Exploring different views on climate change
Goal of ClimateDialogue.org
ClimateDialogue.org offers a platform for discussions between invited climate scientists on important climate topics that have been subject to scientific and public debate. The goal of the platform is to explore the full range of views currently held by scientists by inviting experts with different views on the topic of discussion. We encourage the invited scientists to formulate their own personal scientific views; they are not asked to act as representatives for any particular group in the climate debate.
Obviously, there are many excellent blogs that facilitate discussions between climate experts, but as the climate debate is highly polarized and politicized, blog discussions between experts with opposing views are rare.
Background
The discovery, early 2010, of a number of errors in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report on climate impacts (Working Group II), led to a review of the processes and procedures of the IPCC by the InterAcademy Council (IAC). The IAC-report triggered a debate in the Dutch Parliament about the reliability of climate science in general. Based on the IAC-recommendation that ‘the full range of views’ should be covered in the IPCC-reports, Parliament asked the Dutch government ‘to also involve climate skeptics in future studies on climate change’.
In response, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment announced a number of projects that are aimed to increase this involvement. Climate Dialogue is one of these projects.
Topics
We are starting Climate Dialogue with a discussion on the causes of the decline of the Arctic Sea Ice, and the question to what extent this decline can be explained by global warming. Also, the projected timing of the first year that the Arctic will be ice free will be discussed. With respect to the latter, in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, IPCC anticipated that (near) ice free conditions might occur by the end of this century. Since then, several studies have indicated this could be between 2030-2050, or even earlier.
We invited three experts to take part in the discussion: Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Walt Meier, research scientist at the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado; and Ron Lindsay, Senior Principal Physicist at the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Future topics that will be discussed include: climate sensitivity, sea level rise, urban heat island-effects, the value of comprehensive climate models, ocean heat storage, and the warming trend over the past few decades.
Our format
Each discussion will be kicked off by a short introduction written by the editorial staff, followed by a guest blog by two or more invited scientists. The scientists will start the discussion by responding to each other’s arguments. It is not the goal of Climate Dialogue to reach a consensus, but to stimulate the discussion and to make clear what the discussants agree or disagree on and why.
To round off the discussion on a particular topic, the Climate Dialogue editor will write a summary, describing the areas of agreement and disagreement between the discussants. The participants will be asked to approve this final article, the discussion between the experts on that topic will then be closed and the editorial board will open a new discussion on a different topic.
The public (including other climate scientists) is also free to comment, but for practical reasons these comments will be shown separately.
The project organization consists of an editorial staff of three people and an advisory board of seven people, all of whom are based in the Netherlands. The editorial staff is concerned with the day-to-day operation of researching topics, finding participants for the discussion and moderating the discussions between the experts. The main task of the advisory board is to guard the neutrality of the platform and to advise the editorial staff about its activities
Editorial Staff
Project leader is Rob van Dorland of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). Van Dorland is a senior scientist and climate advisor in the Climate Services section and is often operating at the interface between science and society.
The second member is Bart Strengers. He is a climate policy analyst and modeler in the IMAGE-project at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) and has been involved in the discussion with climate skeptics for many years.
The third member is Marcel Crok, an investigative science writer, who published a critical book (in Dutch) about the climate debate.
Questions
We welcome comments on this blog and are happy to answer any questions regarding this project. You can send an email to info [at] climatedialogue [dot] org.
Website: ClimateDialogue.org
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“It is not the goal of Climate Dialogue to reach a consensus, but to stimulate the discussion and to make clear what the discussants agree or disagree on and why.”
An excellent goal. Where the IPCC went wrong was in forcing a consensus view in their summaries, rather than an objective assessment of the range of informed views, and uncertainties in our knowledge.
Bookmarked into the Science file.
Better late than never. Or as Rick said”Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.
What a fine idea. The closest thing so far to Michael Crighton’s suggestion of how to de-bias science.
I think this is a good initiative. The more informed discussion and dialogue there is in science the better it is.
Of course if you are of ‘The Faith’, of whichever complexion, then you will not likely agree that there should be any public debate, other than debate between others of the same ‘Faith’.
You should see the thread on ‘Real Climate’ on this issue. Most of the posters there are apoplectic that people of ‘the faith’ should be debating with others.
It is quite disturbing really but not surprising. The more reality diverts from their beliefs the more strident do their pronouncements and proposed actions become. This is a well observed phenomenen it allows them to group together safe in their own world, immune from any crticism and no obligation to address uncomfortable facts and questions.
Mitch
Love the concept but must question your choice of experts for the first topic. The three are all Americans, might a more internationally diverse group add more credibility and perspective?
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
New Resource
“We are starting Climate Dialogue with a discussion on the causes of the decline of the Arctic Sea Ice, and the question to what extent this decline can be explained by global warming.”
Not exactly a promising start… Shouldn’t they first start by defining what global warming is and a whole lot more of other such things along the line…
This seems like another typical “global warming is real, we know its real, we just need to find something to convince the public that its real” discussion.
