The Obama era “Climate Science Special Report” demands a “red team” analysis
Guest essay by David Wojick, PhD
Several months ago a brief furor erupted when the New York Times leaked the final draft of the upcoming Climate Science Special Report (CSSR), an extremely alarmist rendition of what is supposedly happening with Earth’s climate. Dangerous climate change and weather events, the report says, are due to mankind’s use of fossil fuels to create and maintain modern living standards and to the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that result from that energy use.
The CSSR is being prepared by the federal Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and has been in the works for several years, mostly under Obama and still staffed by diehard alarmists.
The USGCRP consists of the 13 federal agencies that conduct and analyze climate science and supposedly “consensus” views on the topic. The Times and other news stories speculated that one of the agencies, especially the EPA under Administrator Scott Pruitt, might block the CSSR. This has not happened, and the Report is now scheduled for release next month.
The CSSR is far more alarmist than any IPCC report. Most other USGCRP reports have been, as well, thanks in particular to NOAA. The new CSSR will be an official Federal report, which will give it more credibility than it deserves.
Even worse, the Report is slated to be Volume I of the National Climate Assessment (NCA), which is due out late next year. The NCA is mandated by law, which gives the CSSR even more status as federal policy.
It would be ironic indeed if the skeptical Trump Administration were to simply issue this alarmist report as federal policy on climate change science. In fact it would be tragic, a major defeat for climate realism and sound science.
Thankfully, there is a simple way to turn this looming defeat into a major victory. The solution is to do an official Red Team critique of the CSSR.
The Red Team concept has been under discussion for some time now, including being endorsed by EPA Administrator Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Some useful background and online discussion are available on Judith Curry’s manmade climate chaos skeptics blog here and here.
The unduly and unscientifically alarmist CSSR cannot be put back into its political bottle. But it is the perfect vehicle for critical analysis and robust criticism, precisely because of its radical alarmist nature. Most importantly, this criticism would be official, which will make climate skepticism official U.S. policy.
Mind you, the CSSR is over 600 pages long, so its rebuttal would not be a trivial exercise. On the other hand, only the most central claims need to be refuted. In particular there are a number of cases of so-called “high confidence” in important assertions that are actually nothing more than highly speculative alarmist dogma.
This is especially true of the groundless attribution of human activities causing bad weather. The Red Team critique must be comprehensive, clear and coherent if it is to be effective. Properly done, that should not be a problem, however.
Making a detailed critique and rebuttal of the CSSR official would go a long way toward putting federal policy on the right track, which is that the scientific debate is very real and far from being resolved. Costly, draconian actions like hefty carbon taxes and forced lifestyle changes are simply not justified. In particular there is no scientific basis for EPA’s finding that CO2 emissions “endanger human health and welfare.” Indeed, the clear benefits of carbon-based fuels and plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide are tens or hundreds of times greater than any (highly speculative) costs that might be attributed to them.
There is no need for the Red Team to break new scientific ground. It is just a matter of clearly stating what is already known. In fact simply and visibly starting an official Red Team exercise will go a long way toward blunting the rampant CSSR alarmism. B
However, this must be done very shortly after the CSSR is officially released. If not, then the CSSR is likely to become the official US standard bearer for the alarmist version of climate science. That would be a truly tragic outcome.
It is no accident that the CSSR is coming out now. This is a deliberate attempt by the climate alarmists entrenched in the federal research agencies to defy the skepticism of the Trump administration. It must not succeed.
David Wojick is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science and public policy. He has a PhD in analytic philosophy of science and mathematical logic, and focuses his research on unpacking the structure of complex issues.
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The CSSR by the USSR.
Harpo Marxists, Groucho Marxists, and fellow-travelers.
Did this guy get his PhD out of a box or Crackerjack?
no reason why a preselected red team ,under caution of absolute confidentiality,should not critique the report before its submission into the public domain .Red team report issued at the same time.
Here is a draft one-page rebuttal of the CSSR:
A. THE ALLEGED GLOBAL WARMING CRISIS DOES NOT EXIST
1. Since ~1940, fossil fuel combustion has greatly increased and global temperature has declined or stayed ~constant for ~52 years, and increased for only ~25 years.
2. The year-to-year correlation of atm. CO2 with changes in global temperature is very high, but CO2 LAGS TEMPERATURE.
3. The rate of change dCO2/dt correlates strongly with global temperature, and its integral CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record.
4. Atmospheric CO2 ALSO lags temperature by hundreds or thousands of years in the ice core record. CO2 LAGS TEMPERATURE AT ALL MEASURED TIME SCALES.
5. There is no clear, measurable effect of CO2 on temperatures in any time scale. The evidence strongly suggests that the sensitivity of climate to increasing atm. CO2 is very low.
6. We know to a reasonable degree of confidence what drives global temperature and it is almost entirely natural and has an INSIGNIFICANT causative relationship from increasing atm. CO2:
– in sub-decadal time frames, the primary driver of global temperature is Pacific Ocean natural cycles, moderated by occasional cooling from major (century-scale) volcanoes;
– in multi-decadal time frames, the primary cause is solar activity;
– in the very long term, the primary cause is planetary cycles.
