Instant Reaction – Waxman Hearing

January 30th, 2007

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

There is much I could say about the hearing today. Apparently parts of it were on C-Span and will be replayed, and I think the streaming video is available for anyone who wants to subject themselves to four hours inside the sausage factory . . . .

For me the most interesting set of exchanges illustrated exactly the dynamics I discussed in my prepared testimony (available here in PDF). First, Representative McCollum spent some time getting NASA’s Drew Shindell on record explaining that the views of Soon and Baliunas (two scientists who wrote a controversial paper cited by the White House in opposition to the findings of the IPCC) did not and could not overturn the IPCC consensus. (I completely agree with this point.) Dr. Shidell gave in far to easy (and contributed) to the discussion that because the scientists in question had the wrong degrees, that they need not be taken seriously. (I disagree with that – science should be judged on its merits.)

Then, Rep. Welch, apparently not even appreciating the irony, took issue with my invocation in my testimony of the WMO consensus statement on tropical cyclones, which has recently been endorsed by the AMS Executive Council. I pointed out that the Committee’s background memo was highly selective in its presentation of hurricane science, which seems fairly obvious, but which they apparently did not like me doing. He claimed that they had just emailed Judy Curry and Michael Mann, and they had written back, apparently both taking issue with the WMO Consensus! In fact, according to Mr. Welch Dr. CUrry’s and Dr. Mann’s views are more representative of the state of the science than that expressed by the WMO. (Judy and Mike are welcome to share their emails to the Committee here if they’d like.) Surprise, surprise – they could find some experts who disagreed with the WMO consensus!

Did he not see that he was doing the exact same thing that Rep. McCollum was criticizing the White House for? I tried to point out this irony, not sure if I made the point very well. (Dr. Shindell illustrated that he doesn’t know much about the hurricane community when he asserted that Michael Mann is a leading hurricane/climate scientist whose views should be taken over the WMO, but maybe he misspoke or I misheard.) I stick to my views, as if there is any area of science I know well it is the hurricane/climate debate.

Henry Waxman tried to salvage the exchange by pointing out that I am in fact a “political scientist” so what the hell do I know about hurricanes anyway;-) Hey, if you can’t win on the facts attack the man. I believe that strategy speaks for itself quite loudly.

I am not sure what Mr. Waxman thinks he accomplished with this hearing other further politicizing the issue of science politicization. The whole exercise seems to prove that the politicization of science is endemic, as I argued in my testimony. If Mr. Waxman was interested in actually improving policies governing science he’d haul down agency press officers and those responsible for the process of approving government reports to focus on actual processes. The repeated calls for science and politics to be separate are just empty exhortations without discussion of actual policies.

13 Responses to “Instant Reaction – Waxman Hearing”

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  1. Jason Says:

    I think Waxman got what he wanted, which is a lot of press coverage. Every news site I go to there is now an article about this hearing talking about how the Bush administration is censoring scientists. I am also not surprised that the members mentioned Mike Mann and Judy Curry. As your father is fond of pointing out, it’s always the same scientists quoted and mentioned over and over again in this debate when there are actually many opinions to be expressed.

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  3. Tom Hamill Says:

    Reading the WMO Consensus statement, I’d have to agree with some of the reservations expressed by Mann and Curry. The problem, I think, is
    that the pdf of evidence has a heavy right tail toward increased frequency of intense tropical cyclones (read recent works by Emanuel, Webster, Knutson, Curry, Mann, Holland, Trenberth, etc). However, the very nature of producing a consensus statement deterministically boils that pdf down to one number, the mode (not the mean) of the distribution. Hence the consensus statement can be misleading about the state of the science.

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  5. Roger Pielke, Jr. Says:

    Tom- Thanks for your comments. Fortunately the WMO Statement refers explicitly to the three papers cited in the Memorandum that I reference. Here is what it says:

    “The scientific debate concerning the Webster et al and Emanuel papers is not as to
    whether global warming can cause a trend in tropical cyclone intensities. The more
    relevant question is how large a change: a relatively small one several decades into
    the future or large changes occurring today? Currently published theory and
    numerical modeling results suggest the former, which is inconsistent with the
    observational studies of Emanuel (2005) and Webster et al. (2005) by a factor of 5 to
    8 (for the Emanuel study). The debate is on this important quantification as to
    whether such a signal can be detected in the historical data base, and whether it is
    possible to isolate the forced response of the climate system in the presence of
    substantial decadal and multi-decadal natural variability. This is still hotly debated
    area for which we can provide no definitive conclusion.”

