Lazy blogging. Just links to a few things I think you might find interesting to read (and a performance to enjoy) while I get some work done. First up: Swiss Re, the giant reinsurance company, has published a handy new report called Climate sceptic arguments and their scientific background (pdf), written by Swiss scientist Urs Neu for ProClim. It deals with common sceptic arguments under three headings — global warming, forcing factors and carbon dioxide. Everything’s referenced back to the literature, the graphics are good, and if you thought my recent thoughts on rainfall extremes were mere speculation, you might find section A6 interesting.. đ (Hat tip to Mr Rabett).
Category: Climate science
We call upon the author…
I must have been asleep last week when the IPCC announced its selection of authors for the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), due in 2013/14. As usual, NZ scientists are making a significant contribution:
- Tim Naish is a lead author for Working Group 1 (The Physical Science Basis) chapter 5, Information from Paleoclimate Archives.
- Jim Renwick is a lead author for WG1 Chapter 14, Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change.
- David Wratt is a review editor for Chapter 14 (as is Kevin Trenberth)
- Phil Boyd (NIWA) is a lead author for WG2 (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), Chapter 6, Ocean Systems.
- Alistair Woodward is one of the two Coordinating Lead Authors for WG2, Chapter 11, Human Health.
- Andy Reisinger is a Coordinating Lead Author for Chapter 25, Australasia, Paul Newton (AgResearch) and Andrew Tait (NIWA) are lead authors, and Blair Fitzharris is a Review Editor.
- Ralph Sims is a Coordinating Lead Author for Working Group 3 (Mitigation of Climate Change), Chapter 8, on Transport.
- Harry Clark is a lead author for WG3, Chapter 11, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU).
- Complete author lists: WG1, WG2, WG3.
Congratulations to all. Now the hard work starts…
And a plug: Jim Renwick is giving a talk on climate change at the Hurunui Library (yes, the one in the heat pump ads) in Amberley on Monday, July 5th at 7-30pm. All welcome. I’ll be heckling from the cheap seats…
[Thanks to Frogblog]
Arctic sea ice projections: 6 billion dead within a year (it really is grim up North)
The first set of ARCUS/SEARCH projections for the September Arctic sea ice minimum have been released, and amid all the mundane statistical, heuristical, and modelistical musing there’s a remarkable effort — and I really do mean remarkable — by one Charles Wilson. Here’s the graphic showing all of the submitted forecasts. See if you can spot Mr Wilson’s offering:
Yes, that’s him on the left. He appears to have no affiliation to any academic institution, but he is not afraid to make a very definite projection. Download the full set of forecasts [pdf], and take a look. He expects a massive melt, leaving the Arctic Ocean more or less ice-free by September. That’s pretty scary, but here’s what he thinks this may bring for the northern hemisphere. Ocean current disruptions will bring 300mph winds to the northern hemisphere:
= Destruction of nearly ALL aboveground structures North of 10 Degrees Latitude = 99% Deaths in USA, Europe, etc. within 2 years. … In the Worst Case:
Immediate Action can create Clouds with: Airplane contrails, seawater mists, or high- altitude sulfur (e.g. heightening Smokestacks at Norilsk).
But it needs to be done in the next few Weeks – – – months before we can be sure an Early Melt WILL happen.
In a comment at ĂÂľWatts he expands his point a little:
If the Great Melt Off happens = Warm Currents turn around = 300 mph Winds come February or so..
Currently I give it 15%
ââŹÂŚ times 6 Billion dead.
Now that’s what I call alarmist.
Defending the future: scientists take the stand
Perhaps serving as defence witnesses will prove a new opportunity for climate scientists to make the clear public statement that the confused processes of the media often muddy. In 2008 James Hansen famously defended the UK protestors, the Kingsnorth Six, who were charged with criminal damage when they climbed to the top of the smokestack at Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent. His role was to provide expert opinion about the dangers of climate change and the part played by coal as the fossil fuel most responsible for increasing CO2 levels. He was an hour and a half on the stand, much of the time given to explaining the consequences of continuing to increase the CO2in the atmosphere. The concluding paragraph of his written statement related his material to the trial:
Recognition of these basic facts by the defendants, realization that the facts were also known by the government, utility, and fossil fuel industry, and realization that the actions needed to protect life and property of the present and future generations were not being taken undoubtedly played a role in the decision of the defendants to act as they did.
The six were acquitted.
Now another climate scientist has given evidence for the defence in the trial of nine members of the Plane Stupid protest group facing breach of the peace charges for occupying Aberdeen airport and disrupting flights in March last year. They plead not guilty, on the grounds that their actions were justified as they assembled peacefully to prevent a greater crime to future generations through climate change. The vandalism charges they also faced have been dropped.
