- Prometheus: Author: Pielke Jr., R. Archives

Roger Pielke, Jr. former director of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and is also an associate professor of environmental studies.

Contents:

January 30, 2008

Witanagemot Justice And Senator Inhofe’s Fancy List

Anyone interested in the intersection of science and politics has to be watching with some amusement and more than a little dismay at the spectacle of professional immolation that the climate science community has engaged in following the release of Senator James Inhofe’s list of 400+ climate skeptics.

The amusement comes from the fact that everyone involved in this tempest in a teapot seems to be working as hard as possible in ways contrary to their political interests.

From the perspective of Senator Inhofe, by producing such a list he has raised the stakes associated with any scientist going public with any concerns about the scientific consensus on climate change. Not only would announcement of such concerns lead one to risk being associated with one of the most despised politicians in the climate science community, but several climate scientists have taken on as their personal responsibility the chore of personally attacking people who happen to find themselves on the Senator’s list. What young scholar would want to face the climate science attack dogs? Of course, those sharing the Senator’s political views may not mind being on such a list, but this does nothing more than further politicize climate science.

And this leads to the repugnant behavior of the attack dog climate scientists who otherwise would like to be taken seriously. By engaging in the character assassination of people who happen to find themselves on Senator Inhofe’s list they reinforce the absurd notion that scientific claims can be adjudicated solely by head counts and a narrow view of professional qualifications. They can’t. (See this enlightening and amusing discussion by Dan Sarewitz of leading experts arguing over who is qualified to comment on climate issues.) But by suggesting that knowledge claims can be judged by credentials the attack dog scientists reinforce an anti-democratic authoritarian streak found in the activist wing of the climate science community. Of course, from the perspective of the activist scientists such attacks may be effective if they dissuade other challenges to orthodoxy, but surely climate scientists deserving of the designation should be encouraging challenges to knowledge claims, rather than excoriating anyone who dares to challenge their beliefs.

I recently chatted with Steve Rayner and Gwyn Prins, authors of the brilliant and provocative essay The Wrong Trousers (PDF), who found themselves , somewhat bizarrely, on Senator Inhofe’s list. Neither has expressed anything resembling views challenging claims of human-caused climate change, however they are (rightly) critical of the political approach to climate change embodied by Kyoto. I asked them what they thought about being on the Senator’s list. Steve Rayner asked if there was some way to sue the Senator for defamation, tongue only partly in cheek. Gwyn Prins offered the following gem:

I think that pointing out that the mere fact of this funny headcounting is worthy of note: In the Anglo-Saxon witanagemot justice was achieved by oath-swearing so the number and the status of your oath-swearers mattered more than the facts of the matter; and this issue is being adjudicated on both sides – denialists and climate puritans – in just such a manner.

He is right of course, and this brings us to the dismay. The climate science community – or at least its most publicly visible activist wing – seems to be working as hard as possible to undercut the legitimacy and the precarious trust than society provides in support of activities of the broader scientific community. Senator Inhofe is a politician, and plays politics. If activist climate scientists wish to play the Senator’s game, then don’t be surprised to see common wisdom viewing these activists more as political players than trustworthy experts. If this is correct then maybe the Senator is a bit more astute than given credit for.

Ultimately, the mainstream climate science community might share with their activist colleagues the same sort of advice Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC) offered to former President Bill Clinton – "chill."

Posted on January 30, 2008 01:15 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Science + Politics

January 29, 2008

Eugene Skolnikoff on The Honest Broker

It is really an honor to see MIT's Eugene Skolnikoff review The Honest Broker in the January Review of Policy Research of the Policy Studies Organization. Professor Skolnikoff has been a leading scholar of science and technology policy for more than four decades. He served on the staff of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and as a consultant to President Carter, in addition to playing many other roles in the academic and applied communities.

He has these nice things to say about the book:

. . . Pielke’s book is a primer that can be a valuable introduction to clarifying the wide roles scientists can and do play, and can be useful in explaining what lies behind some of the controversies so evident today.
The bulk of the book is devoted to elaborating these four roles [of Pure Scientist, Science Arbiter, Issue Advocate, and Honest Broker], providing some background on what earlier scholars have written, elaborating the roles with illustrative issues, and discussing the important underlying elements of values and uncertainty. Pielke clearly has been through the wars on science policy issues and shows his experience and, by implication, his frustration with those scientists who advocate policies they argue are dictated by the scientific facts, without recognizing (or admitting) that their views are a result of their commitment to certain policy outcomes. He demonstrates a solid grasp of science and policy interactions, a sophisticated knowledge of U.S. science policy and institutions, and can write and express important ideas clearly and convincingly. For those reasons, the book is a valuable addition to the science and policy scene.

Professor Skolnikoff takes issue with several aspects of the book, such as its lack of discussions of engineers and technology. More importantly he suggests that I am "arguing that all scientists who call for action, some action, to deal with what they see as possible consequences of emerging evidence have become advocates, whose scientific views can thereby be considered to be politicized." This is indeed what I have argued. He concludes that "Pielke appears to tar all scientists who have strong views on a controversial issue, notably climate change again, with the claim they have simply become advocates and thus closed to alternative evidence."

I actually do not assert that advocates are closed to alternative evidence nor do I cast advocacy in such a pejorative light. In fact, I make a strong case for the importance of advocacy in democratic politics. It is not "tarring" someone to identify them as participating in advocacy, which I define as working to reduce the scope of political choice. What I do take strong issue with is what I call "stealth issue advocacy" in which an expert claims to be focused only on science (or more generally, truth), while really working to advance a specific agenda. Unfortunately, Professor Skolnikoff does not discuss this distinction among advocacy activities.

Overall, it is a thoughtful review, in which Skolnikoff describes the book as "generally valuable and occasionally provocative," which sounds pretty good to me.

