That headline is Dr. Judth Curry’s testimony before The House Testimony on global warming yesterday. It had a number of excellent presentations, and you can watch the entire video here.
Some excerpts below, the entire presentation is available for download after the break.
Climate change can be categorized as a “wicked problem.”1 Wicked problems are difficult or impossible to solve, there is no opportunity to devise an overall solution by trial and error, and there is no real test of the efficacy of a solution to the wicked problem. Efforts to solve the wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have framed the climate change problem (i.e. dangers) and its solution (i.e. international treaty) to be irreducibly global. Based upon the precautionary principle, the UNFCCC ’s Kyoto Protocol has established an international goal of stabilization of the concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. This framing of the problem and its solution has led to the
dilemma of climate response policy that is aptly described by Obersteiner et al.2:
The key issue is whether “betting big today” with a comprehensive global climate policy
targeted at stabilization “will fundamentally reshape our common future on a global scale to our advantage or quickly produce losses that can throw mankind into economic, social, and environmental bankruptcy.”
1 Rittel, Horst, and Melvin Webber; “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” pp. 155–169, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc., Amsterdam, 1973. http://www.uctc.net/mwebber/Rittel+Webber+Dilemmas+General_Theory_of_Planning.pdf
2 http://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/1975/292/2001-Managing_climate_risk.pdf?sequence=1
…
Engagement of climate researchers with regional planners, economists, military/intelligence organizations, development banks, energy companies, and governments in the developing world to develop a mutual understanding about what kind of information is needed can promote more fruitful decision outcomes, and define new scientific challenges to be addressed by research. The need for climate researchers to engage with social scientists and engineers has never been more important.
Further, there is an increasing need for social scientists and philosophers of science to scrutinize and analyze our field to prevent dysfunction at the science-policy interface.
And finally, climate scientists and the institutions that support them need to acknowledge and engage with ever-growing groups of citizen scientists, auditors, and extended peer communities that have become increasingly well organized by the blogosphere. The more sophisticated of these groups are challenging our conventional notions of expertise and are bringing much needed scrutiny particularly into issues surrounding historical and paleoclimate data records.
These groups reflect a growing public interest in climate science and a growing concern about possible impacts of climate change and climate change policies. The acrimony that has developed between some climate scientists and blogospheric skeptics was amply evident in the sorry mess that is known as Climategate. Climategate illuminated the fundamental need for improved and transparent historical and paleoclimate data sets and improved information systems so that these data are easily accessed and interpreted.
Blogospheric communities can potentially be important in identifying and securing the common interest at these disparate scales in the solution space of the energy, climate and ocean acidification problems. A diversity of views on interpreting the scientific evidence and a broad range of ideas on how to address these challenges doesn’t hinder the implementation of diverse megaton and kiloton solutions at local and regional scales.
Securing the common interest on local and regional scales provides a basis for the successful implementation of climate adaptation strategies. Successes on the
local and regional scale and then national scales make it much more likely that global issues can be confronted in an effective way.
=========================================================
Her testimony is available here: Curry_Testimony_11-17-2010
Page 1 of 8
STATEMENT TO THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Hearing on
“Rational Discussion of Climate Change: the Science, the Evidence, the Response”
17 November 2010
Judith A. Curry
Georgia Institute of Technology
curryja@eas.gatech.edu
I thank the Chairman and the Committee for the opportunity to offer testimony today on “Rational
Discussion of Climate Change.” I am Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the
Georgia Institute of Technology. As a climate scientist, I have devoted 30 years to conducting research
on a variety of topics including climate feedback processes in the Arctic, energy exchange between the
ocean and the atmosphere, the role of clouds and aerosols in the climate system, and the impact of
climate change on the characteristics of hurricanes. As president of Climate Forecast Applications
Network LLC, I have been working with decision makers on climate impact assessments, assessing
and developing climate adaptation strategies, and developing subseasonal climate forecasting
strategies to support adaptive management and tactical adaptation. Over the past year, I have been
actively engaging with the public (particularly in the blogosphere) on the issue of integrity of climate
science, and also the topic of uncertainty.
The climate change response challenge
Climate change can be categorized as a “wicked problem.”1 Wicked problems are difficult or
impossible to solve, there is no opportunity to devise an overall solution by trial and error, and there
is no real test of the efficacy of a solution to the wicked problem. Efforts to solve the wicked problem
may reveal or create other problems.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have framed the climate change problem (i.e. dangers) and its
solution (i.e. international treaty) to be irreducibly global. Based upon the precautionary principle, the
UNFCCC ’s Kyoto Protocol has established an international goal of stabilization of the concentrations
of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. This framing of the problem and its solution has led to the
dilemma of climate response policy that is aptly described by Obersteiner et al.2:
The key issue is whether “betting big today” with a comprehensive global climate policy
targeted at stabilization “will fundamentally reshape our common future on a global scale to
our advantage or quickly produce losses that can throw mankind into economic, social, and
environmental bankruptcy.”
1 Rittel, Horst, and Melvin Webber; “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” pp. 155–169, Policy
Sciences, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc., Amsterdam, 1973.
Click to access Rittel+Webber+Dilemmas+General_Theory_of_Planning.pdf
2 http://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/1975/292/2001-Managing_climate_risk.pdf?sequence=1
Curry – Testimony on Rational Discussion of Climate Change
Page 2 of 8
In a rational discussion of climate change, the question needs to be asked as to whether the framing of
the problem and the early articulation of a preferred policy option by the UNFCCC has marginalized
research on broader issues surrounding climate change, and resulted is an overconfident assessment of
the importance of greenhouse gases in future climate change, and stifled the development of a broader
range of policy options.
The IPCC/UNFCCC have provided an important service to global society by alerting us to a global
threat that is potentially catastrophic. The UNFCCC/IPCC has made an ambitious attempt to put a
simplified frame around the problem of climate change and its solution in terms of anthropogenic
forcing and CO2 stabilization polices. However, the result of this simplified framing of a wicked
problem is that we lack the kinds of information to more broadly understand climate change and
societal vulnerability.
Uncertainty in climate science
Anthropogenic climate change is a theory in which the basic mechanism is well understood, but in
which the magnitude of the climate change is highly uncertain owing to feedback processes. We know
that the climate changes naturally on decadal to century time scales, but we do not have explanations
for a number of observed historical and paleo climate variations, including the warming from 1910-
1940 and the mid-20th century cooling. The conflict regarding the theory of anthropogenic climate
change is over the level of our ignorance regarding what is unknown about natural climate variability.
I have been raising concerns3 since 2003 about how uncertainty surrounding climate change is
evaluated and communicated. The IPCC’s efforts to consider uncertainty focus primarily on
communicating uncertainty, rather than on characterizing and exploring uncertainty in a way that
would be useful for risk managers and resource managers and the institutions that fund science. A
number of scientists have argued that future IPCC efforts need to be more thorough about describing
sources and types of uncertainty, making the uncertainty analysis as transparent as possible.
Recommendations along these lines were made by the recent IAC4 review of the IPCC.
Because the assessment of climate change science by the IPCC is inextricably linked with the
UNFCCC polices, a statement about scientific uncertainty in climate science is often viewed as a
political statement. A person making a statement about uncertainty or degree of doubt is likely to
become categorized as a skeptic or denier or a “merchant of doubt,”5 whose motives are assumed to be
ideological or motivated by funding from the fossil fuel industry. My own experience in publicly
discussing concerns about how uncertainty is characterized by the IPCC has resulted in my being
labeled as a “climate heretic”6 that has turned against my colleagues.
Climate change winners and losers
A view of the climate change problem as irreducibly global fails to recognize that some regions may
actually benefit from a warmer and/or wetter climate. Areas of the world that currently cannot
adequately support populations and agricultural efforts may become more desirable in future climate
regimes.
3 http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/pdf/crc-102103.pdf
4 http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/
5 Oreskes, N. and E.M. Conway, 2010: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the
Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming. Bloomsbury Press, 368 pp.
6 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-heretic
Curry – Testimony on Rational Discussion of Climate Change
Page 3 of 8
Arguably the biggest global concern regarding climate change impacts is concerns over water
resources. This concern is exacerbated in regions where population is rapidly increasing and water
resources are already thinly stretched. China and South Asia (notably India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh)
are facing a looming water crisis arising from burgeoning population and increasing demand for water
for irrigated farming and industry. China has been damming the rivers emerging from Tibet and
channeling the water for irrigation, and there is particular concern over the diversion of the
Brahmaputra to irrigate the arid regions of Central China. China’s plans to reroute the Brahmaputra
raises the specter of riparian water wars with India and Bangladesh.
