cover only natural resources and public health, neglecting planning and preparedness for climate disruptions to our energy, industrial, and transportation sectors and the built environment.  While the provisions for natural resources and public health are very good and have strong constituencies supporting them, failing to develop a national strategy for all major sectors of our economy and environment poses unnecessary risks to society and, because of the threat-multiplier effect of climate change, is a potentially dangerous error in governance that needs to be corrected. 

A bipartisan letter (.pdf) sent to President Obama yesterday (December 10) by Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman outlines several approaches and principles to be followed for reducing greenhouse gas emissions—including ensuring a prominent role for coal and domestic oil and gas in the future U.S. energy mix—but is silent on the need to plan and prepare for climate change consequences across major social and economic sectors. 

So, with partial adaptation provisions in the major cap-and-trade bills and neglect of adaptation in bipartisan consensus-building attempts to create a politically passable Senate bill—we are concerned that insufficient attention is being paid to issues of adaptive preparedness for dealing with the potential consequences of global climatic disruption, including prolonged droughts, heat waves, floods, deadlier storms and hurricanes, threats to food and water supplies, and stress on forests and other ecosystems.

This said, we are hopeful that ongoing work being done through a relatively new interagency task force on climate change adaptation led by the Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Science and Technology Policy will produce a national strategy for adaptive preparedness that can be implemented expeditiously.  The Adaptation Task Force and its working groups would do well to follow these California guidelines:

• Use the best available science in identifying climate change risks and adaptation strategies.
• Understand that data continues to be collected and that knowledge about climate change is still evolving. As such, an effective adaptation strategy is “living” and will itself be adapted to account for new science.
• Involve all relevant stakeholders in identifying, reviewing, and refining the state’s adaptation strategy.
• Establish and retain strong partnerships with federal, state, and local governments, tribes, private business and landowners, and non-governmental organizations to develop and implement adaptation strategy recommendations over time.
• Give priority to adaptation strategies that initiate, foster, and enhance existing efforts that improve economic and social well-being, public safety and security, public health, environmental justice, species and habitat protection, and ecological function.
• When possible, give priority to adaptation strategies that modify and enhance existing policies rather than solutions that require new funding and new staffing.
• Understand the need for adaptation policies that are effective and flexible enough for circumstances that may not yet be fully predictable.

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“Climate Scoreboard” - new widget simulates warming consequences of Copenhagen proposals

A new “widget” uses a sophisticated simulation called C-ROADS to calculate how much the Earth’s average temperature is expected to rise given the current suite of proposals under consideration in Copenhagen.  The Climate Scoreboard is automatically updated each day as the overall terms—country by country commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—for a potential global climate treaty evolve at COP15.  Click on details to view the Climate Scoreboard and to learn more.

post by Anne Polansky

The yellow “business-as-usual” line represents the estimated global temperature increase in 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

The blue “proposals” line represents the estimated global temperature increase in 2100 if the current proposals were enacted. The shaded blue curve shows the uncertainty in the climate system’s response to emissions. The C-ROADS-CP climate simulator is used to calculate the position of the blue line. When proposals change, the analysis is updated and the position of the blue shifts, wherever the widget is embedded.

The green “goals” line represents the goal of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°-2.0°C

During the climate talks in Copenhagen, the blue line is adjusted daily to reflect the collection of national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, using “C-ROADS”—described as a decision-maker-oriented simulation that helps users understand the long term climate impacts of scenarios to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  It allows for the rapid summation of national greenhouse gas reduction pledges in order to show the long-term impact on the climate.

Climate Interactive describes the Climate Scoreboard this way:

Just as decision makers and negotiators need ways to assess the discussions towards creating a global climate treaty, advocacy groups and citizens around the world also want to know: how close do current proposals bring the world to climate goals such as stabilizing CO2 concentrations at 350ppm or limiting temperature increase to 2°C? The challenges of adding up proposals that are framed in multiple ways and the difficulty of determining long-term impacts of any given global greenhouse gas emissions pathway are just as present for citizens as they are for policy makers and political leaders.

With these facts in mind, our team is tracking the proposals under consideration and using the same climate change simulation available to policy-makers to report our estimate of how close ‘current proposals’ come to realizing climate goals. And we are aiming to do it in real-time as the summit unfolds.
. . .
The Climate Scoreboard is an online tool that allows the public, journalists and other interested parties to track progress in the ongoing negotiations to produce an international climate treaty. The Scoreboard automatically reports, on a daily basis, whether proposals in the treaty process commit countries to enough greenhouse gas emissions reductions to achieve widely expressed goals, such as limiting future warming to 1.5 to 2.0°C (2.7 to 3.6°F) above pre-industrial temperatures.
. . .
In the run-up to COP-15, we are scanning UNFCCC submissions and news sources from around the world to collect a list of what we call “current proposals” – possible scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions by UNFCCC parties.  We share our compilation and use the C-ROADS-CP climate simulation to calculate the expected long-term impacts (in terms of GHG concentration, temperature increase, and sea level rise) if those proposals were to be fully implemented. We then share the results, via this webpage, twitter, and partnerships with NGOs around the world. During the Copenhagen Conference itself, we will be updating our assessment in as close to real time as we manage. The data tables and graphics will change to reflect the current ‘state of the global deal’ and if you have embedded the Scoreboard widget on your own website it will automatically update if the negotiating positions shift.

More About C-ROADS and C-ROADS-CP (Common Platform)

C-ROADS (Climate Rapid Overview And Decision-support Simulator) is a timely simulation tool that provides policymakers and policy analysts in government, NGOs and the private sector, as well as the general public, a better understanding and intuitive feel for the broad brush, long term consequences of climate change given various GHG reduction strategies. This very rapid simulation model reproduces the response properties of state-of- the-art three dimensional climate models very well – well within the uncertainties of the high resolution models—and with sufficient precision to provide useful information for its intended audience. The dynamic non-linear model is sufficiently sensitive that C-ROADS can be used as a decision support tool in understanding and discussing efforts aimed at limiting temperature change to 2 degrees C of warming, which is the goal of the European Union and supported by many in the scientific and NGO communities. The ability to rapidly test a range of policy proposals for future emissions is particularly useful for audiences wanting to understand the implications of different decisions in real time. The model draws on a number of creative indicators (emissions per capita and per $ GDP) to explore potential emission reduction regimes.

C-ROADS was developed under the guidance of a top-notch review team:

Dr. Robert Watson, Review Chair, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia (UK)

Mr. Eric Beinhocker, McKinsey Global Institute (UK)

Dr. Bert de Vries, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (The Netherlands)

Dr. Klaus Hasselmann, Max-Planck Institut für Meteorologie (Germany)

Dr. David Lane, London School of Economics & Political Science (UK)

Dr. Jorgen Randers, Norwegian School of Management BI (Norway)

Dr. Stephen Schneider, Stanford University (US)

   

Robert Watson, a former NASA scientist and White House official, was essentially forced out of his position as chair of the IPCC in 2002, after a fossil fuel industry campaign to replace him shortly after President Bush took office in 2001.  He is now Director of Strategic Development at the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia, UK, and acts as Chief Scientific Adviser for the British Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dr. Robert Corell and other US climate scientists and experts have briefed top White House officials, Members of Congress, and governments internationally using presentations based on C-ROADS simulations.  Decisionmakers can sit around a table and as “what if” questions, then obtain instant feedback on the ramifications for the global climate system.  Sen. John Kerry is a fan of the tool, often using it to brief other policymakers.

Sen. Kerry spoke about the C-ROADS interactive tool at a March 2009 presentation at The Heinz Center sponsored by the American Meteorological Society—a video of his presentation:

Senator John Kerry Introduces C-ROADS Climate Simulator from Climate Interactive on Vimeo.