    Here is what it says about Mann/Emanuel:

    “The possibility that greenhouse gas induced global warming may have already caused a substantial increase in some tropical cyclone indices has been raised (e.g. Mann and Emanuel, 2006), but no consensus has been reached on this issue.”

    There is no ambiguity in the WMO Statement. “No definitive conclusion” and “no consensus has been reached”.

    Thanks!

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  7. hank Says:

    > If Mr. Waxman was interested in actually improving
    > policies governing science he’d haul down agency
    > press officers and those responsible for the
    > process of approving government reports to focus
    > on actual processes.

    How could he improve on this effort? He appears to be trying to do exactly that:
    http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070130121238-79603.pdf

    What tactic would you suggest?

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  9. Roger Pielke, Jr. Says:

    Comment submitted at RealClimate, just FYI:

    Interesting comments. As I understand it I was recommended by the Republicans and approved by the Democrats. My invite letter came from the Democrats. I hope that this information helps you to evaluate the substantive merits of my testimony;-) Anyone asserting that my testimony defends or represents the Republicans obviously hasn’t read it. Similarly, I don’t think that Shindell, Piltz, or Grifo were there to defend or represent the Democrats. We were each speaking for ourselves, we just happened to be picked because the politicians thought they’d get some advantage from it. I don’t think any of the 4 necessarily was uniformly helpful to the party that invited them. Selection of witnesses at Congressional hearings is of course cherry picking 101.

    I asserted in my testimony that citing Emanuel (2005), Webster et al (2005) and Mann and Emanuel (2005) represented a selective presentation of the literature on hurricanes and global warming, especially in the context of the recent consensus statement from the WMO endorsed by the AMS (how could that be neglected?!?), which said of the debate over the trends documented in the first two of these papers:

    “This is still hotly debated area for which we can provide no definitive conclusion.”

    Here is what WMO says about Mann/Emanuel:

    “The possibility that greenhouse gas induced global warming may have already caused a substantial increase in some tropical cyclone indices has been raised (e.g. Mann and Emanuel, 2006), but no consensus has been reached on this issue.”

    No consensus. Hotly debated. Seems quite clear. Why anyone would go to the mat on this point is beyond me. There is a debate ongoing in the community. It is not necessary to assess certainty. In fact assessing such certainty misrepresents the science. So why do it?

    Anyone wanting to actually read my comments and discuss is welcome to on our site. Thanks!

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  11. Steve Bloom Says:

    It was an exercise in statementism, pure and simple. Just as with last year’s statement, it’s simply an agreement that people shouldn’t yell at each other in public until after the next round of papers and in particular up through the release of the AR4 WG1 report.

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  13. Roger Pielke, Jr. Says:

    Steve-

    Welcome back. We’d welcome anything substantive that you’d like to contribute.

    Thanks!

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  15. Steve Bloom Says:

    Had the WMO statement tilted toward any one view, it would have been ineffective as a truce. Also, in my prior comment I meant to say statementization, although come to think of it consensusization (of a truce) would probably be best. It is a fine locution, as I’m sure the proprietors will agree.

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  17. Roger Pielke, Jr. Says:

    The folks at Real Climate provide this odd response to my comment reprinted above, once again showing that their focus is, ahem, only on science:

    “[Pielke's] statement is fair enough in itself, but this was not a hearing about the administration putting its stamp on preferred policy responses to global warming. It was about systematic suppression of scientific evidence regarding the magnitude of the harm. I don’t really expect RPJr to be able to tell the difference, but I’d hope the rest of us could. –raypierre”

    Ray obviously didn’t watch the hearing, because it was all about the Bush Admin putting its stamp on its preferred policies.

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  19. Chris Mooney Says:

    Hi Roger,
    You’ve got a point re the Waxman committee’s statement on hurricanes, but I’d say it’s a relatively small one. Their language was actually pretty careful, though obviously they should have mentioned the WMO statement. My two cents:
    http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/01/theyre_both_right.php

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  21. Marlowe Johnson Says:

    Roger,

    What is it exactly about Steve Bloom’s comment that you think is without substance? IMO he nailed it pretty good…

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  23. Tim Clear Says:

    Mr’s Bloom, Johnson, et al.

    I think you either ignore or are ignorant (same thing) of the fact that AR4 will be pronounced tomorrow by those anointed by the Oil for Food gang, and that the procedure will be that those expecting further funding will have to revise their “scientific” findings to reflect those decisions (to further the carbon trading scams) or else eat cake.

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  25. Mike N Says:

    I think Tim Clear nailed it. The GW industry is worth about 6 billion or so a year? Not too many scientists would give up a piece of that to tell the truth. Sorry for the pessimism but I just don’t see much devotion to the facts anymore.