Posted on January 29, 2008 12:29 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | The Honest Broker

January 28, 2008

Two New Blogs to Check Out

Like anyone needs a longer personal blogroll, but here are two that might be worth a look.

William Briggs is a statistician, a delightful writer, and provocatively skeptical about all sort of subjects in exactly the way that scientists should be skeptical. His new blog is extremely thoughtful. For example, he has a post up today titled, "Is climatology a pseudoscience?" and provides a nuanced, and yes, provocative answer.

A new group blog called Science Policy Development has just started up on the heels of the recent NAS Science and Technology Policy Graduate Student Forum. There is plenty of room in the blogosphere for more discussions of science policy and I am hopeful that this group maintains an active presence in science policy discussions.

Posted on January 28, 2008 03:22 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Hodge Podge | Science Policy: General

January 26, 2008

Updated IPCC Forecasts vs. Observations

Carl Mears from Remote Sensing Systems, Inc. was kind enough to email me to point out that the RSS data that I had shared with our readers a few weeks ago contained an error that RSS has since corrected. The summary figure above is re-plotted with the corrected data (RSS is the red curve). At the time I wrote:

Something fishy is going on. The IPCC and CCSP recently argued that the surface and satellite records are reconciled. This might be the case from the standpoint of long-term linear trends. But the data here suggest that there is some work left to do. The UAH and NASA curves are remarkably consistent. But RSS dramatically contradicts both. UKMET shows 2007 as the coolest year since 2001, whereas NASA has 2007 as the second warmest. In particular estimates for 2007 seem to diverge in unique ways. It'd be nice to see the scientific community explain all of this.

For those interested in the specifics, Carl explained in his email:

The error was simple -- I made a small change in the code ~ 1 year ago that resulted in a ~0.1K decrease in the absolute value of AMSU TLTs, but neglected to reprocess data from 1998-2006, instead only using it for the new (Jan 2007 onward) data. Since the AMSU TLTs are forced to match the MSU TLTs (on average) during the overlap period, this resulted in an apparent drop in TLT for 2007. Reprocessing the earlier AMSU data, thus lowering AMSU TLT by 0.1 from 1998-2006, resulted in small changes in the parameters that are added to the AMSU temperatures to make them match MSU temperatures, and thus the 2007 data is increased by ~0.1K. My colleagues at UAH (Christy and Spencer) were both very helpful in diagnosing the problem.

It is important to note that the RSS correction does not alter my earlier analysis of the IPCC predictions (made in 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007) and various observations. Thanks again to Carl for alerting me to the error and giving me a chance to update the figures with the new information!

Posted on January 26, 2008 01:10 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 23, 2008

The Authoritarianism of Experts

Have you ever heard anyone make the argument that we must take a certain course of action because the experts tell us we must? The issue might be the threat of another country or an environmental risk, but increasingly we see appeals to authority used as the basis for arguing for this or that action.

In a new book, David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith take the appeal to experts somewhat further and argue that in order to deal with climate change we need to replace liberal democracy with an authoritarianism of scientific expertise. They write in a recent op-ed:

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. . .
There must be open minds to look critically at liberal democracy. Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties. . .

We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions.

On their book page they write:

[T]he authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power.

So whenever you hear (or invoke) an argument from expertise (i.e., "the experts tell us that we must ...") ask if we should listen to the experts in just this one case, or if we should turn over all decisions to experts. If just this one case, why this one and not others? If a general prescription, should we do away with democracy in favor of an authoritarianism of expertise?

Posted on January 23, 2008 06:25 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Science + Politics | The Honest Broker

January 20, 2008

I'm So Confused

Last week I received an email from our Chancellor, Bud Peterson, warning me and my CU colleagues of the perils of engaging in political advocacy activities as a university employee. Here is an excerpt:

TO: Boulder Campus Teaching & Research Faculty, Staff, Deans, Directors, Dept Chairs
FROM: Office of the Chancellor

SENDER: Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson

DATE: January 18, 2008

SUBJECT: Guidelines on Campaign-Related Activities by Members of the University Community

Dear Colleagues:

In light of the many political campaigns currently, or soon to be, underway at the national, state and local levels, I would like to provide you with a set of guidelines we, as members of the University community, should keep in mind as we consider our own activities and level of involvement. The guidelines were developed by the Office of the University Counsel, and if you have questions, I urge you to contact Counsel's office at 303-492-7481.

GUIDELINES ON CAMPAIGN-RELATED ACTIVITIES BY MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY
COMMUNITY

IN GENERAL, UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEES MAY NOT:

* Engage in any activity during working hours designed to urge electors to vote for or against any campaign issues, which include campaigns for public office, state-wide campaign issues or referred measures, and local campaign issues or levies.

* Employees wishing to participate in a campaign activity should take personal leave.

* Use office supplies or equipment, including computers, telephones, printers or facsimile machines to create materials urging electors to vote for or against a campaign issue.

* Use their University email accounts to urge electors to vote for or against a campaign issue, or to forward materials that urge electors to vote for or against a campaign issue.

* Use University-hosted websites to urge electors to vote for or against a campaign issue.

At the same time Chancellor Peterson has endorsed faculty participation in a January 31 political advocacy effort called "Focus the Nation," which seeks to motivate action on climate change.

Here is how The Colorado Daily describes the activity:

There's also a hint of politics involved: the teach-in is scheduled for Jan. 31, shortly before statewide primaries and caucuses, and is timed to place pressure on political candidates. [Colorado's caucus is Feb. 5].
"We wanted to do it right in the height of the early primaries to ensure that climate change is at the forefront of the issues," [Garrett] Brennan [media director for Focus the Nation] said.

After all, raising awareness about climate change is one thing, he said. Actually solving it is another.