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Sensenbrenner IPCC witch-hunt: Attempt to blacklist climate scientists must be rejected

Posted on Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), ranking Republican on the House global warming committee, has sent a letter to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, calling for scientists whose names appear in the e-mails stolen from the U.K. Climatic Research Unit to be blacklisted from participating as contributors or reviewers of the forthcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.  Sensenbrenner is engaged in an outrageous McCarthyist jihad against the climate science community, making it abundantly clear that this controversy is not really about stolen e-mails, which have been misused and misinterpreted.  Rather it is part of an aggressive campaign by the global warming denial machine to bully and intimidate the science community.  Sensenbrenner shows no real interest in meaningful dialogue, nor in an honest examination of climate science findings.  Denialists are throwing up a smokescreen of propaganda in an attempt to legitimize their refusal to come to grips with scientific evidence on global climatic disruption and its implications. This is a power play. Climate Science Watch calls on the IPCC to rebuff this attack.  We call on the Obama Administration and in particular the President’s science adviser John Holdren to fully support the U.S. climate science community in this matter.  We call on Sensenbrenner’s colleagues in Congress to chastise him for this censorious anti-scientist behavior.  And we call on members of the science community to understand what the denial machine is up to and not allow themselves to be divided by innuendo about and attacks on scientists who have been singled out as immediate targets of a larger predatory attack on the community as a whole. Seeking an IPCC purge is just the next step. This attack, using guilt-by-association and demagogy, will go as far as it can to delegitimize the entire climate science and assessment enterprise if it is not exposed and thwarted.  (See Details for the Sensenbrenner letter and press release.)

Letter from Rep. James Sensenbrenner to IPCC Chair Rajendra K. Pachauri

See our December 8 posts:
Rep. Sensenbrenner projects ‘fascism’ and ‘fraud’ onto scientists, is rebutted at hearing

FBI investigating death threats against two scientists whose emails were stolen in CRU hacking

Press release posted on the Republican Minority Web site of the House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:

December 8, 2009

Sensenbrenner Urges IPCC to Exclude Climategate Scientists
‘It is possible that they succeeded in undermining the entire process’

Washington, D.C.– Climate researchers who authored thousands of e-mails and documents that show an effort to mislead and suppress opposing research should not be allowed to continue work on the latest report of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rep. Sensenbrenner said in a letter to IPCC Chair Dr. Rajendra Pachauri.

“Their behavior has caused grave damage to the public trust in climate science in general, and to the IPCC in particular,” Sensenbrenner wrote.

The letter asks that none of the researchers involved in the controversial e-mails be allowed to participate as contributors, reviewers, or in any other capacity in the preparation of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. The release of these e-mails, dubbed “climategate” by some, showed a pattern where staff and associates of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. tried to prevent publication of opposition research, and in some cases, manipulate data to produce desired results. One e-mail described a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperature data.

The letter cites an e-mail from Pennsylvania State University researcher Michael Mann that describes efforts to delegitimize a journal called “Climate Research” because it published contrarian scientific studies. “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal,” Mann wrote.

“The authors of the e-mails understand what you apparently do not: Control of peer-reviewed literature equates to control of the IPCC’s conclusions,” Sensenbrenner wrote to Pachauri. “These bad actors therefore limited the pool of peer-reviewed studies upon which the IPCC could rely and manipulated the results of other studies upon which it did rely. It is possible that they succeeded in undermining the entire process.”

See our earlier posts:
Ben Santer: Open letter to the climate science community

Open Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails

IPCC statement on stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia

Phil Jones and Ben Santer respond to CEI and Pat Michaels attack on temperature data record

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FBI investigating death threats against two scientists whose emails were stolen in CRU hacking

Posted on Tuesday, December 08, 2009

The FBI is investigating death threats against two climate scientists since their stolen e-mails were leaked in the U.K. Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, the U.K. Guardian reports.  Tom Wigley, former Director of CRU and now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, told the Guardian the abusive and threatening messages he and other scientists have received “are truly stomach-turning and show what sort of venomous monsters we are up against.”

Rick Piltz note:
I have been told by one of the leading scientists about an ominous threat made against him since his name has been associated with the stolen e-mails.  This whole CRU e-mail incident seems to have become one more instance of a growing toxicity in our politics and culture that brings out an element that appears to have taken leave of rationality and civilized discourse.   

The U.K. Guardian reported on December 8 (excerpt; full article is here):

Hacked email climate scientists receive death threats

CRU scientists receive torrents of abusive and threatening e-mails since leaks that began in mid-November 2009

Kate Ravilious for environmentalresearchweb, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009 09.28 GMT

…No further information can be revealed about these particular threats at present because they are currently under investigation with the FBI in the United States.

Many other CRU scientists and their colleagues have received torrents of abusive and threatening e-mails since the leaks first began in mid-November 2009. Tom Wigley, previous Director of CRU and now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, US, has been horrified by the e-mails he and other colleagues have received. “They are truly stomach-turning and show what sort of venomous monsters we are up against,” he told environmentalresearchweb….

The scientists involved are confident that they can counter all of the claims against them. “None of it affects the science one iota,” said Wigley. “Accusations of data distortion or faking are baseless…In particular Wigley vigorously denies that any data was ever destroyed. “We did not destroy any primary records,” he said. “All these data came from National Meteorological Services, and the originals are still there for anyone to access. Indeed other groups such as GISS [NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies] and NOAA [U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] have independently accessed these data and independently reproduced our results….”

“We must continue to do the science,” said Wigley. “As time goes by the evidence mounts – it is already overwhelming – and we must continue to report this through normal channels in peer-reviewed scientific journals. We must continue to strive to understand the complexities of the climate system better and to improve climate models so that we better know how to respond to future climate changes.”

But Wigley fears that time may be running out. “As time goes by, however, we are approaching the point where any actions we might take will be inadequate to protect humanity and the planet from dangerous climate change,” he said. “Those people – the hackers, the sceptics, the luddite bloggers – who are hindering and slowing down the process of response will, I hope, eventually be held accountable. They already have much to answer for.”

See our earlier posts:
Rep. Sensenbrenner projects ‘fascism’ and ‘fraud’ onto scientists, is rebutted at hearing

Ben Santer: Open letter to the climate science community

Phil Jones and Ben Santer respond to CEI and Pat Michaels attack on temperature data record

Open Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails

IPCC statement on stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia

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Rep. Sensenbrenner projects “fascism” and “fraud” onto scientists, is rebutted at hearing

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) channeled the reckless spirit of the late Sen. Joe McCarthy in an effort to lead a December 3 House global warming committee hearing toward a witchhunt based on e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit in the U.K.  Sensenbrenner essentially accused the climate scientists of “fascism” and suggested that a scientific assessment that included the CRU global temperature record among its many sources is part of “a massive international scientific fraud.”  Witnesses John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, leading Administration science representatives, countered with cool reason.  Committee chairman Ed Markey and Rep. Jay Inslee hit back harder.

See our earlier posts:
Holdren and Lubchenco warn Congress of climate disruption, call for emissions cuts and preparedness

Open Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails

IPCC statement on stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia

Ben Santer: Open letter to the climate science community

Nick Sundt, Communications Director for Climate Change at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, DC, has posted on the WWF Climate Blog two valuable entries on the hearing that provide considerable documentation with directly-quoted material, numerous embedded links to additional resources, and video clips.  We take the liberty here of re-posting detailed (and very slightly edited) passages from his December 7 post.  See the original post on the WWF Web site for embedded links and video clips from the hearing.

In Congressional Hearing, Administration Officials Respond to E-Mail Controversy

by Nick Sundt on 12/07/2009

In a hearing last week on the state of climate science, White House science adviser John Holdren addressed Republican assertions that the content of e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in the U.K. raised fundamental doubts about the strength of climate change science.  “There is and there will remain after the dust settles in this current controversy a very strong scientific consensus on the key characteristics of the [climate change] problem,” countered Holdren.

Holdren said that human wellbeing already was being affected as climate is disrupted by human activities, mostly fossil fuel use and deforestation, and that “continuing with business as usual” in those activities “is highly likely to lead to the growth of the impacts to substantially unmanageable levels.”