7. The next trend change in global temperature will probably be moderate naturally-caused global cooling, starting by ~2020-2030, due to reduced solar activity (as we published in 2002).
B. ALLEGATIONS OF INCREASING WILDER WEATHER ARE UNSUPPORTED BY THE EVIDENCE
8. There has been no increase in more extreme weather events. Alarmist allegations of wilder weather due to increased atmospheric CO2 , global warming, etc. are unsupported by the evidence.
C. INCREASING ATMOSPHERIC CO2 IS ENTIRELY BENEFICIAL TO HUMANITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
9. Natural CO2 flux into and out of the atmosphere dwarfs humanmade CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
10. CO2 satellites show that the high concentrations of atm. CO2 are located in tropical and agricultural areas and the far North, and less so in industrialized areas.
11. The year-to-year correlation of atm. CO2 with fossil fuel CO2 emissions is low.
12. Atm. CO2 is not alarmingly high; at ~400 ppm it is in fact far too low for optimal plant and crop growth. An optimal concentration of atm. CO2 would be ~1000-2000ppm (which is unlikely to result from human activity).
13. Atm. CO2 is, in the longer term, alarmingly low for the continued survival of carbon-based terrestrial life. Past continental glaciations (ice ages) were near-extinction events due to very low atm.CO2 and the near-shutdown of terrestrial photosynthesis.
D. A SLIGHTLY WARMER WORLD WOULD BE BENEFICIAL FOR BOTH HUMANITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
14. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates.
15. Excess winter mortality in the human species totals about 2 million Excess Winter Deaths per year, and is high in both warm and cold climates. Excess Winter Mortality Rates are surprisingly high in countries with warmer climates, and are lowest in advanced countries that have cheap energy and modern home insulation and heating/cooling systems.
E. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
16. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
17. Based on all the above evidence, alarmist allegations of catastrophic global warming, more extreme weather events, and other very negative consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2 are unsupported by the evidence.
18. A slightly warmer Earth with higher concentrations of atm. CO2 would be beneficial for both humanity AND the environment.
19. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die.
20. The misguided focus on global warming alarmism has caused society to squander many trillions of dollars of scarce global resources on foolish CO2 abatement programs that have driven up energy costs, reduced electric grid reliability, increased winter mortality, especially harmed the elderly and poor of the world, and diverted our attention and our resources from solving the real and pressing needs of humanity and the environment. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Regards to all, Allan
Climate scientists, agency heads and others propping up the CAGW meme have had the luxury of not being held accountabe for anything. This report provides an opportunity to change that.
I think we should hold individuals accountable but give the agencies involved a chance to self-police, after informing them that the report will be subject to a “Red Team” challenge using the following process, or something similar.
Every single claim in the report must be endorsed in the report by at least one person. Any claim not endorsed will be removed from the report. Before the report is published, every claim will be subject to being challenged. Any claim challenged that is found to lack scientific support or exaggerate certainty results in the head of the agency issuing the claim and the individual endorser(s) losing his/her/their job(s), being sued for fraud and being banned forever from any work in or for the government or funded by our taxes.
It needn’t be judged based on who is right or wrong. If there is no supporting evidence or reasonable doubt and neither is conveyed in the report, the claim fails. Since most of the claims are not about climate science at all but are levied with no supporting evidence, or from improper methods, poorly managed data, invalidated models, misrepresentation of results etc, the determination of the challenge could be by a group devoid of climate scientists to avoid bias. Statisticians, mathematicians, engineers, physicists etc are all capable of weighing the arguments of both sides and determining whether a claim stands or not.
Give the report authors a couple of months to review their claims, solicit endorsers for each claim or remove the claim and amend the report with this review process and outcome known and the report might end up being much less alarmist.
The same approach could be taken with every AGW claim on every government agency website and every AGW position statement from every agency. NASA should be chastised for linking to the “97% consensus studies” as support for CAGW when not one of them found a 97% consensus on CAGW or used sound methodology, just as an example.
Climate alarmism has always been the meme du jour, even though no one knows anything about the subject:
Mannipulation of the temperature record had not occurred yet. Those same players would call this report a falsey today.
(replying to R Verney’s news clip)
I am curious why a science report drafted by multiple world class federal science agencies is being called unduly and unscientific? If it is unscientific, than what does a scientific report look like? Perhaps the scientists who drafted this report are doing their jobs and their conclusion just not align with preconceived conclusion of this article’s author. It’s ok to have opinions, but I find it highly troubling when people attack the integrity of science and our scientific institutions when the results do not support their worldview. The purpose of doing science is to provide us with the raw, unbiased information to shape policy and world view.
“The purpose of doing science is to provide us with the raw, unbiased information to shape policy and world view.”
Agreed. But if you believe that is the sate of today’s climate science s practiced by “multiple world class federal science agencies” you haven’t been paying attention.
The press is crying about this one all over even as we speak. ‘EPA Silences Scientists’.