"The solutions are pretty cut and dry," Brennan said. "You're not going to create an art installation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Raising awareness - making it personal to people - is multidisciplinary. The solutions are policies that are going to get passed."

That could be one reason that voter-registration group New Era Colorado will be on campus that day, displaying poster-board profiles that detail each candidate's stance on environmental issues.

The website for Focus the Nation lists the policy actions that it wishes to focus our nation's attention on and for me to discuss in the classroom, and here are a few of the options that I am supposed to provide to my students:

To stabilize global warming at the low end of the possible range (3-4 degrees F) will require deep cuts in global warming pollution beginning in about 2020. In the US, reductions in emissions of roughly 15%-20% per decade will be needed.
Place a tax on each ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) embodied in fossil fuels. Set the tax high enough to initially stabilize nationwide emissions, and then have the tax rise over time, generating steady cuts in pollution. Use tax revenue to (1) compensate lower income Americans for higher energy prices, and (2) to assist impacted workers, especially in coal mining.

To the extent that coal use is unavoidable, only allow coal plants that capture and permanently sequester their emissions in geologic formations.

Cap total carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution emitted in the US through a system of a fixed number of permits; auction the permits to emitters; use auction revenue to (1) compensate lower income Americans for higher energy prices, and (2) to assist impacted workers, especially in coal mining.

By 2030, require by law that all new buildings in the US be "carbon neutral" (no net emissions of global warming pollution from fossil fuel combustion).

Set the emerging biofuels sector on a sustainable basis through: (1) A Low Carbon Fuel Standard that sets a goal for reducing carbon intensity in the total light and heavy duty vehicles fuels mix by10 percent by 2020, and (2) Mount a major effort to research, develop, demonstrate and deploy sustainable biofuels feedstocks and technologies.

Prevent CO2 emissions and remove atmospheric CO2 through forest conservation, management and restoration. Include forests in cap & auction system, allowing the trade of forest emissions reductions that are real, additional, verifiable, and permanent.

For the United States as a whole, adopt California’s standards requiring a 23% reduction in global warming pollution from new vehicles sold by 2012, and a 30% reduction in global warming pollution from new vehicles sold by 2016.

I am so confused.

Focus the Nation is unadulterated political advocacy. But my campus forbids me to use my official time, paid for by taxpayers, to advocate for particular campaign issues. But global warming is so important. But my Chancellor forbids me to engage in political advocacy as part of my job. But my Chancellor is the keynote speaker for our Focus the Nation activities. But my job is to teach not indoctrinate. But I actually agree with many of the proposed policies. But it is not my job to use my platform as a professor to tell students what to think; I am supposed to teach them how to think and come to their own conclusions. But if I don't go along I'll be castigated as one of those bad guys, like a Holocaust denier or slave owner. But doing the right thing is so obvious.

Thank goodness I am on sabbatical.

Posted on January 20, 2008 03:10 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Education | Science + Politics

January 18, 2008

Temperature Trends 1990-2007: Hansen, IPCC, Obs

The figure below shows linear trends in temperature for Jim Hansen's three 1988 scenarios (in shades of blue), for the IPCC predictions issued in 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007 (in shades of green), and for four sets of observations (in shades of brown). I choose the period 1990-2007 because this is the period of overlap for all of the predictions (except IPCC 2007, which starts in 2000).

temp trends.png

Looking just at these measures of central tendency (i.e., no formal consideration of uncertainties) it seems clear that:

1. Trends in all of Hansen's scenarios are above IPCC 1995, 2001, and 2007, as well as three of the four surface observations.

2. The outlier on surface observations, and the one consistent with Hansen's Scenarios A and B is the NASA dataset overseen by Jim Hansen. Whatever the explanation for this, good scientific practice would have forecasting and data collection used to verify those forecasts conducted by completely separate groups.

3. Hansen's Scenario A is very similar to IPCC 1990, which makes sense given their closeness in time, and assumptions of forcings at the time (i.e., thoughts on business-as-usual did not change much over that time).

The data for the Hansen scenarios was obtained at Climate Audit from the ongoing discussion there, and the IPCC and observational data is as described on this site over the past week or so in the forecast verification exercise that I have conducted. This is an ongoing exercise, as part of a conversation across the web, so if you have questions or comments, please share them, either here, or if our comment interface is driving you nuts (as it is with me), then comment over at Climate Audit where I'll participate in the discussions.

Posted on January 18, 2008 11:54 AM View this article | Comments (8)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Worldwatch Wants You to Think

prius v nano.png

Worldwatch asks a challenging question:

One car gets 46 miles per gallon, features fancy accessories, and sports two engines with a combined 145 horsepower. The other car reportedly gets 54 miles per gallon, runs on a diminutive 30-horsepower engine, and is positively spartan in its interior trimmings. The first is a darling of the environmentally conscious. The latter is reviled as a climate wrecker. These two vehicles are the Toyota Prius and the newly unveiled Tata Nano, dubbed "the people’s car." Is there a double standard?

Posted on January 18, 2008 07:24 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Energy Policy | Technology and Globalization

January 17, 2008

New Paper on Normalized Hurricane Damages

Normalized Hurricane Damage.png

Our paper on normalized hurricane damages 1900 to 2005 has now been published. By "normalized" we mean taking damages as recorded in the year that they occurred in that year's dollars, and adjusting them to account for societal changes such as population growth, building stock, tangible wealth, and inflation. The figure above shows the results of one of the two approaches to normalization presented in our paper.

The full paper can be found at the link below and an Excel dataset can be found here.

Pielke, Jr., R. A., Gratz, J., Landsea, C. W., Collins, D., Saunders, M., and Musulin, R., 2008. Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1900-2005. Natural Hazards Review, 9:29-42. (PDF)

A few brief comments follow.