The IPCC AR4 WGII makes two statements of particular relevance to the water situation in central
and south Asia:
“Freshwater availability in Central, South, East and South-East Asia . . . is likely to decrease
due to climate change, along with population growth and rising standard of living that could
adversely affect more than a billion people in Asia by the 2050s (high confidence).”7
“Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the
present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps
sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely
shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).”8
The lack of veracity of the statement about the melting Himalayan glaciers has been widely discussed,
and the mistake has been acknowledged by the IPCC.9 However, both of these statements seem
inconsistent with the information in Table 10.2 of the IPCC AR4 WG II and the statement:
“The consensus of AR4 models . . . indicates an increase in annual precipitation in most of
Asia during this century; the relative increase being largest and most consistent between
models in North and East Asia. The sub-continental mean winter precipitation will very likely
increase in northern Asia and the Tibetan Plateau and likely increase in West, Central,
South-East and East Asia. Summer precipitation will likely increase in North, South, South-
East and East Asia but decrease in West and Central Asia.” 10
Based on the IPCC’s simulations of 21st century climate, it seems that rainfall will increase overall in
the region (including wintertime snowfall in Tibet), and the IPCC AR4 WGII does not discuss the
impact of temperature and evapotranspiration on fresh water resources in this region. The importance
of these omissions, inconsistencies or mistakes by the IPCC is amplified by the potential of riparian
warfare in this region that supports half of the world’s population.
A serious assessment is needed of vulnerabilities, region by region, in the context of possible climate
change scenarios, demographics, societal vulnerabilities, possible adaptation, and current adaptation
deficits. A few regions have attempted such an assessment. Efforts being undertaken by the World
Bank Program on the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change to assess the economics of
adaptation in developing countries are among the best I’ve seen in this regard. This is the kind of
information that is needed to assess winners and losers and how dangerous climate change might be
relative to adaptive capacities.
7 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-es.html
8 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-6-2.html
9 http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf
10 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-3.html#10-3-1
Curry – Testimony on Rational Discussion of Climate Change
Page 4 of 8
Climate surprises and catastrophes
The uncertainty associated with climate change science and the wickedness of the problem provide
much fodder for disagreement about preferred policy options. Uncertainty might be regarded as cause
for delaying action or as strengthening the case for action. Low-probability, high-consequence events
in the context of a wicked problem provide particular challenges to developing robust policies.
Extreme events such as landfalling major hurricanes, floods, extreme heat waves and droughts can
have catastrophic impacts. While such events are not unexpected in an aggregate sense, their frequency
and/or severity may increase in a warmer climate and they may be a surprise to the individual locations
that are impacted by a specific event. Natural events become catastrophes through a combination of
large populations, large and exposed infrastructure in vulnerable locations, and when humans modify
natural systems that can provide a natural safety barrier (e.g. deforestation, draining wetlands). For
example, the recent catastrophic flooding in Pakistan11 apparently owes as much to deforestation and
overgrazing as it does to heavy rainfall. Addressing current adaptive deficits and planning for climate
compatible development will increase societal resilience to future extreme events that may be more
frequent or severe in a warmer climate.
Abrupt climate change12 is defined as a change that occurs faster than the apparent underlying driving
forces. Abrupt climate change, either caused by natural climate variability or triggered in part by
anthropogenic climate change, is a possibility that needs investigation and consideration. Catastrophic
anthropogenic climate change arising from climate sensitivity on the extreme high end of the
distribution has not been adequately explored, and the plausible worst-case scenario has not be
adequately articulated. To what extent can we falsify scenarios of very high climate sensitivity based
on our background knowledge? What are the possibilities for abrupt climate change, and what are the
possible time scales involved? What regions would be most vulnerable under this worst-case scenario?
Weitzmann13 characterizes the decision making surrounding climate change in the following way:
“Much more unsettling for an application of expected utility analysis is deep structural
uncertainty in the science of global warming coupled with an economic inability to place
a meaningful upper bound on catastrophic losses from disastrous temperature changes.
The climate science seems to be saying that the probability of a system-wide disastrous
collapse is non-negligible even while this tiny probability is not known precisely and
necessarily involves subjective judgments.”
When a comprehensive decision analysis includes plausible catastrophes with unknown probabilities, the
policy implications can be radically different from those suggested by optimal decision making strategies
targeted at the most likely scenario. Weitzmann argues that it is plausible that climate change policy
stands or falls to a large extent on the issue of how the high impact low probability catastrophes are
conceptualized and modeled. Whereas “alarmism” focuses unduly on the possible (or even impossible)
worst-case scenario, robust policies consider unlikely but not impossible scenarios without letting them
completely dominate the decision.
In summary, the IPCC focus on providing information to support the establishment of an optimal CO2
stabilization target doesn’t address two important issues for driving policy:
• reducing vulnerability to extreme events such as floods, droughts, and hurricanes
• examination of the plausible worst case scenario.
11 http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/20/pakistan-on-my-mind/
12 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309074347
13 http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3693423/Weitzman_OnModeling.pdf?sequence=2
Curry – Testimony on Rational Discussion of Climate Change
Page 5 of 8
There are no “silver bullet” solutions
Xu, Crittenden et al.14 argue that “gigaton problems require gigaton solutions.” The wickedness of the
climate problem precludes a gigaton solution (either technological or political). Attempts to address
the climate change problem through a U.N. treaty for almost two decades have arguably not been
successful. The climate change problem now walks hand-in-hand with the ocean acidification
problem, the link between the two problems being the proposed stabilization of atmospheric CO2. The
proposed solution to the wicked climate problem and ocean acidification in terms of stabilization of
atmospheric CO2 has revealed and created new problems in terms of energy policy. Energy policy is
driven by a complicated mix of economics and economic development, energy security, environmental
quality and health issues, resource availability (e.g. peak oil), etc.
Even if climate change is not the primary driver in energy policy, the climate-energy nexus is a very
important one. Not just in the sense of anthropogenic climate change motivating energy policy, but
weather and climate are key drivers in energy demand and even supply. On the demand side, we have
the obvious impact of heating and cooling degree days. On the supply side, we have oil and gas supply
disruptions (e.g. hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico) plus the dependence of hydro, solar, and wind
power on weather and climate. What is perhaps the most important connection, and one often
overlooked, is the energy-water nexus, whereby power plants requiring water for cooling compete with
domestic, agricultural, industrial, and ecosystems for the available water supply.
The complexity of both the climate and energy problems and their nexus precludes the gigaton “silver
bullet” solution to these challenges. Attempting to use carbon dioxide as a control knob to regulate
climate in the face of large natural climate variability and the inevitable weather hazards is most likely
futile. In any event, according to climate model projections reported in the IPCC AR4, reducing
atmospheric CO2 will not influence the trajectory of CO2 induced warming until after 2050. The
attempt to frame a “silver bullet” solution by the UNFCCC seems unlikely to succeed, given the size
and the wickedness of the problem. The wicked gigaton climate problem will arguably require
thousands of megaton solutions and millions of kiloton solutions.
Moving forward
Climate scientists have made a forceful argument for a looming future threat from anthropogenic
climate change. Based upon the background knowledge that we have, the threat does not seem to be an
existential one on the time scale of the 21st century, even in its most alarming incarnation. It is now up
to the political process (international, national, and local) to decide how to contend with the climate
problem. It seems more important that robust responses be formulated than to respond urgently with a
policy that may fail to address the problem and whose unintended consequences have not been
adequately explored.
The role for climate science and climate scientists in this process is complex. In the past 20 years,
dominated by the IPCC/UNFCCC paradigm, scientists have become entangled in an acrimonious
scientific and political debate, where the issues in each have become confounded. This has generated
much polarization in the scientific community and has resulted in political attacks on scientists on both
sides of the debate, and a scientist’s “side” is often defined by factors that are exogenous to the actual
scientific debate. Debates over relatively arcane aspects of the scientific argument have become a
substitute for what should be a real debate about politics and values.