The hearing on “The State of Climate Change Science” before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming featured two witnesses:

o John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President
o Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

The five Republican committee members who attended the hearing focused both their opening statements and their subsequent questions on the widely publicized theft and subsequent release of emails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) on 17 November 2009.

Leading the effort to shift attention to the emails was the committee’s ranking Republican, Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin.  His opening statement, those of his Republican colleagues, and their comments later in the hearing sought to amplify the importance of the incident and capitalize on the circumstances to raise doubts about the entire scientific basis for domestic and international action on climate change.

Before the hearing, the Republican committee members had sent a letter to the committee chairman Ed Markey requesting a day of hearings on the issue.  In his opening statement, Sensenbrenner claimed that a CRU dataset that was the subject of some of the stolen email “is the basis for virtually all peer-reviewed literature.”  He added that “the e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit. They read more like scientific fascism than the scientific process.” 

“Hopefully this scandal is the end of declarations that the ‘science is settled’ and a beginning of a transparent scientific debate,” Sensenbrenner acerbically added. 

Holdren responded with characteristic clarity to the issues raised by the Republicans on the committee.  His opening statement on the e-mails:

“The e-mails are mainly about a controversy over a particular data set and the ways a particular small group of scientists have interpreted and displayed that data set. It is important to understand that these kinds of controversies and even accusations of bias and improper manipulation are not all that uncommon in science – in all branches of science. The strength of science is that these kinds of controversies get sorted out over time as to who is wrong, who is right, and how much it matters, by the process of peer review, and continued critical scrutiny by the knowledgeable community of scientists.

“Of course openness in sharing of data and methods is very important in this process. And as I think you all know, this administration is a strong proponent of openness in science and in government, and Administrator Lubchenco will have things to say about public access to the climate data maintained by her agency and maintained by other agencies in the United States.”

“In this particular case, the data set in question and the way it was interpreted and presented by these particular scientists constitute a very small part of the immense body of data and analysis on which our understanding of climate change rests. The question being addressed by these data was have there been natural periods of warming in the last one or two thousand years in particular, that have been stronger than the episode now being experienced.

“That is an interesting question and because of the controversy around it at the time most of these emails were written, that is in the early 2000s, the National Academy of Sciences undertook a thorough review of all of the relevant datasets, and all of the methods of analysis not just the dataset used by these particular authors or the methods used by these particular authors. The National Academies report on this matter [Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years] was published in 2006 and it concluded that the preponderance of available evidence points to the conclusion that the last 50 years have been the warmest half century in at least the last 1,000 years and probably much longer.

“There is and there will remain after the dust settles in this current controversy a very strong scientific consensus on the key characteristics of the problem. Global climate is changing in highly unusual ways compared to long experienced and expected natural variations. The unusual changes match what theory and models tell us would be expected to result from the very changes in the atmosphere that we know have been caused by human activities, above all burning fossil fuels and tropical deforestation.

“Significant impacts on human wellbeing from these changes in climate are already being experienced and continuing with business as usual in the fossil fuel burning and the tropical deforestation activities that are the largest contributors to these changes in the atmosphere is highly likely to lead to the growth of the impacts to substantially unmanageable levels.”

Following Sensenbrenner’s lead, the other committee Republicans focused their opening statements on the CRU emails. Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona said “…you have to understand that …the entire credibility of the theory is placed on the line.”  He claimed that “the evidence we are supposed to be basing our decisions upon has been clearly politicized” and that “there is a grave question about its credibility.”  He concluded that until the issue is resolved “it is impossible for this Congress to set public policy in this area.”

Rep. Candice Miller (R-Michigan) asserted that “the central arguments about manmade – ‘manmade’ – climate change is certainly in question. I think the science is not settled and the debate is raging around the United States and around the globe, particularly on the eve of Copenhagen.”

After Holdren and Lubchenco presented their prepared testimony, the Republicans on the committee used the question and answer portion of the hearing in a focused attack that used the CRU emails as a basis for questioning the scientific basis for action.  Sensenbrenner specifically raised doubts about the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) and the report released in June this year by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.

Lubchenco had introduced the IPCC reports in her testimony as “the gold standard for authoritative scientific information on climate change because of the rigorous way in which they are prepared, reviewed, and approved.”  Lubchenco said the USGCRP report, which was initiated under the Bush administration and later submitted to Congress by Lubchenco and Holdren, “provides concrete scientific evidence that demonstrates unequivocally that the climate is changing, and we are seeing its impacts in our own backyards in every region in the country.”

Each of the committee members had been given a copy of the USGCRP report along with a brochure summarizing its findings. Sensenbrenner charged that because CRU data were among the evidence used by the USGCRP, “these two books that were passed out this morning, you know, at best need to have a thorough review in the light of this information that has been disclosed and at worst it is junk science and is part of a massive international scientific fraud.”  Sensenbrenner also said the CRU emails “ end up putting into question all of the science of climate change.”

When Holdren responded by saying “with respect, I would disagree with you that this current uproar calls into question all of climate science; I do not believe that it remotely…,” Sensenbrenner interrupted: “Well, sir, I did not say that. I said it ought to be looked at again, and you know there is increasing evidence of scientific fascism that is going on.”

Holdren replied:

“I very much agree that we need to resolve the current issue. I think it is important to understand what has really gone on here, to get to the bottom of it. As I indicated before, that’s been one of the strengths of science over the years, the capacity to get to the bottom of the controversy that emerged, and I believe we’ll get to the bottom of this one. But the key point is however this particular controversy comes out, the result will not call into question the bulk of our understanding of how the climate works or of how humans are affecting it.”

Lubchenco later echoed Holdren’s conclusion, saying that in her view “the emails really do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus and the independent scientific analyses of thousands of scientists around the world that tell us that the earth is warming and that the warming is largely a result of human activities.”

Sensenbrenner ironically charged that “there is an awful lot of scientific McCarthyism” going on, referring to the bullying tactics of another Wisconsin legislator, Senator Joseph McCarthy over 50 years ago. (According to Wikipedia, the term “McCarthyism” is used “generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.”)

Responding to Sensenbrenner’s suggestion that the CRU emails suggest a “massive international scientific fraud,” Congressman Jay Inslee (D-Washington) asked if Holdren were “part of that massive international conspiracy.”  Holdren replied:

“... I do not believe that there is a conspiracy. It would be an amazing thing indeed if the academies of science of virtually every country in the world that had one, and if the earth and planetary sciences departments in every major university that had one around the world, were all engaged together with the United Nations Environment Programme, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and all the other bodies that have reviewed this matter, in a conspiracy. That really defies imagination, that the great bulk of scientific community all around the world looking at these matters has come to the same conclusion.”

Rep. Inslee also asked Holdren about evidence in NASA of what Congressman Sensenbrenner called “scientific fascism.”  “I’m not even sure exactly what that term would mean,” Holdren said, “but I’m not aware of any cabals, conspiracies, misbehavior in the characterization and use of data in NASA or NOAA.”

Rep. John Sullivan (R-Oklahoma) asserted that there “seems to be a culture of corruption in the scientific community right now.” He asked the witnesses: “Do you see that as a problem: yes or no?” Lubchenco responded that “I don’t believe that the exchanges that you saw are typical of the broader scientific community.” Holdren added:  “I would add that I too do not believe that these emails are remotely sufficient to demonstrate a culture of corruption in the scientific community. They are emails from a relatively few people involved in a particular controversy that was attended by a good deal of frustration and anger.”
In his closing remarks, Rep. Inslee said:

“Well I’ll tell you it is troublesome to me, the people who put man on the moon, the people who discovered water on the moon, the people who are doing great research figuring out how the oceans are becoming acidic – some of whom are my constituents – it is disturbing to me that people would come to this chamber and call them fascists. I’ve got to tell you I have a problem with that. I don’t think that is right. These men and women are doing the best they can to provide us data and conclusions through the best of their ability. And they through their professional work have reached a very, very strong consensus on these scientific issues, who are working for Uncle Sam.”