They really should start with the basics and that would be defining and laying out the framework of what global warming is, what disproves global warming, etc.
Splendid initiative. Well done, the Dutch.
The inclusion of Judith Curry in this process is very welcome, and indicates that it is a serious attempt to encourage rational debate.
Also, with respect to “The public (including other climate scientists) is also free to comment, but for practical reasons these comments will be shown separately” is most welcome. Hopefully this will be heavily moderated and trolls (from both sides) will be banned in short order.
Yes please!
I have been having discussions with other faculty members and referencing this site. A real uphill battle. But does anyone have the origin of the use of ‘denial’ and does anyone have compiled a bibliography of warmist or skeptic JOURNAL articles, or even AGW and CAGW papers whose conclusions are quite moderate?
Thanks in advance.
So far, so good. I do hope this works as it says on the box.
Invitee identity will be important.
“Future topics that will be discussed include: climate sensitivity, sea level rise, urban heat island-effects, the value of comprehensive climate models, ocean heat storage, and the warming trend over the past few decades.”
More that I would like to see are: –
Surface station numbers, siting, and reliability;
Solar variation, given that we have only a few centuries of records – and the earlier ones are, perhaps, lees precise than the later ones;
Models versus facts.
The proof will be in the pudding – so to speak. ‘Invited’ scientists may well be experts in their fields, but it will be interesting to see if they can dissassociate from the ‘bias’ in real discussion. If this happens, I agree it will be a first step to rejoining science with its proper ‘method’!
Reminds me of the Mark Twain ” A lie will be halfway around the world before truth gets its boots on”. Progress for honesty in climate science? Wait and see but its a promise of return to science in climatology.
Isn’t it depressing that this project would have to be considered “unprecedented” in today’s
climatology world? The scheme’s biggest fault,it seems, is the small number of participant
scientists to be included, and the apparent end of discussion.These issues should be open ended
and revisited as events warrant.
Hope they have a plan for dealing with the enviro-trolls
They’re starting their dialogue at the wrong point. It needs to be much more basic. Question 1 should be: are climate models reliable?
What’s the point, after all, of discussing the fate of Arctic sea ice if recent climate warming can’t be causally assigned to anthropogenic CO2 (or anything else)?
The uniform failure of governments to engage disinterested third party engineering validation and verification studies of climate models, before embarking on policy decisions, has been the worst dereliction of process since the descent into WWII.
And here, with the choice of Arctic sea ice as the first topic of discussion, we have the same blindness to basic issues on full display.
Dutch, so it is biased. Pretty pointless site therefore.
My only issue is that the question itself is biased, in that it asks the extent to which the Arctic ice decline can be explained by global warming. IMHO, the question should also include the extent to which the decline in ice can be explained without global warming. Just because the decline could possibly be explained by global warming (and I think there are significant issues here) does not mean that global warming is actually the cause (or dominant cause).
Biasing discussion questions is one way of controlling debate. The framework for the IPCC is similarly biased, which is one reason it comes out the way it does.
I have actively participated on Climate Dialogue. I am not impressed. The first subject was Arctic sea ice, and the only “skeptic” invited to comment was Judith Curry. I have enormous respect for Judith, but she really is not a skeptic. The discussion excluded any discussion of Antractic sea ice, and seemed to be deliberately biased, So Climate Dialogue might just turn out to be another forum where The Cause can be discussed oin behalf of The Team. I will wait for the next subject to be discussed, but if it is as biased as the first, then I dont think Climate Dialogue will be any more than a pale imitation of RealClimate.
@timothy sorenson
The origin of the ‘denier’ attack word is a journalist in Washington. A lady if I recall correctly. It was discussed on WUWT so maybe someone with better searchings skills than I can find the article and comment.
I presume the choice of the first topic is to get a lively participation as it is topical, well noised abroad and controversial. It is also something the AGW people think they can easily win because missing is missing so even rejecting scientific explanations that it is not warmer (for example) promoters of CO2 can still say, ‘But the ice is still missing’ as if that proves their mechanism. Interesting that it is to be a scientific discussion while simultaneously holding that prophecy is an integral element of the outcome.
I commend the creation of the discussion space and I will make it more widely known.
Hmmm…sounds like a step in the right direction, but when you are miles off course, a step is not a lot to get exited about. Nonetheless, a journey of a thousand miles begins with such a step.
“My only issue is that the question itself is biased”
I agree. A better start would be to ask how ocean temperature data, ENSO, PDO, wind data, solar wind changes, planetary dynamics, etc etc can explain the ice loss. Without a handle on natural variabilty, the model results are necessarily junk.
Thus I conclude right off that there is a CAGW bias to this “science” site.
The initial goals seem praiseworthy and potentially helpful, but I wonder about the editorial and advisory boards. It’s a given that they will have biases. Will they publicly define and defend them so we know what filters are being applied to the “dialogue”? Also, what prevents hijacking by advocates of any stripe as the inevitable turn-over happens? How are board members vetted and replaced? Let’s have complete transparency so we can have some confidence in the effort.