14 http://www.spp.gatech.edu/faculty/marilynbrown/sites/default/files/attachment/Gigaton%20Problems
%20Need%20Gigaton%20Solutions.pdf
Curry – Testimony on Rational Discussion of Climate Change
Page 6 of 8
Continuing to refine the arguments put forward by the IPCC that focus on global climate model
simulations projections of future climate change may have reached the point of diminishing returns for
both the science and policy deliberations. Further, the credibility of the IPCC has been tarnished by the
events of the past year. It is important to broaden the scope of global climate change research beyond
its focus on anthropogenic greenhouse warming to develop a better understanding of natural climate
variability and the impact of land use changes and to further explore the uncertainty of the coupled
climate models and the capability of these models to predict emergent events such as catastrophic
climate change. And far more attention needs to be given to establishing robust and transparent climate
data records (both historical and paleoclimate proxies).
Regional planners and resource managers need high-resolution regional climate projections to support
local climate adaptation plans and plans for climate compatible development. This need is unlikely to
be met (at least in the short term) by the global climate models. In any event, anthropogenic climate
change on timescales of decades is arguably less important in driving vulnerability in most regions
than increasing population, land use practices, and ecosystem degradation. Regions that find solutions
to current problems of climate variability and extreme weather events and address challenges
associated with an increasing population will be better prepared to cope with any additional stresses
from climate change.
Hoping to rely on information from climate models about projected regional climate change to guide
adaptation response diverts attention from using weather and climate information in adaptive water
resource management and agriculture on seasonal and subseasonal time scales. Optimizing water
resource management and crop selection and timing based upon useful probabilistic subseasonal and
seasonal climate forecasts has the potential to reduce vulnerability substantially in many regions. This
is particularly the case in the developing world where much of the agriculture is rain fed (i.e. no
irrigation). It would seem that increasing scientific focus on seasonal and subseasonal forecasts could
produce substantial societal benefits for tactical adaptation practices.
The global climate modeling effort directed at the IPCC/UNFCCC paradigm has arguably reached the
point of diminishing returns in terms of supporting decision making for the U.N. treaty and related
national policies. At this point, it seems more important to explore the uncertainties associated with
future climate change rather than to attempt to reduce the uncertainties in a consensus-based approach.
It is time for climate scientists to change their view of uncertainty: it is not just something that is
merely to be framed and communicated to policy makers, all the while keeping in mind that doubt is a
political weapon in the decision making process. Characterizing, understanding, and exploring
uncertainty is at the heart of the scientific process. And finally, the characterization of uncertainty is
critical information for robust policy decisions.
Engagement of climate researchers with regional planners, economists, military/intelligence
organizations, development banks, energy companies, and governments in the developing world to
develop a mutual understanding about what kind of information is needed can promote more fruitful
decision outcomes, and define new scientific challenges to be addressed by research. The need for
climate researchers to engage with social scientists and engineers has never been more important.
Further, there is an increasing need for social scientists and philosophers of science to scrutinize and
analyze our field to prevent dysfunction at the science-policy interface.
And finally, climate scientists and the institutions that support them need to acknowledge and engage
with ever-growing groups of citizen scientists, auditors, and extended peer communities that have
become increasingly well organized by the blogosphere. The more sophisticated of these groups are
challenging our conventional notions of expertise and are bringing much needed scrutiny particularly
Curry – Testimony on Rational Discussion of Climate Change
Page 7 of 8
into issues surrounding historical and paleoclimate data records. These groups reflect a growing public
interest in climate science and a growing concern about possible impacts of climate change and
climate change policies. The acrimony that has developed between some climate scientists and
blogospheric skeptics was amply evident in the sorry mess that is known as Climategate. Climategate
illuminated the fundamental need for improved and transparent historical and paleoclimate data sets
and improved information systems so that these data are easily accessed and interpreted.
Blogospheric communities can potentially be important in identifying and securing the common
interest at these disparate scales in the solution space of the energy, climate and ocean acidification
problems. A diversity of views on interpreting the scientific evidence and a broad range of ideas on
how to address these challenges doesn’t hinder the implementation of diverse megaton and kiloton
solutions at local and regional scales. Securing the common interest on local and regional scales
provides a basis for the successful implementation of climate adaptation strategies. Successes on the
local and regional scale and then national scales make it much more likely that global issues can be
confronted in an effective way.
Curry – Testimony on Rational Discussion of Climate Change
Page 8 of 8
Short Biography
Judith Curry
Chair and Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0349
curryja@eas.gatech.edu
Dr. Judith Curry is Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the
Georgia Institute of Technology and President of Climate Forecast Applications Network
(CFAN). Dr. Curry received a Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Chicago in
1982. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, she has held faculty positions at the University
of Colorado, Penn State University and Purdue University. Dr. Curry’s research interests span a
variety of topics in climate; current interests include air/sea interactions, climate feedback
processes associated with clouds and sea ice, and the climate dynamics of hurricanes. She is a
prominent public spokesperson on issues associated with the integrity of climate science, and has
recently launched the weblog Climate Etc. Dr. Curry currently serves on the NASA Advisory
Council Earth Science Subcommittee and has recently served on the National Academies Climate
Research Committee and the Space Studies Board, and the NOAA Climate Working Group. Dr.
Curry is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union.
.
For more information:
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/
http://www.cfanclimate.com/
http://judithcurry.com
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry
Sourcewatch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Judith_Curry
This is how to change minds and influence people…great job Judith!
Judith Curry says:
“Climate change can be categorized as a “wicked problem.”1 Wicked problems are difficult or impossible to solve, there is no opportunity to devise an overall solution by trial and error, and there is no real test of the efficacy of a solution to the wicked problem. Efforts to solve the wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.”
It is true that climate change is a difficult problem for mankind to grapple with. The stakes are high. Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real , and e approximately 50% believe the IPCC got things right and 20% believe the IPCC understated the scope of the problem , common sense dictates that doing nothing is clearly not the right course, even though their is uncertainty. Uncertainty also means that things could turn out worse, especially in the sea level department, where the motion of the great ice sheets could result in an increase of sea level many times what the IPCC has projected for the next century.
As a matter of fact, dire consequences are projected for India by 2030. This is one of the largest and most fragile countries in the world.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jIa5ozifmNC_KtFM7b7BmlgQ60Ig?docId=5158320
REPLY: Where did you get this?
“Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real”.
Show citation. Or did you make it up on the spot? – A
Climate change is neither wicked or a problem. It is a natural phenomenon driven by natural cycles. It started when the planet formed and will continue to the day the sun goes nova.
Just live with it!!
“Climate change” become a synthetic problem since it could be turned into money and power. But hey, me ain’t no president of Climate Forecast Applications Network neither.
Well, what can I say?
I think what I wrote here in South Africa on my blogg just says it all… the same thing…
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
“Further, there is an increasing need for social scientists and philosophers of science to scrutinize and analyze our field to prevent dysfunction at the science-policy interface.” (Just one example from the last three posts.)
This kind of language really is not helpful. In choosing to read a prepared statement, a scholar risks sounding… scholarly.
I would prefer that they speak to the level of the audience. Since Members of Congress in most cases are ordinary people, scholarly skeptics should get better results through clarity, rather than by trying to “dazzle them with their phraseology.”
Excellent! Won’t be surprised if the Good Doctor from Georgia Tech isn’t back next year before the full committee.
Today’s installment of the Cancun Week special is available at
http://ourmaninsichuan.wordpress.com/
It’s an assessment of the political approach by China to Cancun.
Pointman
Oh dear, oh dear. Next thing she’ll be talking to Jerome Ravetz. She is already using the proper language for that. Climate change is not a wicked problem. It’s not even a scientific problem. It’s a con-job. Look at the thing as such and all those perceived problems disappear in a puff of jail-time.
I hope she is brought back when the Republicans have control of the committee.
As soon as possible when the new Congress convenes and the chairmanship of these committees changes, the Brazilian geologist, Geraldo Lino, should be invited to testify on the subject of the scientific method. His brilliant yet understandable exposition of the cavalier methodology employed by the warmist cabal, recently reprinted in WUWT, needs national exposure.
I can’t help but observe that a defining moment for the “blogosphere” was Dan Rather’s “Memogate”.
In that case it took only hours after the documents were posted online for blogs to call BS and point out in great detail the forensic evidence that these were not authentic documents from that ERA.
This represented a socio-scientific sea-change; it showed that if you make info available to everyone, there is often some group (and often just some individual) who can do a better job of analyzing the info than can the so-called experts (in that case Dan Rather, CBS News, and their document experts).