In his spirited closing statement, Chairman Markey challenged efforts by the committee’s Republicans to use the emails to challenge the overall scientific consensus on climate change.  Referring to a chart showing how global temperatures have increased as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the Atmosphere, Markey said:

“The consensus of the science in the world, the national academies of sciences of every country in the world is that this spike in CO2 is manmade and it is causing dramatic changes in our oceans, to our glaciers, in the Arctic, in the Villages of Alaska that see their permafrost melting and their villages falling into the ocean, and droughts being created around the world. And all of this evidence is basically so massive that there is no way to avoid it. And so what the [Republican] minority has decided to do, what the deniers have decided to do, what the oil and coal industries have decided to do is to use the few emails of a few people ... as a way of trying to cast doubt… We can continue this pretense and we can use a small number of emails I suppose to have a larger debate, but I think that it would be better for us to accept the science, to accept this curve, to basically deal with the reality ... They sit over here using a couple of emails as a reason why we should stop all efforts to deal with this catastrophic threat to our planet.”

Addressing the committee’s Republicans, Markey asked:

“What is the answer? Again, we keep saying: what are you saying is the answer to why this is spiking so dramatically? Where is your evidence? Just by casting doubt with a few emails on a consensus globally and a century-wide study of this subject… is not going to deal with this issue.”

Pointing to Holdren and Lubchenco, Markey continued:

“These scientists are our best people in our country and they are joined by thousands of others not only here but across the world in ... There is no alternative theory that the minority is proposing.”

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Michael MacCracken: The Achievable Path to Climate Protection

Dr. Michael MacCracken spoke on December 3 in Washington, DC, outlining his proposal for building a bridge between developed and developing countries to forge an international climate agreement. He emphasized that without emissions reduction commitments from both developed and developing countries, the 2 degrees Celsius benchmark cannot be achieved.

Mike MacCracken is Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs at the Climate Institute.

Speaking at the Heinz Center, he argued that an achievable and equitable agreement will require sharp emissions reductions in the developed world and near-term action in the developing world to sharply limit non-CO2 heat-trapping emissions (particularly methane, black carbon, and tropospheric ozone) while minimizing growth in CO2 emissions. In the longer-term, developing nations would join with the developed nations in reducing all emissions as cost-effective technologies are developed.

Dr. MacCracken emphasized that without emissions reduction commitments from both developed and developing countries, the 2 degrees Celsius benchmark cannot be achieved. He proposed that comparable and equitable commitments that consider per capita emissions, levels of economic development, and differentiated responsibilities could forestall the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

His argument is elaborated in a 2008 paper, “Prospects for Future Climate Change and the Reasons for Early Action”

Part of the case for measures that can be taken by developing countries to reduce non-CO2 emissions in the near-term involves the role of black carbon in energy usage. Black carbon emissions are highest in the developing world, and represent both a waste of unburned fuel and a health risk. Technologies exist to mitigate these emissions, including improved-combustion stoves, fuel upgrades and engine retrofitting to reduce transportation emissions, and reducing industrial emissions by applying more modern production techniques.

An August 2009 article, “The Achievable Path to Climate Protection” appears in a publication from the Climate Institute that provides more detail on the role of black carbon.

Abstract from “Prospects for Future Climate Change and the Reasons for Early Action”

Combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas, and to a lesser extent deforestation, land-cover change, and emissions of halocarbons and other greenhouse gases, are rapidly increasing the atmospheric concentrations of climate-warming gases. The warming of approximately 0.1-0.2 degree C per decade that has resulted is very likely the primary cause of the increasing loss of snow cover and Arctic sea ice, of more frequent occurrence of very heavy precipitation, of rising sea level, and of shifts in the natural ranges of plants and animals. The global average temperature is already approximately 0.8 degree C above its preindustrial level, and present atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases will contribute to further warming of 0.5-1 degree C as equilibrium is re-established. Warming has been and will be greater in mid and high latitudes compared with low latitudes, over land compared with oceans, and at night compared with day.

As emissions continue to increase, both warming and the commitment to future warming are currently increasing at a rate of approximately 0.2 degree C per decade, with projections that the rate of warming will further increase if emission controls are not put in place. Such warming and the associated changes are likely to result in severe impacts on key societal and environmental support systems. Present estimates are that limiting the increase in global average surface temperature to no more than 2-2.5 degrees C above its 1750 value of approximately 15 degrees C will be required to avoid the most catastrophic, but certainly not all, consequences of climate change.

Accomplishing this will require reducing emissions sharply by 2050 and to near zero by 2100. This can only be achieved if: (1) developed nations move rapidly to demonstrate that a modern society can function without reliance on technologies that release carbon dioxide (CO2) and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases to the atmosphere; and (2) if developing nations act in the near-term to sharply limit their non-CO2 emissions while minimizing growth in CO2 emissions, and then in the long-term join with the developed nations to reduce all emissions as cost-effective technologies are developed.

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Open Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails

Posted on Monday, December 07, 2009

“In the last few weeks, opponents of taking action on climate change have misrepresented both the content and the significance of stolen emails to obscure public understanding of climate science and the scientific process,” said 25 U.S. scientists, including eight members of the National Academy of Sciences, in a December 4 Open Letter to Congress. “We would like to set the record straight. The body of evidence that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming is overwhelming. The content of the stolen emails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming.” See Details for full text of the Open Letter and list of signers.

December 4, 2009

An Open Letter to Congress from U.S. Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails

As U.S. scientists with substantial expertise on climate change and its impacts on natural ecosystems, our built environment and human well-being, we want to assure policy makers and the public of the integrity of the underlying scientific research and the need for urgent action to reduce heat-trapping emissions. In the last few weeks, opponents of taking action on climate change have misrepresented both the content and the significance of stolen emails to obscure public understanding of climate science and the scientific process.

We would like to set the record straight.

The body of evidence that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming is overwhelming. The content of the stolen emails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming. The scientific process depends on open access to methodology, data, and a rigorous peer-review process. The robust exchange of ideas in the peer-reviewed literature regarding climate science is evidence of the high degree of integrity in this process.

As the recent letter to Congress from 18 leading U.S. scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society, states:

“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. ... If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced.”

These “multiple independent lines of evidence” are drawn from numerous public and private research centers all across the United States and beyond, including several independent analyses of surface temperature data. Even without including analyses from the UK research center from which the emails were stolen, the body of evidence underlying our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust.

We urge you to take account of this as you make decisions on climate policy.

Signed:
(* Member of National Academy of Sciences)
(Institutional affiliation for identification purposes only)

David Archer, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

William C. Clark, Ph.D.*
Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy, and Human Development
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA

Peter C. Frumhoff, Ph.D.
Director of Science and Policy
Chief Scientist, Climate Campaign
Union of Concerned Scientists
Cambridge, MA

Inez Fung, Ph.D.*
Professor of Atmospheric Science
Co-Director, Berkeley Institute of the Environment
University of California
Berkeley Berkeley, CA

Neal Lane, Ph.D.
Professor, Rice University
Former Director, National Science Foundation
Former Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Houston, TX

Michael MacCracken, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs
The Climate Institute
Washington, DC

Pamela Matson, Ph.D.*
Professor, School of Earth Sciences
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

James J. McCarthy, Ph.D.
Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA

Jerry Melillo, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist and Director Emeritus
The Ecosystems Center
Marine Biological Laboratory
Woods Hole, MA

Edward L. Miles, Ph.D.*
Bloedel Professor of Marine Studies and Public Affairs
School of Marine Affairs
Co-Director, Center for Science in the Earth System, JISAO
University of Washington
Seattle, WA

Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.*
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
Nobel Laureate, Chemistry San Diego, CA

Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Ph.D.*
Director, Byrd Polar Research Center
Professor of Geography and University Distinguished Scholar
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

Gerald R. North, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Oceanography
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX

Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D.
Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs
Department of Geosciences and
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ

Jonathan T. Overpeck, Ph.D.
Co-Director, Institute of the Environment
Professor, Department of Geosciences
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

Ronald G. Prinn, Ph.D.
TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science
Director, Center for Global Change Science
Co-Director, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

Alan Robock, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor
Rutgers University
President, Atmospheric Sciences Section, American Geophysical Union
Chair-Elect, Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences Section, American Association for the Advancement of Science
New Brunswick, NJ

Benjamin D. Santer, Ph.D.
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Livermore, CA

William H. Schlesinger, Ph.D.*
President, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Millbrook, NY

Daniel P. Schrag, Ph.D.
Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Director, Harvard University Center for the Environment
Cambridge, MA

Drew Shindell, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
New York, NY

Richard C. J. Somerville, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA

Warren M. Washington, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, CO

Donald J. Wuebbles, Ph.D.
The Harry E. Preble Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL

Carl Wunsch, Ph.D.*
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

 

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History is made as US EPA finds heat-trapping gases endanger human health and welfare

Lisa Jackson, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, today issued the following Endangerment finding:  “The Administrator finds that six greenhouse gases taken in combination endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.”  The conclusion, based on sound science carefully developed under both Democratic and Republican leadership, clears the path for US regulation of CO2 emissions, regardless of what is negotiated in Copenhagen.

