Ah, politics, the stench of spin is strong here. Note the picture below. Left to right are Dr. John Christy, Dr. David Titley, and Dr. Roger Pielke Jr..
In the text, Christy and Pielke don’t even exist, because, well, this was “A Factual Look at the Relationship between Climate and Weather.” and we can’t have factual testimony we don’t like in the press release, can we?
Really, if you are going to disappear people in your press releases, at least be savvy enough to use a photo only showing your man giving testimony. Idiots.
From the House Committee on Science Space, and Technology
Subcommittee Discusses Climate Change Impacts on Severe Weather
(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing entitled “A Factual Look at the Relationship between Climate and Weather.” The stated purpose of the hearing was to examine the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events.
Members emphasized the prevailing scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real, and discussed the need to better understand the relationship between severe weather events and climate to better manage the risks associated with a changing climate.
Ranking Member Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) said in her opening statement, “The lesson of this hearing cannot be that a potential link between climate change and severe weather is too difficult to determine or understand, and therefore we should stop trying. It should not be controversial to examine if the weather will change as a consequence of global warming. Scientific projections from the IPCC make it apparent that we will live in a hotter world–we already have a warmer world than that of our grandparents. In many of our districts, residents will experience drier environments with more drought. Those of us who represent particularly wet areas may find that precipitation arriving in more intense storms. The oceans will be warmer and that may well produce stronger or more frequent tropical storms. To focus only on the question of whether there will be more extreme events misses the point that by the end of this century much of the world as we know it, in our districts and states, will be considerably altered by the weather effects of climate change.”
Minority witness Dr. David Titley (USN Rear Admiral, retired) said in his testimony, “Our country is dealing with a significant change in the world’s climate; it is a large challenge. Saying we don’t know today the impact of climate change on [weather] phenomena is very different than stating that climate change has no impact on typhoons and hurricanes. What we do know is that these storms are forming in a warmer, moister environment and above a warmer ocean. We also know that current research indicates our future may include more intense, and possibly more frequent, storms. That is a risk not to be summarily discounted.”
Earlier this week, the Reinsurance Association of America sent a letter to the committee stating their support for close examination of the critical issues of extreme weather and climate. “As the scientific community’s knowledge of changes in our climate and the resulting weather continue to develop, it is important for our communities to incorporate that information into the exposure and risk assessment process, and that it be conveyed to stakeholders, policyholders, the public and public officials that can, or should, address adaptation and mitigation alternatives. Developing an understanding about climate and its impacts on droughts, heat waves, the frequency and intensity of tropical hurricanes, thunderstorms and convective events, rising sea levels and storm surge, more extreme precipitation events and flooding is critical to our role in translating the interdependencies of weather, climate risk assessment and pricing.” The full letter can be found here.
In Response to a question by Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) regarding the claims made that incidents of extreme weather are not increasing, Dr. Titley responded, “One of the main definitions of ‘extreme’ is ‘away from the center.’ Again, just take the basic data. We have had for the last 36 years above normal temperatures, that is away from the center, and they are getting further and further away. A record like that is equivalent to flipping a coin and getting ‘heads’ 36 consecutive times. The chances of that happening with an un-weighted coin: 1 in 68 billion. Put another way, you are almost 400 times more likely to win the Powerball jackpot than you are to see this temperature record if the climate was not changing. I would say that is extreme. And the ice in the Arctic, that is extreme. We have seen geologic changes in less than 10 years.”
Dr. Titley’s presentation slides can be seen here.
Downloads
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Source: http://democrats.science.house.gov/press-release/subcommittee-discusses-climate-change-impacts-severe-weather
You can read Pielke’s take on the event here and you can be sure he doesn’t leave out anybody. His written testimony can be downloaded here
Video of the hearing is here:
http://science.edgeboss.net/wmedia/science/sst2013/EV121113.wvx
Brian H says:
Hoofstetter;
“Dr. Titley’s…foolish comparison sums to “its warmer now so it must be extreme, as I said.
Get it?”
Got it. Thanks. My apologies.
IPCC admits that its estimate “should ideally be based” on objective standards, and for its predictions (insidiously called “projections”), its assessments “ideally would have strong connections” to measured patterns. AR4, 8.6.4 How to Assess Our Relative Confidence in Feedbacks Simulated by Different Models?, p. 639. Even lacking those attributes, its experts felt the chances of climate sensitivity being less than 1.5ºC was “very unlikely”, meaning less than 10%. In fact, that estimate is supported by IPCC’s report on seven ostensibly objective studies (computer climate models) that produced probability density functions (pdfs) for climate sensitivity. AR4, Figure 9.20, p. 720. The average of the corresponding cumulative distribution functions (call them PDFs) puts the probability that ECS ≤ 1.5ºC at exactly 10.01%. This is not much of a margin for a scientist to accept the null hypothesis that the GCMs fail to predict global climate.
However, investigators are now providing estimates of ECS from satellite and MLO data which run between 0.5 and 0.7, and sometimes as high as 1.0ºC. The PDFs permit quantifying these results objectively, and the latest estimates have probabilities of 0.07%, 0.15%, and 1.6%, respectively. If the GCMs were valid, the 1ºC would be “exceptionally unlikely”, the least likely category in IPCC’s terminology. AR4, Technical Summary, Box TS.1, p. 23. For an ECS of 0.5 to 0.7, the probability would be an order of magnitude less. Exploiting the other end of IPCC’s touchy-feely probability scale, its climate models are no less than “virtually certain” (>99% probability) to be invalid for an ECS as small as 0.7, and worse for ECS = 0.5.
These estimates stress the meaning of the parameter ECS, which is
>>In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in the annual mean global surface temperature [i.e, GAST] following a doubling of the atmospheric equivalent carbon dioxide concentration. AR4, Glossary, p. 943..
Ignoring the problem of the existence of any kind of equilibrium, the definition of ECS implies that CO2 is a cause of GAST. When CO2 lags GAST, as it does in the Vostok record and still does in the modern era, assuming CO2 causes GAST is an error in causality. But whichever the cause, GAST has a slope and CO2 has a slope, and the ratio of the slopes provides a prediction. So the current estimates of ECS invalidate the GCMs under the assumption that CO2 is the cause and GAST the effect. In fact, the assumption is false, the relationship is the reverse, and the GCMs are invalid irrespective of the magnitude of ECS estimates.
Jeff;
Shirley you don’t mean they’re just making scheisse up? The thought!
Round up the Neocons here; Mars One is serious about this one-way trip to space
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/mars_one_is_serious_about_this_one_way_trip_to_space/
Good conservatives might eventually gain the intellectual and moral high ground.
Every Republican attack on Obamacare is against the policies Republicans championed. ACA is, after all, the conservative alternative to single payer healthcare. Look it up!
Healthcare costs are already beginning to decline as more people get care in a timely manner instead of waiting until it’s too late and having a trip to the emergency room.
ACA was supposed to be this big jobs killer, but the pace of job creation hasn’t slowed at all. Wrong again, conservatives. 🙂
If you’d rather watch a neighbor starve, die from untreated health problems and disease—- or getting blown to pieces in some Islamic sectarian struggle that dates back 1400 years and because some Israeli leaders wants violent regime change, you’re a conservative.