The real advantage for SOME scientist used to be in hoarding the data and thus seeming to be more expert. Now, if the data is made available the expertise will gravitate to it through the blogosphere. In many cases, especially in climate science, the blogosphere has been more careful, thoughtful, honest, and scientific than those who condemn it.
… of course, that hasn’t been the case for ALL blogs. One still has to sort through the chaff. But the popularity of CA and WUWT shows the ease with which the cream rises to the top (to mix farm metaphors!).
AWESOME!
I love the line “A diversity of views … doesn’t hinder the implementation of diverse megaton and kiloton solutions”. That sure does communicate…
So am I the only one that feels the world has way too many climate scientists as it is?
She’s already sounding like a civil servant running a major department!
Somehow (and I’ve no idea why) the warning to Pelius seems very apt: “Beware the man with one shoe!”
“The key issue is whether “betting big today” with a comprehensive global climate policy
targeted at stabilization “will fundamentally reshape our common future on a global scale to our advantage or quickly produce losses that can throw mankind into economic, social, and environmental bankruptcy.” quote from article.
Translation: Socialist ” 5 year planning ” doesn’t work and will wreck the global
economy and in particular those darn Americans.” Who don’t seem to want to drink the UN/IPCC Kool Aid!
BTW the UN’s shooting at Unarmed rioters in Cap Haitien as we speak. The Problem:
the Government of Haiti will not allow supplies to be unloaded….
Even with people are dying of Cholera…
John Marshall says:
November 18, 2010 at 7:10 am
Climate change is neither wicked or a problem. It is a natural phenomenon driven by natural cycles. It started when the planet formed and will continue to the day the sun goes nova.
Just live with it!!
—————————–
Natural climate change in the past proves that climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. If the planet accumulates heat, global temperatures will go up. Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate’s sensitivity to CO2.
Bob Shapiro says:
November 18, 2010 at 7:16 am
“I would prefer that they speak to the level of the audience. Since Members of Congress in most cases are ordinary people, scholarly skeptics should get better results through clarity, rather than by trying to “dazzle them with their phraseology.”
Members of Congress are ordinary people?
Fire the lot of them = Problem solved.
“The need for climate researchers to engage with social scientists and engineers has never been more important.”
The question is whether we want to do this now or after the Ross Ice Shelf goes slip sliding into the sea.
Obviously she is saying we need to have engagement with climate researchers in order to at least try and solve the wicked problem.
So, she obviously thinks there is a problem.
Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real
Anthony: See:
I’m not all that surprised that actively publishing climate scientists skew heavily towards support of ACC. Anyway, it’s a statistic that climate change advocates use frequently these days.
“Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real ”
Also . . . . “97% of climate scientists believe that promoting AGW fear, hysteria and panic is critical to continued R&D funding being shoveled off the truck for their benefit”
I don’t know why Judith uses the terms “megaton and kiloton solutions”–Those are used primarily for quantifying nuclear and thermonuclear devices, which are for the mass destruction of a target. At least that’s what comes to my mind as I am a child of the Cold War.
And when she applies the terms as solutions on the local and regional scales, I see no correlation whatsoever.
@Eadler “Uncertainty also means that things could turn out worse, especially in the sea level department, where the motion of the great ice sheets could result in an increase of sea level many times what the IPCC has projected for the next century.”
There have already been published analyses that show that anything in the range of 1m to 2m from Greenland would require that ALL the glacial outlets would have to be galloping continuously from now to the end of the century at rates only rarely seen for a few hours at a time. They aren’t galloping yet, and Antarctica may actually be gaining mass in its interior. Even the IPCC estimates for total sea level rise was much less than a meter, before the Greenland analysis was published.
I agree with those who challenge the characterization of climate change as a “problem.” It may be a problem, but until we can parameterize the problem, and determine exactly what the outcomes will be, then it’s nothing but speculative talk based upon incomplete science. Applying the precautionary principle at the scale that is being envisioned by government and NGO bureaucrats would be brazenly premature at this stage.
That is why I’ve advocated (and will continue to advocate) a comprehensive engineering-grade study of the purported problem to be financed by the US government that will, presumably, quantify what is going on in the climate and conclude whether there is any need for alarm. The studies produced so far appear to be wholly lacking in comprehensive accuracy and efficacy. Climate science is evolving, but it’s no where near the level of professionalism and trustworthiness to be the foundation for imposing radical changes in human behavior across the planet.
“Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real”.
It is also scientific fact that they all have webbed feet too! Citation: Disney Studios, California! :-))
“Engagement of climate researchers with regional planners, economists, military/intelligence organizations, development banks, energy companies, and governments in the developing world to develop a mutual understanding about what kind of information is needed can promote more fruitful decision outcomes, and define new scientific challenges to be addressed by research. The need for climate researchers to engage with social scientists and engineers has never been more important.”
These ADW guys have been so steeped in academia with their Marxist jargon, that even when they are trying to be objective, they come of sounding like Marxists. The problem with Marxist vocabulary is that it encapsulates Marxist concepts, which restrict thought to a Marxist world view. Any solution produced in a Marxist world view will be a Marxist one.
“Securing the common interest on local and regional scales provides a basis for the successful implementation of climate adaptation strategies. Successes on the
local and regional scale and then national scales make it much more likely that global issues can be confronted in an effective way.”
Reminds me of the Cultural Revolution, start at the local level with brain washed children.
er…wow….I do not think there is any doubt now that Judy Curry, if not in the Lindzen camp, is certainly standing in the doorway, leaning in, having a chat…
I expected her to reveret to previous years, give a bit of of a fence sit maybe. But she just said, if I undestand correctley…”nothing to see, nothing to worry about particuarly, keep an eye on it but look to more pressing problems and don’t waste any more money on it”.
Am I wrong….thats what I would take from her testimony anyway.
Roll on Ben Santer!
Curry for President!!!
eadler says:
November 18, 2010 at 7:05 am
Hey Anthony, maybe he got it from here? An unbiased news source or course:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/97-percent-scientists-man-causing-climate-change.php
It is a wicked problem because both higher temperatures and more carbon dioxide cause increased plant growth–upon which human lives (and endangered animals) depend.
The average temperature globally is 12 degrees C (54F) and the maximum temperature possible globally (if the 600 million year proxy-determined fossil record is interpreted correctly) is 22 degrees C (72F). Ask any farmer which temperature his crops do better at.
More CO2 has been proven in hundreds of studies to mean more plant life.
There is profound danger in the BELIEF in catastrophic AGW. If we really do ameliorations–and they work–the result will be catastrophic to the human race because it will sharply reduce the carrying capacity of the planet, which means it would cause extinctions. Yes, extinctions. Harm to the human race is ALSO harm to Earth’s other creatures.
–Esther Cook
@ eadler
“The stakes are high. Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real , and e approximately 50% believe the IPCC got things right and 20% believe the IPCC understated the scope of the problem , common sense dictates that doing nothing is clearly not the right course,….”
========================================================
Did you read what you wrote before posting? Your first two statements are counter intuitive, but I’ll slide on that for now. 50% ? That implies the converse also! 50% believe the IPCC got things wrong, and 80% don’t believe the IPCC understated the scope of the problem.
50% is not an impetus to do any thing other than study more. Have you heard of the law of unintended consequences? Doing something when it isn’t clear what is necessary to be done is insanity and invites horrible consequences, especially if the action is undertaken on a global scale. Try again, use some logic this time.
Belief in CAGW is also causing ecological damage right now by misinforming people as the the consequences of their actions. This was posted on WUWT yesterday:
1. Keith Battye says:
November 16, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Here in Zimbabwe our GDP per head is lower than it was in 1951 and our electrical power usage for the entire country of 12 million people is 1500Mw. Consider also that our liquid fuel consumption is around 1m liters a day and you can see how far we have to go to improve lives.
The disastrous corollary to this is that deforestation is massive and accelerating because wood as a fuel is “free”. In the last 10 years approximately 60% of our forests have been burned to cook food and to provide poor light after dark.
Widespread rural electrification coupled with upgraded power generation ( we have billions of tons of coal and huge natural gas fields that have not been exploited) would improve lives and stop deforestation. Instead my government is disinvesting in power and starting to pass laws to combat global warming with particular reference to CO2.
It seems we have chosen poverty over development.
—
Note that this is a devastation of the actual environment to prevent imaginary harm.
Bob Shapiro — This kind of language really is not helpful. In choosing to read a prepared statement, a scholar risks sounding… scholarly.