For those who might be interested in the debate over hurricanes and global warming, there is nothing added to the debate from this paper. Here is what we say that is most relevant:

Pielke and Landsea (1998) found no trends in normalized losses, a finding subsequently replicated by Katz (2002). Recent analyses of longitudinal geophysical data find that there are no trends on hurricane frequency and intensity at U.S. landfall (see, Landsea 2005; Emanuel 2005; Landsea 2007). Because the normalization methodology is subject to assumptions, differences in which can lead to significant changes in results, there is general agreement that normalized data are in general not the best first place to look for changes in underlying geophysical variables, and such changes are best explored using the geophysical data directly (cf. Höppe and Pielke 2006). However, when climate trends or variability have sufficiently large effects on losses, they can be detected in damage data (e.g., Pielke and Landsea 1999).
The two normalized datasets reported here show no trends in either the absolute data or under a logarithmic transformation: the variance explained by a best fit linear trend line = 0.0004 and 0.0003 respectively for PL05, and 0.0014 and 0.00006 respectively for CL05. The lack of trend in twentieth century normalized hurricane losses is consistent with what one would expect to find given the lack of trends in hurricane frequency or intensity at landfall. This finding should add some confidence that, at least to a first degree, the normalization approach has successfully adjusted for changing societal conditions. Given the lack of trends in hurricanes themselves, any trend observed in the normalized losses would necessarily reflect some bias in the adjustment process, such as failing to recognize changes in adaptive capacity or misspecifying wealth. Because we do not have a resulting bias suggests that any factors not included in the normalization methods do not have a resulting net large significance.

Below is an image showing the top 50 storms for one of the normalization methods. For the details on the methods and a whole bunch of analysis, please see the paper.

Normalized Damage Top 50.png

Posted on January 17, 2008 02:54 AM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Disasters

January 16, 2008

UKMET Short Term Global Temperature Forecast

UKMET Short Term Forecast.png

This figure shows a short-term forecast of global average temperature issued by the UK Meteorological Service, with some annotations that I've added and described below. The forecast is discussed in this PDF where you can find the original figure. This sort of forecast should be applauded, because it allows for learning based on experience. Such forecasts, whether eventually shown to be wrong or right, can serve as powerful tests of knowledge and predictive skill. The UK Met Service is to be applauded. Now on to the figure itself.

The figure is accompanied by this caption:

Observations of global average temperature (black line) compared with decadal ‘hindcasts’ (10-year model simulations of the past, white lines and red shading), plus the first decadal prediction for the 10 years from 2005. Temperatures are plotted as anomalies (relative to 1979–2001). As with short-term weather forecasts there remains some uncertainty in our predictions of temperature over a decade. The red shading shows our confidence in predictions of temperature in any given year. If there are no volcanic eruptions during the forecast period, there is a 90% likelihood of the temperature being within the shaded area.

The figure shows both hindcasts and a forecast. I've shaded the hindcasts in grey. I've added the green curve which is my replication of the global temperature anomalies from the UKMET HADCRUT3 dataset extended to 2007. I've also plotted as a blue dot the prediction issued by UKMET for 2008, which is expected to be indistinguishable from the temperature of years 2001 to 2007 (which were indistinguishable from each other). The magnitude of the UKMET forecast over the next decade is almost exactly identical to the IPCC AR4 prediction over the same time period, which I discussed last week.

I have added the pink star at 1995 to highlight the advantages offered by hindcasting. Imagine if the model realization begun in 1985 had been continued beyond 1995, rather than being re-run after 1995. Clearly, all subsequent observed temperatures would have been well below that 1985 curve. One important reason for this is of course the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which was not predicted. And that is precisely the point -- prediction is really hard, especially when conducted in the context of open systems, and as is often said, especially about the the future. Our ability to explain why a prediction was wrong does not make that prediction right, and this is a point often lost in debate about climate change.

Again, kudos to the UK Met Service. They've had the fortitude to issue a short term prediction related to climate change. Other scientific bodies should follow this lead. It is good for science, and good for the use of science in decision making.

Posted on January 16, 2008 02:15 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 15, 2008

Verification of IPCC Sea Level Rise Forecasts 1990, 1995, 2001

Here is a graph showing IPCC sea level rise forecasts from the FAR (1990), SAR (1995), and TAR (2001).

IPCC Sea Level.png

And here are the sources:

IPCC Sea Level Sources.png

Observational data can be found here. Thanks to my colleague Steve Nerem.

Unlike temperature forecasts by the IPCC, sea level rise shows no indication that scientists have a handle on the issue. As with temperature the IPCC dramatically decreased its predictions of sea level rise in between its first (1990) and second (1995) assessment reports. It then nudged down its prediction a very small amount in its 2001 report. The observational data falls in the middle of the 1990 and 1995/2001 assessments.

Last year Rahmstorf et al. published a short paper in Science comparing observations of temperature with IPCC 2001 predictions (Aside: it is remarkable that Science allowed them to ignore IPCC 1990 and 1995). Their analysis is completely consistent with the temperature and sea level rise verifications that I have shown. On sea level rise they concluded:

Previous projections, as summarized by IPCC, have not exaggerated but may in some respects even have underestimated the change, in particular for sea level.

This statement is only true if one ignores the 1990 IPCC report which overestimated both sea level rise and temperature. Rahmstorf et al. interpretation of the results is little more than spin, as it would have been equally valid to conclude based on the 1990 report:

Previous projections, as summarized by IPCC, have not underestimated but may in some respects even have exaggerated the change, both for sea level and temperature.

Rather than spin the results, I conclude that the ongoing debate about future sea level rise is entirely appropriate. The fact that the IPCC has been unsuccessful in predicting sea level rise, does not mean that things are worse or better, but simply that scientists clearly do not have a handle on this issue and are unable to predict sea level changes on a decadal scale. The lack of predictive accuracy does not lend optimism about the prospects for accuracy on the multi-decadal scale. Consider that the 2007 IPCC took a pass on predicting near term sea level rise, choosing instead to focus 90 years out (as far as I am aware, anyone who knows differently, please let me know).