Nearly three years after the US Supreme Court found that carbon dioxide could be defined as an air pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act, the US Environmental Protection Agency has completed a key prerequisite to opening the door to regulating emissions of six different greenhouse gases (CO2 being the primary one).  With a proposed rule on light-duty vehicles waiting in the wings, the agency issued today—opening day for the climate talks in Copenhagen—its “endangerment finding” concluding that GHGs pose a threat to both public health and welfare, tests required under the Clean Air Act in order to regulate emissions from point sources, such as power plants, manufacturing plants, and vehicles.   

“The overwhelming amount of scientific studies show that the threat is real,” proclaimed Jackson in a media announcement this afternoon.

Watch AP’s coverage of the announcement on YouTube:

Here are the key links; CSW will provide commentary in a subsequent post. 

US EPA’s endangerment finding website

Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act  (284 pages, .pdf)

Technical Support Document for the Findings  (210 pages, .pdf)

Administrator Jackson’s prepared remarks

EPA’s December 7 Press Release

EPA: Greenhouse Gases Threaten Public Health and the Environment

Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity

Release date: 12/07/2009

WASHINGTON – After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.

GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change. This continues our work towards clean energy reform that will cut GHGs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our national security and our economy.”

EPA’s final findings respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that GHGs fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants. The findings do not in and of themselves impose any emission reduction requirements but rather allow EPA to finalize the GHG standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation.

On-road vehicles contribute more than 23 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. EPA’s proposed GHG standards for light-duty vehicles, a subset of on-road vehicles, would reduce GHG emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons and conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of model year 2012-2016 vehicles.

EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.

Scientific consensus shows that as a result of human activities, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are at record high levels and data shows that the Earth has been warming over the past 100 years, with the steepest increase in warming in recent decades. The evidence of human-induced climate change goes beyond observed increases in average surface temperatures; it includes melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans due to excess carbon dioxide, changing precipitation patterns, and changing patterns of ecosystems and wildlife.

President Obama and Administrator Jackson have publicly stated that they support a legislative solution to the problem of climate change and Congress’ efforts to pass comprehensive climate legislation. However, climate change is threatening public health and welfare, and it is critical that EPA fulfill its obligation to respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.

EPA issued the proposed findings in April 2009 and held a 60-day public comment period. The agency received more than 380,000 comments, which were carefully reviewed and considered during the development of the final findings.

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Former Bush officials playing roles on behalf of oil, gas, mining and other energy interests

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today released a report, Smoke Screen: How Bush Insiders Distorted – And Still Influence – America’s Debate Over Climate Change, profiling former Bush officials and the roles they are now playing on behalf of oil, gas, mining and other energy interests.

Press release:

CREW
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                       CONTACT: MATT JACOB
DECEMBER 7, 2009                             202.408.5565 // .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) 

CREW REPORT REVEALS ROLE BUSH OFFICIALS CONTINUE TO PLAY IN SHAPING THE DEBATE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As world leaders gather in Copenhagen to discuss the challenges posed by climate change, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today released a report revealing how the debate in Congress over climate change initiatives is being influenced by the people who made up President George W. Bush’s climate team.

CREW’s report, Smoke Screen: How Bush Insiders Distorted – And Still Influence – America’s Debate Over Climate Change [3.7MB download], profiles many of these former Bush officials and the roles they are now playing on behalf of oil, gas, mining and other powerful energy interests.

CREW’s Smoke Screen report examines the critical positions several of these former Bush officials held on key bodies such as the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).  The report also reviews how they deliberately distorted critical scientific reporting on global warming.

According to CREW’s report, at least 22 former Bush-era climate officials have moved into lobbying or government relations.  Fourteen of them are registered lobbyists.

“These alumni of the Bush climate team continue to shape and confuse the debate over global warming,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director.  “They may have changed their uniforms, but they’re still playing for the same team.”

Click here to read CREW’s report.

* * *
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions. For more information, please visit http://www.citizensforethics.org, or contact Matt Jacob at 202.408.5565 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

# # #

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On Obama, Copenhagen, and 9 Senate Democrats’ conditions for supporting a climate treaty and bill

Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz talked with KPFK-FM in Los Angeles about a letter to President Obama from nine Senate Democrats setting out conditions for supporting a US climate policy, and with Al Jazeera English TV in Washington, DC, about Obama’s participation in the Copenhagen climate conference.

Excerpts (with some light editing) from Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz live interview on KPFK-FM, Los Angeles, California, December 4 (archived here):

Interviewer:  As droves of activists head to Copenhagen, Denmark, to pressure government leaders to take drastic measures on global warming, here in the United States nine Senate Democrats have decided what they would like President Obama to agree to. The Senators wrote a letter to the President suggesting that “all major economies should adopt ambitious, measurable, quantifiable, reportable, and verifiable national actions.” Meanwhile the Senate seems deeply divided over a bill to cut emissions.  On the surface it seems like a strong letter that activists could be happy about. The very first point is that the US should seek global agreement on an emissions reduction goal, and they say the the scientific consensus view is that the global average temperature increase ought not to exceed 3.6 degrees F [2 degrees C] above the preindustrial level in order not to exceed unacceptable climate risk. 

RP:  The aspirational goals sound good, but as they say, the devil is in the details.  It’s a 10-point proposal or set of demands for what should be negotiated and what should be in the legislation.  To get 60 votes in the Senate you need pretty much unanimity among the Democrats.  What you have here is Senators from states that have lost a lot of manufacturing jobs – that have been sent abroad or that have been very hard hit by the state of the economy – or they’re coal-producing states, or states that burn a lot of coal – so they have these domestic economic and political concerns that they have to answer to their voters on.  At the same time the US public is limited in what it is willing to do on the global warming problem.  There’s been so much confusion spread about the science that the public support for a strong policy is soft. With this letter, you have mostly concerns about protecting jobs and domestic energy policy, which are important. But the letter sets conditions that will make it very difficult to get a strong international agreement.

Interviewer:  It seems the senators are quite conceerned about equity between the US and other countries.  They’re very concerned that other countries should demonstrate that they’re meeting their climate commitments, and the US should be very careful, very worried about protrecting its own interests.

RP:  The senators’ letter refers to what ‘major economies’ need to do. This phrase ‘major economies’ I’m taking to mean not just the industrialized nations of Europe, the US, Canada, and Japan, they must also be referring to China, India, Brazil, and they’re setting some very strict standards.  They’re saying they all must make commitments to “quantifable, verifiable” emissions reductions, with penalties for noncompliance, and tariffs at the border for countries that don’t follow rigorous rules. I’m not sure this is the way to frame things to get a deal done with the major developing countries that need to participate.

If you want to talk about equity, look at the cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and going into the oceans and acidifying it, and the vast majority comes from the industrializied countries, the US and so forth – and the per capita emissions are much higher. There’s a certain tendency to say China’s not willing to do enough, but there are some serious equity issues here that I don’t think the US is really taking into consideration.