WTF? It was concise and accurate. The **only** problem in the climate world is getting information across such that rational policy can be achieved rather than the constant screeching between “doom and gloom” vs “it’s a hoax.”
For those of you too lazy to read: Dr. Curry is correct; climate change *is* a “wicked problem” as per her definition, where she’s describing the nexus of incomplete science meeting policy requirement. She goes on to say that the blogosphere isn’t full of knuckle dragging luddites who resist climate change by way of oil money, religion, or being uneducated fools. She says that this (hubristic) belief by academia re what constitutes skeptics is incorrect, that true skeptics with something useful to say are generally pretty well educated professionals. The “wicked problem” essentially is that the educated professional class — the very people with enough science education to grasp the issues and help drive policy at the grassroots level — tend to be skeptical. If you can’t convince the educated people with science, you certainly aren’t going to convince Joe Sixpack.
wow. curry’s presentation is a really impressive intellectual tour de force.
i could make a list of good things about it but i will just say…i am impressed!
RockyRoad says:
November 18, 2010 at 8:43 am
I don’t know why Judith uses the terms “megaton and kiloton solutions”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Heh, Rocky its a beautiful play on words! It is conveying the destructive potential of the proposed solutions without outright stating or going into detail. Its and appreciative form of wordsmithing. And it does, indeed play on the imagery of the words for people our age. If I didn’t think that most of the people she was talking to were practically brain dead, I’d say that form of communication was very effective.
an not and.
and 97% of doctors believe in taking Lipitor first, rather than adjusting you diet first…….
latitude says:
November 18, 2010 at 9:44 am
and 97% of doctors believe in taking Lipitor first, rather than adjusting you diet first…….
and 97% psychologists believe peoples personal problems can be solved by office visit therapy. 97% of shoe salesmen believe people should buy shoes. and 100% of the scam artists think you should just trust them instead of asking pertinent questions!
I think we don’t have a climate problem at all let alone a wicked Climate problem.
All we have is a bunch of scaremongers with with a wicked political agenda that will kill scores of people, our economy and our freedom.
Hoax off, please.
Judy, dear, it’s NOT A PROBLEM because global climate disruption or whatever you call it is a COMPLETE FRAUD.
Guess what? The climate isn’t changing. Not by natural or artificial forces. It’s not changing. NOT CHANGING.
All you Big Heads can bray all you want about it, but climate change on any human lifetime time scale is a chimera. The climate you are experiencing is the same one your grandparents experienced.
But we all know the hoax will live on, because far too many people are making far too much money on this scam. Judy is just another practitioner of World’s Oldest Profession.
Precautionary principle:
If I live next to a river that I know at some point “might” over-flow, what should I do?
According to the IPCC precautionary principle, I should as the whole town and all levels of government to move the river elsewhere or whatever engineering solution that some bright mind could come with. Of course, such solution will cost many billions of dollar and will move the problem elsewhere. Or using real precautionary measures, I could just move, lift, or… prepare for the worst and plan sand-bags and water pumps. This would cost next to nothing compared to what they propose.
Smart people adopt precautionary solutions for local problems, the warmists want to impose global solutions for hypothetical local problems. When a car is coming to hit you, you just move out of the way, you don’t ban all cars of the roads.
EADLER:
“Repeat a lie, often enough, loud enough, and LONG ENOUGH and MOST people will believe it to be true.” Attributed to Gobbles, but actually he stole it from another party I understand. But then the attribution to good old Heinrick has been repeated often, and for a long time…
Climate change was, is, and will be inevitable. The only “Wicked” bit was selling the idea that it was all due to human consumerist activity. Whilst that may be some small component, there are many other threads in the warp and weft of climate theory which need to be documented and researched before it can really stand up as grand theory.
Kudos to Judith for opening the door to the “wicked problem” discussion! However, her definition is a bit lacking. In public health, we deal with wicked problems all the time, here’s the algorithm:
—
“Wicked problems possess a number of distinctive properties that violate the assumptions that must be made to use the problem solving methods of tame problems. Wicked problems:
* cannot be easily defined so that all stakeholders agree on the problem to solve;
* require complex judgements about the level of abstraction at which to define the problem;
* have no clear stopping rules;
* have better or worse solutions, not right and wrong ones;
* have no objective measure of success;
* require iteration-every trial counts;
* have no given alternative solutions-these must be discovered;
* often have strong moral, political or professional dimensions.”
Many in WUWT (myself included) believe that the catastrophic climate change scenario is wrong. However, the “wicked problem” becomes dealing with various segments of the community and getting everyone on the same page, policy-wise.
BTW, as I predicted, the US EPA is going to force carbon reduction through mechanisms of the Clean Water Act.
Please see:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5i3qm9yVwwqVi4MyKkN4RO-eIS2mw?docId=5153701
eadler:
It is true that climate change is a difficult problem for mankind to grapple with. The stakes are high. Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real , and e approximately 50% believe the IPCC got things right and 20% believe the IPCC understated the scope of the problem , common sense dictates that doing nothing is clearly not the right course, even though their is uncertainty.
Indeed, the climate is going to change and doing nothing will probably not be the most rational response. But where the rubber meets the road, China and India have rationally decided that the ipcc Climate Scientists’ alleged cause [fossil fuel use] of the alleged CO2CAGW disease is instead the cure to their actual disease, being underdeveloped.
Perhaps Climate Scientists should reflect upon why that was their decision?
Followup, here’s the actual EPA memo:
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/cwa/tmdl/oa_memo_nov2010.cfm
Global warming is out, acidification is in. Watch for this.
RockyRoad — I don’t know why Judith uses the terms “megaton and kiloton solutions”
CO2 emissions are in tons.
Clearly she’s saying that one doesn’t solve anything by targeting the gigaton (worldwide) level, which is stupid: even if policy lowers emissions in country X, countries Y and Z are still emitting. One cannot create worldwide diktat, and even the most absurd and draconian US policy wouldn’t solve anything if (e.g.) China and India are emitting in place of the US.
Overall she’s making the point that ruining western economy in the name of carbon holiness is a ridiculous direction to take — i.e. *IF* CO2 turns out to be the problem the climate scientists think it is, the only workable solutions are those that are locale specific, hence megaton and kiloton. She reckons lots of smaller realistic “fixes” can work. An example would be if the US (and/or the west in general) were to embark on a program of replacing fossil fuel electricity generation with 3rd/4th generation nuclear facilities. Due to political unrest and/or concerns of proliferation it may not be a great idea to hand nuke technology to the Sudan, and so on. A solution that works in the US isn’t necessarily the same solution for the Sudan.
As far as I’m concerned this was a fantastic presentation because it spells out how and why ruining western economy as per what many AGW doom and gloomers would like to do still solves absolutely nothing, hence their recommendations are the stupid path to take. She’s handed the US Congress the club to beat eco-nazis with, and tellling them where and how to smack them. This is a big WIN.
I hate to cite wikipedia, but it gives some more background on the meaning of “wicked problem”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
For a lot of the content of Judith’s verbal testimony I found myself supporting it. I have these comments:
aaa) The dry manner in which she delivered her prepared verbal testimony made it less effective than doing it with a style involving more eye-to-eye contact and a more lively/energetic deliver (with just occasional references to prepared notes).
bbb) Her ‘wicked’ problem terminology came across as idiosyncratic and frankly it clearly implies the entire problem is “anthropogenic” in nature. Best get away from that basis into open air (gasp). Better to use just the terminology involve in simple direct statements about scientific difficulties noted in trying to solve the problem.
ccc) Also, like others have already commented, I do not see any real ‘problem’ in the scientific sense regarding the possibility of an objective solving of the climate science puzzle; that is once the problematic behavior of the past 20+ years of biased climate scientists is removed.
ddd) Judith could do a lot worse than form a close collegial association with Lindzen. Lindzen got the testimony spot on!!!! Wowee!
Overall, though, good show for Judith.
I confidently think JC is destined for some leadership role in a climate science overview organization somewhere . . . . in the relatively near term. : )
John
I wonder what question was asked to determine that 97% stat. If you ask “Do you believe the recent increase in greenhouse gases has caused warming?” then the answer may correctly be “yes”. Now, how many of these respondents believe that this increase would be significant or even measurable? Hmmm.