This state of affairs should give no comfort to anyone: over the 21st century sea level is expected to rise, anywhere from an unnoticeable amount to the catastrophic, and scientists have essentially no ability to predict this rise, much less the effects of various climate policies on that rise. As we've said here before, this is a cherrypickers delight, and a policy makers nightmare. It'd be nice to see the scientific community engaged in a bit less spin, and a bit more comprehensive analysis.

Posted on January 15, 2008 12:59 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 14, 2008

James Hansen on One Year's Temperature

NASA's James Hansen just sent around a commentary (in PDF here) on the significance of the 2007 global temperature in the context of the long-term temperature record that he compiles for NASA. After Real Climate went nuts over how misguided it is to engage in a discussion of eight years worth of temperature records, I can''t wait to see them lay into Jim Hansen for asserting that one year's data is of particular significance (and also for not graphing uncertainty ranges):

The Southern Oscillation and the solar cycle have significant effects on year-to-year global temperature change. Because both of these natural effects were in their cool phases in 2007, the unusual warmth of 2007 is all the more notable.

But maybe it is that data that confirms previously held beliefs is acceptable no matter how short the record, and data that does not is not acceptable, no matter how long the record. But that would be confirmation bias, wouldn't it?

Anyway, Dr. Hansen does not explain why the 2007 NASA data runs counter to that of UKMET, UAH or RSS, but does manage to note the "incorrect" 2007 UKMET prediction of a record warm year. Dr. Hansen issues his own prediction:

. . . it is unlikely that 2008 will be a year with an unusual global temperature change, i.e., it is likely to remain close to the range of (high) values exhibited in 2002-2007. On the other hand, when the next El Nino occurs it is likely to carry global temperature to a significantly higher level than has occurred in recent centuries, probably higher than any year in recent millennia. Thus we suggest that, barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years.

I wonder if this holds just for the NASA dataset put together by Dr. Hansen or for all of the temperature datasets.

Posted on January 14, 2008 04:27 PM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Updated Chart: IPCC Temperature Verification

I've received some email comments suggesting that my use of the 1992 IPCC Supplement as the basis for IPCC 1990 temperature predictions was "too fair" to the IPCC because the IPCC actually reduced its temperature projections from 1990 to 1992. In addition, Gavin Schmidt and a commenter over at Climate Audit also did not like my use of the 1992 report. So I am going to take full advantage of the rapid feedback of the web to provide an updated figure, based on IPCC 1990, specifically, Figure A.9, p. 336. In other words, I no longer rely on the 1992 supplement, and have simply gone back to the original IPCC 1990 FAR. Here then is that updated Figure:

IPCC Verification 90-95-01-07 vs Obs.png

Thanks all for the feedback!

Posted on January 14, 2008 02:46 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Pachauri on Recent Climate Trends

Last week scientists at the Real Climate blog gave their confirmation bias synapses a workout by explaining that eight years of climate data is meaningless, and people who pay any attention to recent climate trends are "misguided." I certainly agree that we should exhibit cautiousness in interpreting short-duration observations, nonetheless we should always be trying to explain (rather than simply discount) observational evidence to avoid the trap of confirmation bias.

So it was interesting to see IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri exhibit "misguided" behavior when he expressed some surprise about recent climate trends in The Guardian:

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.
"One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.

He added that sceptics about a human role in climate change delighted in hints that temperatures might not be rising. "There are some people who would want to find every single excuse to say that this is all hogwash," he said.

Ironically, by suggesting that their might be some significance to recent climate trends, Dr. Pachauri has provided ammunition to those very same skeptics that he disparages. Perhaps Real Climate will explain how misguided he is, but somehow I doubt it.

For the record, I accept the conclusions of IPCC Working Group I. I don't know how to interpret climate observations of the early 21st century, but believe that there are currently multiple valid hypotheses. I also think that we can best avoid confirmation bias, and other cognitive traps, by making explicit predictions of the future and testing them against experience. The climate community, or at least its activist wing, studiously avoids forecast verification. It just goes to show, confirmation bias is more a more comfortable state than dissonance -- and that goes for people on all sides of the climate debate.

Posted on January 14, 2008 08:02 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Verification of IPCC Temperature Forecasts 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2007

Last week I began an exercise in which I sought to compare global average temperature predictions with the actual observed temperature record. With this post I'll share my complete results.

Last week I showed a comparison of the 2007 IPCC temperature forecasts (which actually began in 2000, so they were really forecasts of data that had already been observed). Here is that figure.

surf-sat vs. IPCC.png

Then I showed a figure with a comparison of the 1990 predictions made by the IPCC in 1992 with actual temperature data. Some folks misinterpreted the three curves that I showed from the IPCC to be an uncertainty bound. They were not. Instead, they were forecasts conditional on different assumptions about climate sensitivity, with the middle curve showing the prediction for a 2.5 degree climate sensitivity, which is lower than scientists currently believe to the most likely value. So I have reproduced that graph below without the 1.5 and 4.5 degree climate sensitivity curves.

IPCC 1990 verification.png

Now here is a similar figure for the 1995 forecast. The IPCC in 1995 dramatically lowered its global temperature predictions, primarily due to the inclusion of consideration of atmospheric aerosols, which have a cooling effect. You can see the 1995 IPCC predictions on pp. 322-323 of its Second Assessment Report. Figure 6.20 shows the dramatic reduction of temperature predictions through the inclusion of aerosols. The predictions themselves can be found in Figure 6.22, and are the values that I use in the figure below, which also use a 2.5 degree climate sensitivity, and are also based on the IS92e or IS92f scenarios.