Interviewer:  The senators talk about the trade implications of climate policy that must be addressed: “Climate and trade policies should be designed to deter the migration of polluting activities from one nation to another.” What are they talking about?

RP:  These are senators who have seen corporations export a lot of their manufacturing jobs abroad.  They’ve been very hit by that kind of corporate globalization.  They’re saying, if the US adopts some strict commitments to reduce our own emissions, then won’t our polluting industries just move more of those jobs abroad to countries that don’t have strict controls – won’t we lose even more jobs to Asia?  So they’re saying, before we can sign onto any deal we need to protect our American workers.  Of course.  But then they’re saying, if the other major economies haven’t adopted strict controls on their emissions, we need to make “border adjustments” on imports.  Border adjiustments would be like slapping a tariff, a tax, on say, imports from China, if China hasn’t put in place its own quantifiable, verifiable emissions reduction system.  It seems to me that could well be a deal-breaker for any international agreement. 

Interviewer:  The senators make the point that enhanced technical cooperation will benefit the United States, but say this must be coupled with strong protection for intellectual property rights.  This seems like putting a price on saving the planet. 

RP:  There’s a legitimate issue to discuss here. But if this gets in the way of an agreement that is necesssary to save us from disastrous climate change impacts, then you have a problem. 

There’s another angle on this that I’m not sure the senators are really taking into consideration. They’re concerned about our clean energy exports.  But the United States has become such a laggard at developing solar energy and wind energy – most of the major producers are in other countries now.  The Chinese are committing to these technologies big time, and to producing electric vehicles.  We’re liable to be importing our clean energy from countries that are getting ahead of us because the US seems to have difficulty coming up with a policy, a strategy, for the good of the country in the long run and then implementing it.

Interviewer:  And developing those clean energy technologies could be exactly what’s needed for creating jobs in the United States.

RP:  Absolutely.

Interviewer:  Finally, the results of this Harris Poll, 51 percent of Americans now believe global warming is human-made, down from 71% just 2 years ago.  What do you attribute this fall to?

RP:  Part of it is due to a long history of effort by a corporate-funded disinformation campaign to sow confusion – we could go on and on about that – that is a major problem.  But there is a failure of the US political leadership to talk candidly with the American public about climate change.  The American people have never heard any president speak candidly with them to characterize the nature of the climate change problem, what science is telling us, the implications of inaction, what’s likely to happen with sea level rise and so forth, and what is needed.

Execepts (with some light editing) from Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz live interview with Al Jazeera English TV at their studio in Washington, DC, December 5:

News Anchor:  It’s been 12 years since the last global attempt to reach a comprehensive agreement on climate change.  On Monday 192 nations will convene in Copenhagen trying to work out a deal…What is likely to be achieved in Copenhagen? 

RP:  I think you’re likely to see what they’ll call a political commitment that will push off until next year negotiating a legally binding treaty.  That’s the most we can hope for at this point, given the political reality.  President Obama’s decision yesterday to go to Copenhagen for the last day of the conference suggests that the US leadership is confident that some kind of political deal can be done that they can present as a positive step forward.

Anchor:  A lot of people are fearing that the US is not bringing enough to the table, that President Obama has not been able to get effective climate change legislation through the Congress.  Recent poll numbers show people are arguing about whether they even believe in global warming.  Is there a fear that the US, on the heels of the Bush administration rejecting Kyoto outright, is going to further drop the ball, so to speak?

RP:  There’s no question that we’re very far from where we need to be.  If you pay attention to what the climate scinetists are telling us, we don’t have forever to get a serious policy in place, internationally and domestically.  US public opinion is very soft in how much it will support on global warming.  It has not had real leadership from any president in really speaking frankly on what the climate change problem is about, the likely harmful impacts, and so forth.  Obama is limited by the Congress, the Democrats are not united. He can try to push the Congress, he can put down a political marker.  By going at the end of Copenhagen, he’s got some skin in the game, as they say—he’s putting his reputation more at stake for being able to get something done with Congress in the next year. 

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Holdren and Lubchenco warn Congress of climate disruption, call for emissions cuts and preparedness

Posted on Saturday, December 05, 2009

Presidential science adviser John Holdren and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco warned of the growing impacts of climate change and the emphasized the urgency of curbing emissions and preparing for the impacts at a December 2 Congressional hearing on The State of Climate Science.  “Notwithstanding the claims of some climate-change ‘skeptics’ that climate change came to a halt over the past decade, the reality is that both the drivers and the symptoms of climate change have been growing more rapidly since 1997 than before,” Holdren told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.  And: “The current state of knowledge about it (even though incomplete, as science always is) is sufficient to make clear that failure to act promptly to reduce global emissions to the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping substances is overwhelmingly likely to lead to changes in climate too extreme and too damaging to be adequately addressed by any adaptation measures that can be foreseen.”

Cross-posted from the World Wildlife Fund Climate Blog, courtesy of Nick Sundt

[Sundt notes: During the hearing, the Republican members of the committee largely focused on the content of private emails among scientists that recently were stolen from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K.  The witnesses along with the Democrats on the committee responded.  We will address that element of the hearing in a separate blog posting.]

Top Administration Officials Warn Congress of Climate Change Impacts and Call for Preparedness Measures

By Nick Sundt, WWF Communications Director for Climate Change
12/03/2009
The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming heard yesterday (2 Dec 2009) from two top Obama Administration officials who warned of the growing impacts of climate change and the emphasized the urgency of curbing emissions and preparing for the impacts.

In his opening statement [PDF] at a hearing on “The State of Climate Science,” Committee chairman Ed Markey (Democrat, Massachusetts) said that:

“Administration scientists once predicted the impacts of global warming. Now they can confirm them. And, unfortunately, families from New Orleans to Alaska are living with the harsh consequences.”

“We must be aware that as the climate system warms, we risk passing certain ‘tipping points’ of rapid and irreversible change. In the United States, the effects are evident. Daily record high temperatures are being broken twice as often as daily lows. Our farms are threatened by rising temperatures, water scarcity, and pests. In the Northeast, extreme rainstorms and the risk of flooding have increased. In Alaska, villages are finding the land they call home literally melting out from underneath them as the permafrost thaws. In the West, the shrinking mountain snowpack and increasing droughts strain our water resource systems.”

After additional opening statements from other members of the committee,  Dr. John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy testified.  In his written testimony, Holdren methodically established that climate is changing, that “beyond any reasonable doubt” the primary cause is the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activity, and that the consequences already are being felt in the U.S. and around the world.

“Notwithstanding the claims of some climate-change ‘skeptics’ that climate change came to a halt over the past decade, the reality is that both the drivers and the symptoms of climate change have been growing more rapidly since 1997 than before,” Holdren said.

Under business-as-usual emissions scenarios, Holdren said that “the least that can be expected” would be:

“...a worsening of the kinds of effects already being experienced – that is, further increases in floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires; changes in the frequency and intensity of weather extremes; continuing rise in sea level, most probably at an accelerating rate; increasing stress on water supplies in many regions already short of water; new and larger pest outbreaks afflicting crops and forests; still further stresses on agriculture and forestry arising from more frequent occurrence of ever higher temperature extremes; declines in coral reefs under the combined stress of higher water temperatures and continuing acidification of the surface layer of the ocean from absorption of part of the excess atmospheric CO2; expanded geographic range of tropical pathogens and their vectors; and further changes in the geographic distribution of many other species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms accompanied, in all likelihood, by an increase in the rate of extinctions.”

However, Holdren warned that the climate will not necessarily rise smoothly, especially as global temperatures rise beyond 2C above pre-industrial levels:

“Climate scientists worry about “tipping points” in the climate system, including ecosystems, meaning thresholds beyond which a small additional increase in average temperature or some associated climate variable results in major changes to the affected system. Examples of tipping points of potential concern include the complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice in summer, leading to drastic changes in ocean circulation and climate patterns across the whole Northern Hemisphere; drastic acceleration of the rate of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, driving rates of sea-level increase that could reach 6 feet per century or more; ocean acidification from CO2 absorption reaching a level that causes massive disruption in ocean food webs; and a flood of carbon dioxide and methane from warming tundra and thawing permafrost, accelerating the onset of all of the other impacts of concern.