Judith Curry said
“It is perhaps a case of taking the scientific philosophy to extremes. I consider skeptics to be a valuable resource to science, to be nurtured and encouraged. We need such people, even to ask the stupid questions, and definitely to ask the more intelligent ones. If somebody turns up on your doorstep, motivated to study your work and check the details, for free no less, then you make sure they’re taught what they need to know and you set them to work. Whatever they’re capable of and willing to do.”
**************
You don’t have to be a climatologist to collect analyze and adjust temperature data.
In fact you are more likely to be unbiased if you are a professional in quality controlling large databases. There is nothing special about temperatures that causes a person to need to be a climate scientist to do the jobs.
Since many like Dr Hansen and his minions have a vested interest in a given outcome thy should recuse themselves from the task.
That is true in many studies, as another example: if Dr Mann had sought to have his study audited before it was published instead of afterward he could have avoided misinforming millions of people.
Assuming that was not his intention in the first place. [Misinforming millions of people that is.]
SteveE says:
November 18, 2010 at 8:29 am
“Natural climate change in the past proves that climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. If the planet accumulates heat, global temperatures will go up. Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate’s sensitivity to CO2.”
Balderdash. We have examples of atmospheric sensitivity. The hottest part of the day is not noon, the hottest day of the year is not 21 June, the hottest month is not June. There is lag.
As we know there is lag from observation, when CO2 goes up we should see lag. The ice cores show average 800 year difference between temp & CO2. The physics has not changed over the eons. So we should see temperatures increase in the year 1973+800=2573 due to what is happening now.
Please state what the how much the imbalance is and how you arrived at the number. This is a climate science blog.
Dr. Curry,
“Further, there is an increasing need for social scientists and philosophers of science to scrutinize and analyze our field to prevent dysfunction at the science-policy interface.”
Which social scientists would you propose do this? Naomi Orekses? Whats-his-name the “Professor of Climate Ethics” at Penn State? My point is that the indoctrination is so deep there are very few neutral people out there. I work at UC Davis, and just this weekend we became a shinning example of this group think protected by the “old boys club” and religious media zealots. Academia is too insulated to police itself.
I commend your venture into the blogosphere. It was very brave to step outside of that insulated University.
Once I can get some of her verbiage untangled, nothing changes my suspicion that Judith Curry and other “moderates” are merely climate alarmists who will keep their jobs. One can only hope that these job-keepers aren’t dangerous fanatics.
A dangerous fanatic is not someone who believes in AGW. Nor is all that endless “engagement” with those “ever-growing groups” necessarily fatal…though I think it’s cheaper to pay unemployment benefits to the idle.
No. A dangerous fanatic is someone who believes in:
1) Shutting down efficient energy generation across the developed West
2) Carbon taxation
3) Financial speculation in carbon
That’s the three-pronged pitchfork aimed at our hearts. If Judith Curry and other lukewarmers are not promoting such “solutions”, if they are merely following the Lomborg line of spending zillions, I can live with that. As Americans now know, one can always print money.
huxley says: “Since 97% of climate scientists believe that AGW is real”
And I bet >97% of homoeopaths believe homoeopathy works.
And I bet >97% of catholic priests think the pope is the head of the Christian Church
And I bet >97% of climate “scientists”, think they are god’s gift to mankind.
JC said “The IPCC/UNFCCC have provided an important service to global society by alerting us to a global threat that is potentially catastrophic.”
She couldn’t be more wrong, of course. By demonizing C02, and fossil fuels, they’ve done a huge disservice to mankind, setting it upon exactly the wrong course, with dire consequences. The “global threat” in fact is the lies the IPCC have promulgated.
The “wicked problem” of climate change is all in her mind.
For anyone that cares, I believe this is the paper in which the 97% meme get parroted from. http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Its really kinda funny and the pinheads, apparently, haven’t really read it. I wish A or somebody would do an article about it, but its fun sometimes just to blindside the dorks with information they haven’t bothered to look at. For instance, “An invitation to participate in the survey was sent to 10,257 Earth scientists.(Note the verbiage!) Later, it goes on to state, “With 3146 individuals completing the survey, the participant response rate for the survey was 30.7%.” Obviously, 2/3 of the scientists they attempted to poll were so ambivalent about the poll or issue they didn’t bother to fill it out. It was an on-line poll.
Later it goes on to state, “Of our survey participants, 90% were from U.S. institutions and 6% were from Canadian institutions;” Yep, that’s fairly representative of the world’s climatologists.(fail) Poor Phil and the gang were apparently left out of the poll. Anyway, the paper goes on, totally ludicrous to use as representative of anything but advocacy. Maybe someone else can have fun with it. I know I certainly have, but I only use it when the person pins their entire argument on the alleged consensus.
mkelly;
Good comment, except that you’ve got the 800-yr. sequence backwards.
Step one: temp rise.
Step two: (800 yrs. later) CO2 rise.
Also, your arithmetic is wrong. 1973 + 800 yrs. = 2773, not 2573.
In that year we should see a CO2 level rise; the temp. will be off in some direction or other “driven” by the real “forcers”, whatever they are. CO2 will tag along with its usual 0.8 millennium lag.
Anecdote note: Here in Vancouver, BC, a local ski hill (Cypress M0untain) that hosted many of last year’s Winter Olympics events (and had severe snow shortage problems due to El Nino effects) is revelling in the La Nina switcheroo: it’s loaded with snow and opening 2 wks early, this weekend.
The Green MOvement has Munchausen’s by Proxy Syndrome – where the Earth is the Proxy.
Might I also add that where I live – Adelaide, South Australia – the month of november has been on average 6 degrees celsius cooler than November 2009. This day last year the temperature was 43 c – today it’s 18 c
bob says:
November 18, 2010 at 8:36 am
The question is whether we want to do this now or after the Ross Ice Shelf goes slip sliding into the sea.
Er, bob, the Ross Ice Shelf is already in the sea. That’s the definition of an ice shelf – the floating terminus of a glacier. What exactly did you mean?
In a previous post (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/11/27720/) there is a comment by Spector on November 11, 2010 at 11:02 pm that includes a link to a doctoral dissertation by Andreas Lotter (http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2006/6686/pdf/dissertation_lotter.pdf) on “Field Measurements of Water Continuum and Water Dimer Absorption …..”
It seems to me that the paper includes a good overview of the current orthodoxy on climate change. However, there are some very surprising statements that should be brought to the fore when presenting the current orthodoxy (i.e. the “Consensus”) to the general public. On page 26, Lotter has a section titled “2.2.3 Excess Absorption”, which contains the following statement:
Compare to Lotter’s statement on page 20:
Notice that the excess absorption as stated by Lotter is 10 times larger than the purported anthropogenic forcing. It would seem that there there is a very large discrepancy between the theory (i.e. the physics) and the reality that dwarfs the purported effect caused by mankind. Given this very large discrepancy, how can anyone be confident in predicting how absorption will change in the future if the mechanisms of absorption cannot be explained in detail and with greater precision than the variable (i.e. AGW) that is the focus of the current debate? I wonder if this is not (IIRC) what Trenberth was referring to in his comment that it was a “travesty” that they have not been able to find the missing heat?
It is very important to understand that the uncertainty isn’t whether or not the excess absorption exists and therefore that there is, presumably, warming as a result of it. The issue is that the excess absorption, through the focus on CO2 and the modeling assumption of a positive feedback by water, is being modeled without a clear theoretical explanation of how exactly and by what the excess absorption is being absorbed. Furthermore, given that the unknown related to excess absorption is estimated to be about 10 times greater than the anthropogenic effect, the modelers don’t seem to have any problem with what would appear to be unreasonably precise projections of what the anthropogenic effect will be. Major changes in public policy should demand a better accountability of what is unexplained, especially when the unexplained appears to be much greater than the purported effect (i.e. AGW) that the changes in public policy are being imposed to prevent or mitigate.
Have I misunderstood something?
James Sexton says:
November 18, 2010 at 2:16 pm
‘huxley’ above is correct. The 97% figure comes from Stephen Schneider’s last paper. The ‘research’ was done by JW Prall. Who is described as:
… a computer programmer and “founding contributor” to Climate Response, an organization that describes its purposes thus: “…to elevate the public conversation on climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy.”
WUWT had a post about the paper by Tom Fuller:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/24/global-warmings-stephen-schneider-the-light-that-failed/
“”””” eadler says:
November 18, 2010 at 7:05 am
Judith Curry says:
“Climate change can be categorized as a “wicked problem.”1 Wicked problems are difficult or impossible to solve, there is no opportunity to devise an overall solution by trial and error, and there is no real test of the efficacy of a solution to the wicked problem. Efforts to solve the wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.”