Alice Bows (pictured) from the Tyndall centre for climate change research is the climate scientist who has testified as an expert witness. Yesterday she said in court that the Scottish governmentâs climate change programme, which seeks to cut emissions by up to 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, was âwelcomeâ but not enough. (Reports from Climate9 and the Guardian.)
âThe UK Governmentâs Committee on Climate Change policy of 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 only gives us a 50:50 chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. You wouldnât go to sleep in a house that had a 50:50 chance of burning down in the night, so we need even tougher targets. In fact we need a complete de-carbonisation of the economy in the next few decades. Because we need to tackle emissions right now, the actions of both governments and individuals are important.â
Bows added that the aviation industry was of particular concern.
âCondensation trails, or the white trails, are also causing climate warming. On a UK basis, air travel contributes 6% of carbon dioxide emissions. If you compare that to other sectors, itâs quite a significant contribution.â
Thereâs nothing new in what Bows, and Hansen before her, have to say. But the theatre in which it is said means that it gains sustained public attention. The fact that scientists are willing to emerge from their world of research and speak in the defence of activists is also in itself a sign to the public of how important they hold their message to be.
In August 2008 Alice Bows and Kevin Andersen published a paper, Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The abstract opened with these sentences:
The 2007 Bali conference heard repeated calls for reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 50 per cent by 2050 to avoid exceeding the 2°C threshold. While such endpoint targets dominate the policy agenda, they do not, in isolation, have a scientific basis and are likely to lead to dangerously misguided policies.
Itâs a fair bet that Bowsâ court appearance has achieved more public notice than the carefully argued paper in the Royal Society publication. Not that the paper didnât therefore matter, but itâs also crucially important that such messages are heard loudly and clearly by the lay public. The action of the Dundee Nine has enabled that as a bonus.
Incidentally, the judge is noted in the Climate9 report as having referred to a BBC radio report of the study discussed in the recent Hot Topic post demonstrating that 98% of climate scientists agree that climate change is anthropogenic.
Sceptics face yawning credibility gap
We know that the vast majority of climate scientists support the explanation of anthropogenic climate change set out by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. That majority is now quantified in the first study of its kind published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Expert credibility in climate change.
âHere, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97â98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of anthropogenic climate change are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.â
The study explains the criteria by which these conclusions were reached, paying particular attention to the question of expertise, where weight was given to the number of climate publications of researchers and to their citation levels.
âWe show that the expertise and prominence, two integral components of overall expert credibility, of climate researchers convinced by the evidence of ACC vastly overshadows that of the climate change skeptics and contrarians. This divide is even starker when considering the top researchers in each group.â
The team of four has obviously put a good deal of time into the study which was contributed for publication by Stephen Schneider (pictured). Why bother, one might ask. Surely itâs all too apparent. It may be to readers of Hot Topic but the study notes that considerable and even growing public doubt remains about the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement about the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in climate change. The vocal minority of researchers and other critics who contest the conclusions of the mainstream scientific assessment has received large amounts of media attention and wields significant influence in the societal debate about climate change impacts and policy.
An analysis such as the study offers has not been conducted before, and the writers observe that it can help inform future ACC discussions. Translated into common parlance I guess that means they hope this will put paid to the idea still abroad, in at least the American media, that denial of anthropogenic climate change retains a respectable level of scientific credibility.
That may be optimistic. Journalism in general still has difficulty getting its head around the reality of mainstream climate science. The idea that there is a realistic alternative shows remarkable persistence. When I was writing occasional columns for my local paper, the Waikato Times, I discovered that my attempts to explain aspects of the current science eventually came up against an anxiety that the paper was not presenting a balanced picture. There was finally talk of pairing my column with another which would meet the paperâs obligation to offer its readers more than one opinion. I protested that I was representing mainstream science and asked why the paper should feel that needed to be balanced. I made that my last contribution and escaped the indignity of a balancing viewpoint. It seemed fairly clear that the East Anglia emails and the baseless attacks on the IPCC report by the likes of Jonathan Leake were enough to unsettle the journalists with whom I was dealing and bring back to life concerns which I thought had long been laid to rest.
One nevertheless hopes that surveys and appraisals such as this one in a highly regarded journal will make a difference to media perception and help establish in the public mind the seriousness of the scientific understanding and predictions. It seems inconceivable that we should continue much longer refusing to face the reality. But Iâve been thinking that for four years now.