“While our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project its future behavior have grown enormously over the past couple of decades, we cannot yet predict with confidence exactly where on a rising temperature trajectory these or other thresholds would be crossed. It seems clear, however, that the probability of crossing one or more of them goes up sharply as the global-average surface temperature increase compared to 1900 goes above 3.6°F (2°C). That is a major reason for the growing global consensus that worldwide efforts should limit heat-trapping emissions sufficiently to hold the average temperature increase to 3.6°F (2°C) or less.” [emphasis added]

In concluding his written testimony, Holdren said:

“....the current state of knowledge about it (even though incomplete, as science always is) is sufficient to make clear that failure to act promptly to reduce global emissions to the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping substances is overwhelmingly likely to lead to changes in climate too extreme and too damaging to be adequately addressed by any adaptation measures that can be foreseen..”

“It goes almost without saying that the United States, as the largest contributor to the cumulative additions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases to the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and still today the second-largest emitter after China, and as the world’s largest economy and pre-eminent source of scientific and technological innovation, has both the obligation and the opportunity to lead the world in demonstrating that the needed emissions reductions can be achieved in ways that are affordable and consistent with continued economic growth, that create new jobs, and that bring further co-benefits in the form of reduced oil-import dependence and improved air quality.”

“President Obama is going to Copenhagen to underline that the United States is fully committed to assuming this leadership role. The Administration obviously will need the support of the Congress in delivering on this promise…”

Following Holdren was the hearing’s other witness, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  In her written testimony[PDF], Lubchenco also noted the impacts of climate change that already have been observed.

“At one time, we talked about what human-induced climate change might look like at some point in the future,” Lubchenco said.  “The latest science says that it’s happening now. We are now seeing the effects of human-induced climate changes on our landscape, our neighborhoods, schoolyards and farms, as well as our forests, beaches and mountains.”

Lubchenco warned of the far more serious impacts projected for coming decades and emphasized to the committee the importance not only of curbing emissions (what scientists call “mitigation”) but also of preparing for the impacts of climate change (often called “adaptation”).  Among the points Lubchenco made in her testimony:

•  “While climate change negotiations have primarily focused on mitigation of greenhouse gases, it is also critically important that we incorporate adaptation into our strategy. A bold strategy to reduce heat-trapping emissions is necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, but even then some degree of future climate change will continue to occur despite mitigation efforts.”

•  “.. adaptation will be particularly challenging because the rate of change is escalating and is moving outside the range to which society has adapted in the past. The precise amounts and timing of these changes cannot be known with certainty. Because of this uncertainty and the high potential for surprises, adaptation plans will need to be robust, flexible, and able to evolve over time.”

•  “... meeting the challenge of preparing for and responding to climate change will require an unprecedented level of coordination among federal agencies, along with our nongovernmental and international partners.”

Lubchenco noted that some in the U.S. already are taking steps to prepare for climate change impacts: 

“For example, Boston built one of its sewage treatment plants at higher ground to accommodate sea level projections over the next 50 years. Chicago is planting green roofs to cool its buildings and reduce the effects of urban heat waves. King County, Washington upgraded the specifications for a new regional wastewater treatment facility to include water reclamation capacity in response to the observed and projected declines in mountain snowpack. The State of California recently released a draft climate adaptation strategy that identified how state agencies can plan for climate impacts on multiple sectors, including public health, biodiversity and habitat, ocean and coastal resources, water management, agriculture, forestry, and transportation and energy infrastructure. Several other cities, counties, and states have developed comprehensive plans that address adaptation…”

During the hearing, the Republican members of the committee largely focused on the content of private emails among scientists that recently were stolen from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K.  The witnesses along with the Democrats on the committee responded.  We will address that element of the hearing in a separate blog posting.

For more on the hearing see the hearing Web page.  It includes video of the hearing and:

•  Opening statement of Chairman Edward J. Markey

•  Written testimony of Dr. John Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy

•  Written testimony of Dr. Jane Lubchenco , Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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IPCC statement on stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia

Posted on Friday, December 04, 2009

“Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) firmly stands behind the conclusions of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the community of researchers and its individuals providing the scientific basis, and the procedures of IPCC Assessments …The body of evidence is the result of the careful and painstaking work of hundreds of scientists worldwide. The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these email exchanges…”  See Details for full text of the statement.

Statement by Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom

Bern, 4 December 2009

Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) firmly stands behind the conclusions of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the community of researchers and its individuals providing the scientific basis, and the procedures of IPCC Assessments.

Comments on blogs and in the media about the contents of a large number of private emails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, have questioned both the validity of the key findings of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) and the integrity of its authors. IPCC WGI condemns the illegal act which led to private emails being posted on the Internet and firmly stands by the findings of the AR4 and by the community of researchers worldwide whose professional standards and careful scientific work over many years have provided the basis for these conclusions.

The key finding of IPCC AR4, “The warming in the climate system is unequivocal [...] “, is based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the ocean and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth. Through further, independent scientific work involving statistical methods and a range of different climate models, these changes have been detected as significant deviations from natural climate variability and have been attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases.

The body of evidence is the result of the careful and painstaking work of hundreds of scientists worldwide. The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these email exchanges, many of whom have dedicated their time and effort to develop these findings in teams of Lead Authors within the production of the series of IPCC Assessment Reports during the past 20 years.

The IPCC assessment process is designed to ensure consideration of all relevant scientific information from established journals with robust peer review processes, or from other sources which have undergone robust and independent peer review. The entire report writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as by governments. Consequently, there is full opportunity for experts in the field to draw attention to any piece of published literature and its basic findings that would ensure inclusion of a wide range of views.

In compliance with the procedures of IPCC, the conclusions of AR4 have undergone scrutiny in the form of several stages of reviews by peers and governments, have been revised and refined to take into account these review comments, and have finally been approved word by word by the governments of the world [1].

Every layer in the process (including large author teams, extensive and multi-step reviews, independent monitoring of review compliance, and plenary approval by governments) plays a major role in keeping IPCC assessments comprehensive, unbiased, open to the identification of new relevant literature, and policy relevant but not policy prescriptive. Therefore, no individual scientist in the IPCC assessment process is in a position to change the conclusions, or to exclude relevant peer-reviewed papers and scientific work from an IPCC Assessment Report.

In conclusion, IPCC WGI firmly stands behind its unique procedures and behind the scientific community and their collective work which has been, and continues to be, the basis of unbiased, open and transparent assessments of the current knowledge on the climate system and its changes.

Prof. Thomas Stocker
Co-Chair, Working Group I

Prof. Qin Dahe
Co-Chair, Working Group I

[1]  The Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, the Drafts, Review Comments and Author Team Responses are available from the WG I website:  http://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/wg1-ar4.html

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Obama will go to last day of Copenhagen conference; emerging accord on aid to developing countries

The White House announced that President Obama will participate at the end of the Copenhagen climate conference on December 18, seeking to conclude a productive accord on issues under negotiation.  The December 4 announcement emphasized emissions reduction targets set by China and India and an emerging multilateral consensus on mobilizing $10 billion a year by 2012 “to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable and least developed countries that could be destabilized by the impacts of climate change.  The United States will pay its fair share of that amount” and work to address the need for longer-term financing as “an investment in our common security, as no climate change accord can succeed if it does not help all countries reduce their emissions.”

Statement from the Press Secretary on the UN Climate Change Conference

Excerpt:

…Following bilateral meetings with the President and since the United States announced an emissions reduction target that reflects the progress being made in Congress towards comprehensive energy legislation, China and India have for the first time set targets to reduce their carbon intensity. There has also been progress in advancing the Danish proposal for an immediate, operational accord that covers all of the issues under negotiation, including the endorsement of key elements of this approach by the 53 countries represented at the Commonwealth Summit last weekend.
 