It is true that climate change is a difficult problem for mankind to grapple with. The stakes are high. “””””
How so ? There is no evidence that the climate has moved out of any of the historic range it has enjoyed; during which life flourished virtually everywhere on earth.
Lindzen made the point that the only thing which is claimed to have changed is a global mean Temperature anomaly which has not been shown to have any relationship to local weather; and hence can’t have any bearing on climate either. As he told the committee; there is no such thing as a global average Temperature. Well there is; but we have no known practical way to measure it. And a theoretical description of exactly how to measure it; simply reveals the impracticality of even attempting to do so. (catastrophic Nyquist failure).
The current problem of climate science is that the whole “discipline” if you can call it discipline, is constructed of a collection of totally Rube Goldberg artifices; such as “Climate Sensitivity”, “Forcings”, “anomalies” and purported “energy budgets” that presuppose a static state of equilibrium of a completely fictitious isothermal object.
The planet earth rotates; about once in 24 hours it so happens; and that precludes it ever being in thermal equilibrium with any other part of the Universe. It is not an infinitely thermally conducting body; nor is it a thermally non-conductive body; and Trenberth’s Cartoon energy budget is completely reliant on it being the former.
It is proposed that the earth has a basic Black Body equlibrium Temperature of around 255 K based on the TSI and an assumed 30% albedo; and that CO2 is required to kick start the atmospheric greenhouse warming process. Sans CO2 in the atmosphere; the earth gets no (climate) benefit from its oceans which will freeze into a solid mass. Well that is the climatism 101 view.
There’s one slight problem with that view; with water out of the atmosphere there is no 30% earth albedo; most of which comes from its average 70% cloud cover. So that means that 255K is too cold to be the equlibrium temperature sans all GHGs including water.
Here’s a simple problem for any of you budding physicists to tackle. Assume an isothermal earth with a uniform 4pi incoming insolation of 341.5 W/m^2; from some unknown source; but you can assign a 6,000 K BB spectral distribution to it.
Assume no GHGs in the atmosphere but oceans covering 70% of the surface. Look at a local newspaper or TV weather program, and get a weeks worth of your local max and min daily temperatures; and average those for the week to get an average daily max-min differential. My guess is it is 20 deg F; or 10 deg C. use that as a way to get a Temperature range for the earth; maybe its 250K min to 260 K max; averaging the 255 equlibrium temperature. Calculate the BB radiant emittance for 255 K (izzat 341.5 W/m^2 ?). Assume that the night time cooldown is 12 hours from max to min temps ( 260> 250K ??).
From there you should be able to compute the heat capacity mean for the earth suface, assuming a linear cooldown rate and the average radiation loss rate.
So now you have a rough connection between the temperature and the emitted radiant energy; either ouput or income.
So now you add to your model an actual real sun that goes around the earth in 24 hours or vice versa; and to that sun we will also assign a 6,000 K BB spectrum; but the TSI will be say 1000 W/m^2 -341.5; or 658.5 W/m^2
So now you have a local extra heating source that brings the local irradiance up to 1000W/m^2; and we will assume that that illuminates only the surface area that is within 15 degrees of the zenith (longitudinally); so if the sun is over the zero degree meridian, it will be 15 degrees off the zenith at points one time zone in each direction; and it goes to zero beyond that. So any point on the suface gets the blow torch adder for just 2 hours; then reverts to the Trenberth chill.
So here’s the point. We know the surface radiates at 341.5 W/m^2 on average in the “dark”, and that cools it say 10 deg C (or yopur number) in 12 hours. So from the 658.5 W/m^2 blowtorch adder; you can calculate how much the temperature will rise in the two hour sunlit zone (just do a linear approximation). and then you can figure out what the temperature will drop to over the next day’s rotation, before the sun gets back to that zone. Well it has to be a higher temperature tomorrow doesn’t it. If you want to get fancy; you can increase the cooling rate proportional to the increased Temperature excursion. Forget about the GHGs including H2O; all we are trying to see here is how hot can it get with no GHGs at all; but with an actual sunbathing for just two hours every 24 hours, added on to the silly static isothermal Trenberth situation.
Well if you get that to work; you could shoot for a more realistic sunburn, with say a 12 hour cooking but taking the obliquity into account as well as the longer irradiation time.
On the odd chance that you should ever get the temperature up to zero deg C or higher; then tell us your results here. If that happens; we could reasonably presume, that you don’t need CO2 to self start H2O greenhouse heating. Good luck.
Dr. Curry does not seem to just want to strattle the fence, she seems to want to be on both sides of the fence at once (perhaps she has discovered quatum climatology). She says “…doesn’t hinder the implementation of diverse megaton and kiloton solutions at local and regional scales.”
While the verbage is vague (purposely?), I interpret thist to mean it’s okay to have cap-and-trade and other economically disasterous CO2 reducing measures, while we are debating whether there are any measureable effects on global temperature from man made CO2.
Rather than social scientists maybe she needs to open some communication with the business community.
George E. Smith says:
November 18, 2010 at 6:46 pm
“”””” eadler says:
November 18, 2010 at 7:05 am
“Judith Curry says:
“Climate change can be categorized as a “wicked problem.”1 Wicked problems are difficult or impossible to solve, there is no opportunity to devise an overall solution by trial and error, and there is no real test of the efficacy of a solution to the wicked problem. Efforts to solve the wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.”
It is true that climate change is a difficult problem for mankind to grapple with. The stakes are high. “””””
How so ? There is no evidence that the climate has moved out of any of the historic range it has enjoyed; during which life flourished virtually everywhere on earth.”
It is not correct to say there is “no evidence”. I would agree that there is no evidence that you believe, but that is a different thing.
First of all, the nature of human life has changed since the earth was this warm, which seems to be about 7,000 years ago, when there were less than 5M humans on earth. We now have more than 1,000 times that many people, and when a region of our habitat becomes unsustainable because of flood or drought, there is no place for the affected population to go. We have the examples in the news, such as floods in Pakistan. The people caught in the floods are hardly flourishing. Their lives were totally washed away.
According to climatologist’s projections, it will get considerably warmer than today, by at least 2DegC and possibly as much as 7DegC in the next century.
There is lots of evidence for this.
To say there is “no evidence” is denialism.
There is “lots” of evidence, eh, eadler? Like the “Hockey Stick?” Like the models that haven’t yet predicted anything correctly when it comes to short-term climatic conditions, much less long term outlooks?
Natural disasters occurring, that is evidence for AGW, isn’t it? Well, people have tried to suggest that hurricanes were stronger and occurring more frequently compared to past decades, and look what’s happened – not very many hurricanes lately, are there? And the ones we’ve had have been, well, hurricanes – there hasn’t been anything unusual about them lately. The warmists I’ve read about (e.g. Trenberth) have backed off any claims about hurricanes. Drought? Floods in Pakistan? Where have you read that AGW was the cause of those? There’s been more evidence adduced to the contrary lately about whether droughts are being exacerbated by AGW or not, which work has especially been cited in this blog. There hasn’t been one whit of anything in the way of natural events or disasters that cannot be explained by natural variability in the climate, as opposed to some “man-made” cause. And it is arrogant for you to assume that mankind is so powerful that it can make that much of a mess of the nature that mankind is a part of.
Methinks you are the “denialist.”
Readers might be interested to know that the events as reported here have been completely ignored by all the British media outlets and publishers alike. Not a word of it appears, anywhere.
What is being reported from the climate front? One year on from Climategate, The Guardian is still ranting at the “deniers” and what they are describing as “the deniers’ campaign of confusing the public over climate science”… etc. The best comment underneath one such article included this:
“…NASA claimed a completely false scientific explanation of it, either appallingly bad science or fraud aimed at keeping the concept alive for AR4 and Copenhagen.
“What we appear to be now seeing is a holding pattern as governments stealthily back off from full-blooded implementation of suicidal economic measures to control carbon emissions. It has also suddenly dawned that the windmill cult has really been driven by Russia wanting to lock Europe into dependence on its natural gas, the various Mafias out to profit from subsidies and banks wanting carbon taxation to replace their mortgage losses.
“As final evidence, I suggest you read about the GazProm business interests of Gehard Schroeder following him handing over the Chancellorship to Merkel. The greens have been stitched up by deceitful bankers, poor science and crafty politicians. Gore made $18 million from selling his shares on the now defunct Chicago Carbon Exchange.”