IPCC 1995 Verification.png

In contrast to the 1990 prediction, the 1995 prediction looks spot on. It is worth noting that the 1995 prediction began in 1990, and so includes observations that were known at the time of the prediction.

In 2001, the IPCC nudged its predictions up a small amount. The prediction is also based on a 1990 start, and can be found in the Third Assessment Report here. The most relevant scenario is A1FI, and the average climate sensitivity of the models used to generate these predictions is 2.8 degrees, which may be large enough to account for the difference between the 1995 and 2001 predictions. Here is a figure showing the 2001 forecast verification.

IPCC 2001 Verification.png

Like 1995, the 2001 figure looks quite good in comparison to the actual data.

Now we can compare all four predictions with the data, but first here are all four IPCC temperature predictions (1990, 1995, 2001, 2007) on one graph.

IPCC Predictions 90-95-01-07.png

IPCC issued its first temperature prediction in 1990 (I actually use the prediction from the supplement to the 1990 report issued in 1992). Its 1995 report dramatically lowered this prediction. 2001 nudged this up a bit, and 2001 elevated the entire curve another small increment, keeping the slope the same. My hypothesis for what is going on here is that the various changes over time to the IPCC predictions reflect incrementally improved fits to observed temperature data, as more observations have come in since 1990.

In other words, the early 1990s showed how important aerosols were in the form of dramatically lowered temperatures (after Mt. Pinatubo), and immediately put the 1990 predictions well off track. So the IPCC recognized the importance of aerosols and lowered its predictions, putting the 1995 IPCC back on track with what had happened with the real climate since its earlier report. With the higher observed temperatures in the late 1990s and early 2000s the slightly increased predictions of temperature in 2001 and 2007 represented better fits with observations since 1995 (for the 2001 report) and 2001 (for the 2007 report).

Imagine if your were asked to issue a prediction for the temperature trend over next week, and you are allowed to update that prediction every 2nd day. Regardless of where you think things will eventually end up, you'd be foolish not to include what you've observed in producing your mid-week updates. Was this behavior by the IPCC intentional or simply the inevitable result of using a prediction start-date years before the forecast was being issued? I have no idea. But the lesson for the IPCC should be quite clear: All predictions (and projections) that it issues should begin no earlier than the year that the prediction is being made.

And now the graph that you have all been waiting for. Here is a figure showing all four IPCC predictions with the surface (NASA, UKMET) and satellite (UAH, RSS) temperature record.

IPCC Verification 90-95-01-07 vs Obs.png

You can see on this graph that the 1990 prediction was obviously much higher than the other three, and you can also clearly see how the IPCC temperature predictions have creeped up as observations showed increasing temperatures from 1995-2005. A simple test of my hypothesis is as follows: In the next IPCC, if temperatures from 2005 to the next report fall below the 2007 IPCC prediction, then the next IPCC will lower its predictions. Similarly, if values fall above that level, then the IPCC will increase its predictions.

What to take from this exercise?

1. The IPCC does not make forecast verification an easy task. The IPCC does not clearly identify what exactly it is predicting nor the variables that can be used to verify those predictions. Like so much else in climate science this leaves evaluations of predictions subject to much ambiguity, cherrypicking, and seeing what one wants to see.

2. The IPCC actually has a pretty good track record in its predictions, especially after it dramatically reduced its 1990 prediction. This record is clouded by an appearance of post-hoc curve fitting. In each of 1995, 2001, and 2007 the changes to the IPCC predictions had the net result of improving predictive performance with observations that had already been made. This is a bit like predicting today's weather at 6PM.

3. Because the IPCC clears the slate every 5-7 years with a new assessment report, it is guarantees that its most recent predictions can never be rigorously verified, because, as climate scientists will tell you, 5-7 years is far too short to say anything about climate predictions. Consequently, the IPCC should not predict and then move on, but pay close attention to its past predictions and examine why the succeed or fail. As new reports are issued the IPCC should go to great lengths to place its new predictions on an apples-to-apples basis with earlier predictions. The SAR did a nice job of this, more recent reports have not. A good example of how not to update predictions is the predictions of sea level rise between the TAR and AR4 which are not at all apples-to-apples.

4. Finally, and I repeat myself, the IPCC should issue predictions for the future, not the recent past.

Appendix: Checking My Work

The IPCC AR4 Technical Summary includes a figure (Figure TS.26) that shows a verification of sorts. I use that figure as a comparison to what I've done. Here is that figure, with a number of my annotations superimposed, and explained below.

IPCC Check.png

Let me first say that the IPCC probably could not have produced a more difficult-to-interpret figure (I see Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate has put out a call for help in understanding it). I have annotated it with letters and some lines and I explain them below.

A. I added this thick horizontal blue line to indicate the 1990 baseline. This line crosses a thin blue line that I placed to represent 2007.

B. This thin blue line crosses the vertical axis where my 1995 verification value lies, represented by the large purple dot.

C. This thin blue line crosses the vertical axis where my 1990 verification value lies, represented by the large green dot. (My 2001 verification is represented by the large light blue dot.)

D. You can see that my 1990 verification value falls exactly on a line extended from the upper bound of the IPCC curve. I have also extended the IPCC mid-range curve as well (note that my extension superimposed falls a tiny bit higher than it should). Why is this? I'm not sure, but one answer is that the uncertainty range presented by the IPCC represents the scenario range, but of course in the past there is no scenario uncertainty. Since emissions have fallen at the high end of the scenario space, if my interpretation is correct, then my verification is consistent with that of the IPCC.

E. For the 1995 verification, you can see that similarly my value falls exactly on a line extended from the upper end of the IPCC range. This would also be consistent with the IPCC presenting the uncertainty range as representing alternative scenarios. The light blue dot is similarly at the upper end of the blue range. What should not be missed is that the relative difference between my verifications and those of the IPCCs are just about identical.