This week, the President discussed the status of the negotiations with Prime Minister Rudd, Chancellor Merkel, President Sarkozy, and Prime Minister Brown and concluded that there appears to be an emerging consensus that a core element of the Copenhagen accord should be to mobilize $10 billion a year by 2012 to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable and least developed countries that could be destabilized by the impacts of climate change.  The United States will pay its fair share of that amount and other countries will make substantial commitments as well.  In Copenhagen, we also need to address the need for financing in the longer term to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.  Providing this assistance is not only a humanitarian imperative – it’s an investment in our common security, as no climate change accord can succeed if it does not help all countries reduce their emissions.

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Copenhagen Diagnosis

Posted on Thursday, December 03, 2009

In the build-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December 7-18, a group of 26 leading scientists has released a report, Copenhagen Diagnosis, to “synthesize the most policy-relevant climate science published since the close-off of material for the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.” The report covers the topics evaluated by Working Group I of the IPCC in its 2007 assessment report, namely the physical science basis of climate change, and was written with an audience of policymakers, stakeholders, the media, and the general public in mind. See Details for the Executive Summary of the report.

Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science

Executive Summary

The most significant recent climate change findings are:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40% higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25% probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80% above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets.

Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental ice-sheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society –with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases – needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

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Ben Santer: Open letter to the climate science community

Posted on Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Climate scientists are being subjected to slanderous attacks by demagogues in high office and the global warming disinformation campaign.  Climate Science Watch is posting here an “Open letter to the climate science community” by Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Santer says: “We are now faced with powerful ‘forces of unreason’—forces that (at least to date) have been unsuccessful in challenging scientific findings of a warming Earth, and a ‘discernible human influence’ on global climate.  These forces of unreason are now shifting the focus of their attention to the scientists themselves.  They seek to discredit, to skew the truth, to misrepresent.  They seek to destroy scientific careers rather than to improve our understanding of the nature and causes of climate change.”

Open letter to the climate science community

Dear colleagues and friends,

I am sure that by now, all of you are aware of the hacking incident which recently took place at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). This was a criminal act. Over 3,000 emails and documents were stolen. The identity of the hacker or hackers is still unknown.

The emails represented private correspondence between CRU scientists and scientists at climate research centers around the world. Dozens of the stolen emails are from over a decade of my own personal correspondence with Professor Phil Jones, the Director of CRU.

I obtained my Ph.D. at the Climatic Research Unit. I went to CRU in 1983 because it was - and remains - one of the world’s premier institutions for studying the nature and causes of climate change. During the course of my Ph.D., I was privileged to work together with exceptional scientists - with people like Tom Wigley, Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, and Sarah Raper.

After completing my Ph.D. at CRU in 1987, I devoted much of my scientific career to what is now called “climate fingerprinting”, which seeks to understand the causes of recent climate change. At its core, fingerprinting is a form of what people now call “data mining” - an attempt to extract information and meaning from very large, complex climate datasets. The emails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit are now being subjected to a very different form of “data mining”. This mining is taking place in the blogosphere, in the editorial pages of various newspapers, and in radio and television programs. This form of mining has little to do with extracting meaning from personal email correspondence on complex scientific issues. This form of mining seeks to find dirt - to skew true meaning, to distort, to misrepresent, to take out of context. It seeks to destroy the reputations of exceptional scientists - scientists like Professor Phil Jones.

I have known Phil for over 25 years. He is the antithesis of the secretive, “data destroying” character being portrayed to the outside world by the miners of dirt and disinformation. Phil Jones and Tom Wigley (the second Director of the Climatic Research Unit) devoted significant portions of their scientific careers to the construction of the land component of the so-called “HadCRUT” dataset of land and ocean surface temperatures. The U.K. Meteorological Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) took the lead in developing the ocean surface temperature component of HadCRUT.

The CRU and Hadley Centre efforts to construct the HadCRUT dataset have been open and transparent, and are documented in dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers. This work has been tremendously influential. In my personal opinion, it is some of the most important scientific research ever published. It has provided hard scientific evidence for the warming of our planet over the past 150 years.

Phil, Tom, and their CRU and MOHC colleagues conducted this research in a very open and transparent manner. Like good scientists, they examined the sensitivity of their results to many different subjective choices made during the construction of the HadCRUT dataset. These choices relate to such issues as how to account for changes over time in the type of thermometer used to make temperature measurements, the thermometer location, and the immediate physical surroundings of the thermometer. They found that, no matter what choices they made in dataset construction, their bottom-line finding - that the surface of our planet is warming - was rock solid. This finding was supported by many other independent lines of evidence, such as the retreat of snow and sea-ice cover, the widespread melting and retreat of glaciers, the rise in sea-level, and the increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. All of these independent observations are physically consistent with a warming planet.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. The claim that our Earth had warmed markedly during the 20th century was extraordinary, and was subjected to extraordinary scrutiny. Groups at the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina (NCDC) and at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York (GISS) independently attempted to reproduce the results of the Climatic Research Unit and the U.K. Meteorological Office Hadley Centre. While the NCDC and GISS groups largely relied on the same primary temperature measurements that had been used in the development of the HadCRUT dataset, they made very different choices in the treatment of the raw measurements. Although there were differences in the details of the three groups’ results, the NCDC and GISS analyses broadly confirmed the “warming Earth” findings of the CRU and MOHC scientists.

Other extraordinary claims - such as a claim by scientists at the University of Alabama that Earth’s lower atmosphere cooled since 1979, and that such cooling contradicts “warming Earth” findings - have not withstood rigorous scientific examination.

In summary, Phil Jones and his colleagues have done a tremendous service to the scientific community - and to the planet - by making surface temperature datasets publicly available for scientific research. These datasets have facilitated climate research around the world, and have led to the publication of literally hundreds of important scientific papers.

Phil Jones is one of the gentlemen of our field. He has given decades of his life not only to cutting-edge scientific research on the nature and causes of climate change, but also to a variety of difficult and time-consuming community service activities - such as his dedicated (and repeated) service as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Since the theft of the CRU emails and their public dissemination, Phil has been subjected to the vilest personal attacks. These attacks are without justification. They are deeply disturbing. They should be of concern to all of you. We are now faced with powerful “forces of unreason” - forces that (at least to date) have been unsuccessful in challenging scientific findings of a warming Earth, and a “discernible human influence” on global climate. These forces of unreason are now shifting the focus of their attention to the scientists themselves. They seek to discredit, to skew the truth, to misrepresent. They seek to destroy scientific careers rather than to improve our understanding of the nature and causes of climate change.

Yesterday, Phil temporarily stepped down as Director of the Climatic Research Unit. Yesterday was a very sad day for climate science. When the forces of unreason win, and force exceptional scientists like Professor Phil Jones to leave their positions, we all lose. Climate science loses. Our community loses. The world loses.

Now, more than at any other time in human history, we need sound scientific information on the nature and causes of climate change. Phil Jones and his colleagues at CRU have helped to provide such information. I hope that all of you will join me in thanking Phil for everything he has done - and will do in the future - for our scientific community. He and his CRU colleagues deserve great credit.

With best regards,

Ben Santer
——————————————————————————————————————
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Livermore, CA U.S.A.

See related posts:
Sensenbrenner IPCC witch hunt: Attempt to blacklist climate scientists must be rejected

Rep. Sensenbrenner projects “fascism” and “fraud” onto scientists, is rebutted at hearing

Stephen Schneider: Climate Denier Gate a case of Science as a Contact Sport

Setting the record straight on stolen e-mail: Associated Press, FactCheck.org, and other sources

Setting the record straight on stolen e-mail:  Nature, AAAS, AMS, Union of Concerned Scientists

Open letter to Congress from U.S. scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails

IPCC statement on stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia

Phil Jones and Ben Santer respond to CEI and Pat Michaels attack on temperature data record

Stephen Schneider comments on the CEI and Pat Michaels petition on the global warming data record

Scientists return fire at CEI and Pat Michaels for bogus charges on global temperature data record

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