So it looks as if The Guardian’s own campaign of misinforming the public has been as successful as Phil Jones’.
mkelly says:
November 18, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Balderdash. We have examples of atmospheric sensitivity. The hottest part of the day is not noon, the hottest day of the year is not 21 June, the hottest month is not June. There is lag.
As we know there is lag from observation, when CO2 goes up we should see lag. The ice cores show average 800 year difference between temp & CO2. The physics has not changed over the eons. So we should see temperatures increase in the year 1973+800=2573 due to what is happening now.
Please state what the how much the imbalance is and how you arrived at the number. This is a climate science blog.
——————————–
I agree that there is an observed lag in CO2 levels and temperature when coming out of an ice age, but when the Earth comes out of an ice age, the warming is not initiated by CO2 but by changes in the Earth’s orbit. The warming causes the oceans to give up CO2. The CO2 amplifies the warming and mixes through the atmosphere, spreading warming throughout the planet. So CO2 causes warming AND rising temperature causes CO2 rise.
To claim that the CO2 lag disproves the warming effect of CO2 displays a lack of understanding of the processes that drive Milankovitch cycles. A review of the peer reviewed research into past periods of deglaciation tells us several things:
•Deglaciation is not initiated by CO2 but by orbital cycles
•CO2 amplifies the warming which cannot be explained by orbital cycles alone
•CO2 spreads warming throughout the planet
Judith Curry’s testimony saddens me. She is undoubtedly academically very bright, but appears to be rather lacking in the area of good sense. The climate is not a ‘ wicked’ problem, or any sort of problem at all. The climate merely poses a range of challenges at any given time which, in this current warm period between glaciations, should be a matter of rejoicing at our stunningly wonderful luck at being alive at this time and living in a culture where our sources of energy give us an incredibly rich, stimulating and satisfying existence. Perhaps, if she requires a challenge, she could use her obvious intellect to help make those forms of energy that we enjoy available to all of those who are forced to rely on wood or biomass as fuel to create energy. While her contribution demonstrates her ability and her desire to build bridges, it pales in comparison with that of Dr Lintzen.
I’m slowly warming to Judith’s approach, but there are still signs to be cautious. Her closing remarks had a bit of worry, some strong links to the IPCC.
Some more bona fides are needed before the Trojan Horse metaphor disappears.
IMO, Judith Curry is right. We DO have a wicked problem.
However, I think that problem is how to deal with what arises when an apocalyptic theory gets a lot of traction. I admire Dr. Curry, and am a frequent visitor to her blog, but don’t agree that we are at the stage where it’s proven that we have anything serious to deal with. But that doesn’t matter – the wickedness is that a lot of people do believe that, and have powerful forces on their side.
Belief has no necessary relation to actuality. But it’s often more powerful because people act on their beliefs, and not on actuality. It’s good that Dr. Curry is raising issues of uncertainty and is debunking the notion that all sceptics are big oil shills. But I think she still accepts implicitly that what we need to focus on is the FACT that anthropogenic CO2 is an issue deserving serious attention – if only at the “kiloton” level.
Here’s a hypothesis. What we need to be examining very carefully is the dynamics of environmental apocalypticism. And, how to exclude the influence of that on science and the science-policy interface. It’s plain as a pikestaff that we have no means of excluding it; don’t even have the will to exclude it. The influence, like it or not, is there, and on both sides of the debate, because the apocalypticism rubs up against a contrary, equally knee-jerk response, which for want of a better term may be termed “optimism”.
Apocalyptics see optimists as blinkered, and optimists see apocalyptics as deranged. And within that overarching framework, everything else becomes subsidiary rather than substantive. Science becomes a means of justifying optimism or apocalypticism, rather than being the primary driver. I think that’s what the real wicked problem is.
There are comparatively few in the climate debate who seem to have an inkling of this. I think Lindzen is one, and, albeit to a lesser extent, Dr. Curry herself, though she still hasn’t quite detached from – if not apocalypticism – at least “concernism”. As regards government and the MSM, with few exceptions, they are too simple-minded to be able to take a step back and take a more philosophical stance. And, of course, the blogosphere is not completely innocent in this regard, either.
When historians get round to their definitive analyses of this episode in human history, I really do wonder if it will be much about whether the science behind AGW was right or wrong. I suspect it will be about the moment when humanity had its chance to learn about the consequences of not detaching from subjectivism. I’d also like to think that it would be about how humanity actually improved its capacities to detach. But maybe that’s just my own small tendency towards optimism shining through.
Phil says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/18/judith-curry-climate-change-can-be-categorized-as-a-%e2%80%9cwicked-problem-%e2%80%9d-praises-blogosphere-and-cites-a-need-for-acknowledgement/#comment-532532
Henry@Phil
thanks ! true@!
Apart from that shortwave (0-5 um) controversy that I also noticed, I think they also missed that oxygen is a weak greenhouse gas. Although O2 has very weak absorption in the 14-15 um region, where CO2 also absorbs, its percentage in the atmosphere is high, 21% compared to the CO2 only 0.04%. I don’t think that I ever saw that someone compensated for the oxygen anywhere. Water also absorbs in the 14-15 um. Again I don’t know how they compensated for that because nobody knows exactly how much water vapor is floating around in the whole of the atmosphere at any given time. I saw the water vapor content somewhere being taken as 0.48%. What if they missed 0.01% ? Such a small error on the water content compensation would represent more than the increase in CO2 over the past 50 years, especially because CO2 is a much weaker GHG, if indeed it is one!
I am saying the same as Lady Life Grows:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/18/judith-curry-climate-change-can-be-categorized-as-a-%e2%80%9cwicked-problem-%e2%80%9d-praises-blogosphere-and-cites-a-need-for-acknowledgement/#comment-532216:
More carbon dioxide is good and global warming is not bad. Both are good for greenery and for forest growth.
I have been trying to keep things a bit simple in my blog in South Africa so that non scientific people can also understand….please be my guest (more visits may lead to the promotion of my blog to “blog of note”)
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
It’s a good thing “stupid” isn’t contagious seeing as Dr. Curry was seated next to Dr. Cullen. Unfortunately “smart” isn’t contagious either else Cullen might have left the panel with a higher IQ than she arrived with.
Kudos for Dr. Curry all around. I’ve become an admirer. I might not agree with her on all points but I do on many of them and more importantly I believe she’s brutally honest.
@george Smith
“There’s one slight problem with that view; with water out of the atmosphere there is no 30% earth albedo; most of which comes from its average 70% cloud cover. So that means that 255K is too cold to be the equlibrium temperature sans all GHGs including water.”
There’s one glaring problem with your statement. The only way to get water out of the atmosphere is to freeze it out. That will raise the earth’s albedo not lower it which will make the equilibrium temperature far lower than the moon. The moon, by the way, has a measured average temperature of -23C and an albedo of 15%. The earth, with a much higher albedo and no greenhouse gases must necessarily have a far colder equilibrium temperature than the earth’s moon.
The only thing that can raise that sub-freezing surface temperature, a temperature which necessarily means surface water will be in the solid phase and highly reflective, is non-condensing greenhouse gases and the accumulation of volcanic ash on the frozen surface. Volcanic ash, not surprisingly, is the same average albedo as the moon. I say not surprisingly because the earth and moon are made of the same stuff.
SteveE claims:
Yes, rubbish — any “amplification” has already taken place by the time the CO2 begins to rise, rubbish — the oceans spread the warming; the CO2 effect is unmeasurable.
CO2 can’t directly warm the oceans, since they are opaque to IR; the oceans control the temperature of the air. Moreover, given the primary frequency band (15 micron) of CO2’s absorption spectrum vs the frequency of molecular collisions at normal surface temperatures, any radiant energy absorbed by a CO2 molecule is instantly thermalized by collision with another molecule (most likely N2 or O2) and the minuscule amount of extra energy is lost in the thermal noise.
John Marshall says:
November 18, 2010 at 7:10 am
Climate change is neither wicked or a problem. It is a natural phenomenon driven by natural cycles. It started when the planet formed and will continue to the day the sun goes nova.
Just live with it!!
The sun will not go nova. It doesn’t have enough mass. In 5B years or so it will run out of fuel and become a white dwarf.
Charles;
After spending some time as a red giant, eating the inner planets.
Yum!