A few commenters over at Real Climate, including Gavin Schmidt, have suggested that such figures need uncertainty bounds on them. In general, I agree, but I'd note that none of the model predictions presented by the IPCC (B1, A1B, A2, Commitment -- note that all of these understate reality since emissions are following A1FI, the highest, most closely) show any model uncertainty whatsoever (nor any observational uncertainty, nor multiple measures of temperature). Surely with the vast resources available to the IPCC, they could have done a much more rigorous job of verification.

In closing, I guess I'd suggest to the IPCC that this sort of exercise should be taken up as a formal part of its work. There are many, many other variables (and relationships between variables) that might be examined in this way. And they should be.

Posted on January 14, 2008 01:57 AM View this article | Comments (18)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 11, 2008

Real Climate's Two Voices on Short-Term Climate Fluctuations

Real Climate has been speaking with two voices on how to compare observations of climate with models. Last August they asserted that one-year's sea ice extent could be compared with models:

A few people have already remarked on some pretty surprising numbers in Arctic sea ice extent this year (the New York Times has also noticed). The minimum extent is usually in early to mid September, but this year, conditions by Aug 9 had already beaten all previous record minima. Given that there is at least a few more weeks of melting to go, it looks like the record set in 2005 will be unequivocally surpassed. It could be interesting to follow especially in light of model predictions discussed previously.

Today, they say that looking at 8 years of temperature records is misguided:

John Tierney and Roger Pielke Jr. have recently discussed attempts to validate (or falsify) IPCC projections of global temperature change over the period 2000-2007. Others have attempted to show that last year's numbers imply that 'Global Warming has stopped' or that it is 'taking a break' (Uli Kulke, Die Welt)). However, as most of our readers will realise, these comparisons are flawed since they basically compare long term climate change to short term weather variability.

So according to Real Climate one-year's ice extent data can be compared to climate models, but 8 years of temperature data cannot.

Right. This is why I believe that whatever one's position of climate change is, everyone should agree that rigorous forecast verification is needed.

Post Script. I see at Real Climate commenters are already calling me a "skeptic" for even discussing forecast verification. For the record I accept the consensus of the IPCC WGI. If asking questions about forecast verification is to be tabooo, then climate science is in worse shape than I thought.

Posted on January 11, 2008 09:25 AM View this article | Comments (4)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 10, 2008

Verification of 1990 IPCC Temperature Predictions

1990 IPCC verification.png

I continue to receive good suggestions and positive feedback on the verification exercise that I have been playing around with this week. Several readers have suggested that a longer view might be more appropriate. So I took a look at the IPCC's First Assessment Report that had been sitting on my shelf, and tried to find its temperature prediction starting in 1990. I actually found what I was looking for in a follow up document: Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment (not online that I am aware of).

In conducting this type of forecast verification, one of the first things to do is to specify which emissions scenario most closely approximated what has actually happened since 1990. As we have discussed here before, emissions have been occurring at the high end of the various scenarios used by the IPCC. So in this case I have used IS92e or IS92f (the differences are too small to be relevant to this analysis), which are discussed beginning on p. 69.

With the relevant emissions scenario, I then went to the section that projected future temperatures, and found this in Figure Ax.3 on p. 174. From that I took from the graph the 100-year temperature change and converted it into an annual rate. At the time the IPCC presented estimates for climate sensitivities of 1.5 degree, 2.5 degrees, and 4.5 degrees, with 2.5 degrees identified as a "best estimate." In the figure above I have estimated the 1.5 and 4.5 degree values based on the ratios taken from graph Ax.2, but I make no claim that they are precise. My understanding is that climate scientists today think that climate sensitivity is around 3.0 degrees, so if one were to re-do the 1990 prediction with a climate sensitivity of 3.0 the resulting curve would be a bit above the 2.5 degree curve shown above.

On the graph you will also see the now familiar temperature records from two satellite and two surface analyses. It seems pretty clear that the IPCC in 1990 over-forecast temperature increases, and this is confirmed by the most recent IPCC report (Figure TS.26), so it is not surprising.

I'll move on to the predictions of the Second Assessment Report in a follow up.

Posted on January 10, 2008 07:03 PM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Radio Interview with Radio Radicale

You can hear a 12 minute interview with me on my book The Honest Broker with Radio Radicale (Rome, Italy) here.

Posted on January 10, 2008 02:51 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | The Honest Broker

January 09, 2008

Forecast Verification for Climate Science, Part 3

By popular demand, here is a graph showing the two main analyses of global temperatures from satellite, from RSS and UAH, as well as the two main analyses of global temperatures from the surface record, UKMET and NASA, plotted with the temperature predictions reported in IPCC AR4, as described in Part 1 of this series.

surf-sat vs. IPCC.png

Some things to note:

1) I have not graphed observational uncertainties, but I'd guess that they are about +/-0.05 (and someone please correct me if this is wildly off), and their inclusion would not alter the discussion here.

2) A feast for cherrypickers. One can arrive at whatever conclusion one wants with respect to the IPCC predictions. Want the temperature record to be consistent with IPCC? OK, then you like NASA. How about inconsistent? Well, then you are a fan of RSS. On the fence? Well, UAH and UKMET serve that purpose pretty well.

3) Something fishy is going on. The IPCC and CCSP recently argued that the surface and satellite records are reconciled. This might be the case from the standpoint of long-term liner trends. But the data here suggest that there is some work left to do. The UAH and NASA curves are remarkably consistent. But RSS dramatically contradicts both. UKMET shows 2007 as the coolest year since 2001, whereas NASA has 2007 as the second warmest. In particular estimates for 2007 seem to diverge in unique ways. It'd be nice to see the scientific community explain all of this.

4) All show continued warming since 2000!

5) From the standpoint of forecast verification, which is where all of this began, the climate community really needs to construct a verification dataset for global temperature and other variables that will be (a) the focus of predictions, and (b) the ground truth against which those predictions will be verified.

Absent an ability to rigorously evaluate forecasts, in the presence of multiple valid approaches to observational data we run the risk of engaging in all sorts of cognitive traps -- such as availability bias and confirmation bias. So here is a plea to the climate community: when you say that you are predicting something like global temperature or sea ice extent or hurricanes -- tell us is specific detail what those variables are, who is measuring them, and where to look in the future to verify the predictions. If weather forecasters, stock brokers, and gamblers can do it, then you can too.

Posted on January 9, 2008 08:12 AM View this article | Comments (9)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 08, 2008

Forecast Verification for Climate Science, Part 2

Yesterday I posted a figure showing how surface temperatures compare with IPCC model predictions. I chose to use the RSS satellite record under the assumption that the recent IPCC and CCSP reports were both correct in their conclusions that the surface and satellite records have been reconciled. It turns out that my reliance of the IPCC and CCSP may have been mistaken.

I received a few comments from people suggesting that I had selectively used the RSS data because it showed different results than other global temperature datasets. My first reaction to this was to wonder how the different datasets could show different results if the IPCC was correct when it stated (PDF):

New analyses of balloon-borne and satellite measurements of lower- and mid-tropospheric temperature show warming rates that are similar to those of the surface temperature record and are consistent within their respective uncertainties, largely reconciling a discrepancy noted in the TAR.

But I decided to check for myself. I went to the NASA GISS and downloaded its temperature data and scaled to a 1980-1999 mean. I then plotted it on the same scale as the RSS data that I shared yesterday. Here is what the curves look like on the same scale.

Well, I'm no climate scientist, but they sure don't look reconciled to me, especially 2007. (Any suggestions on the marked divergence in 2007?)

What does this mean for the comparison with IPCC predictions? I have overlaid the GISS data on the graph I prepared yesterday.

AR4 Verificantion Surf Sat.png

So using the NASA GISS global temperature data for 2000-2007 results in observations that are consistent with the IPCC predictions, but contradict the IPCC's conclusion that the surface and satellite temperature records are reconciled. Using the RSS data results in observations that are (apparently) inconsistent with the IPCC predictions.

I am sure that in conducting such a verification some will indeed favor the dataset that best confirms their desired conclusions. But, it would be ironic indeed to see scientists now abandon RSS after championing it in the CCSP and IPCC reports. So, I'm not sure what to think.

Is it really the case that the surface and satellite records are again at odds? What dataset should be used to verify climate forecasts of the IPCC?

Answers welcomed.

Posted on January 8, 2008 05:55 AM View this article | Comments (3)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

January 07, 2008

Forecast Verification for Climate Science

Last week I asked a question:

What behavior of the climate system could hypothetically be observed over the next 1, 5, 10 years that would be inconsistent with the current consensus on climate change?

We didn’t have much discussion on our blog, perhaps in part due to our ongoing technical difficulties (which I am assured will be cleared up soon). But John Tierney at the New York Times sure received an avalanche of responses, many of which seemed to excoriate him simply for asking the question, and none that really engaged the question.

I did receive a few interesting replies by email from climate scientists. Here is one of the most interesting:

The IPCC reports, both AR4 (see Chapter 10) and TAR, are full of predictions made starting in 2000 for the evolution of surface temperature, precipitation, precipitation intensity, sea ice extent, and on and on. It would be a relatively easy task for someone to begin tracking the evolution of these variables and compare them to the IPCC’s forecasts. I am not aware of anyone actually engaged in this kind of climate forecast verification with respect to the IPCC, but it is worth doing.

So I have decided to take him up on this and present an example of what such a verification might look like. I have heard some claims lately that global warming has stopped, based on temperature trends over the past decade. So global average temperature seems like a as good a place as any to provide an example.

I begin with the temperature trends. I have decided to use the satellite record provided by Remote Sensing Systems, mainly because of the easy access of its data. But the choice of satellite versus surface global temperature dataset should not matter, since these have been reconciled according to the IPCC AR4. Here is a look at the satellite data starting in 1998 through 2007.

This dataset starts with the record 1997/1998 ENSO event which boosted temperatures a good deal. It is interesting to look at, but probably not the best place to start for this analysis. A better place to start is with 2000, but not because of what the climate has done, but because this is the baseline used for many of the IPCC AR4 predictions.

Before proceeding, a clarification must be made between a prediction and a projection. Some have claimed that the IPCC doesn’t make predictions, it only makes projections across a wide range of emissions scenarios. This is just a fancy way of saying that the IPCC doesn’t predict future emissions. But make no mistake, it does make conditional predictions for each scenario. Enough years have passed for us to be able to say that global emissions have been increasing at the very high end of the family of scenarios used by the IPCC (closest to A1F1 for those scoring at home). This means that we can zero in on what the IPCC predicted (yes, predicted) for the A1F1 scenario, which has best matched actual emissions.

So how has global temperature changed since 2000? Here is a figure showing the monthly values, indicating that while there has been a decrease in average global temperature of late, the linear trend since 2000 is still positive.

But monthly values are noisy, and not comparable with anything produced by the IPCC, so let’s take a look at annual values.

The annual values result in a curve that looks a bit like an upwards sloping letter M.

The model results produced by the IPCC are not readily available, so I will work from their figures. In the IPCC AR4 report Figure 10.26 on p. 803 of Chapter 10 of the Working Group I report (here in PDF) provides predictions of future temperature as a function of emissions scenario. The one relevant for my purposes can be found in the bottom row (degrees C above 1980-2000 mean) and second column (A1F1).

I have zoomed in on that figure, and overlaid the RSS temperature trends 2000-2007 which you can see below.

AR4 Verification Example.png

Now a few things to note:

1. The IPCC temperature increase is relative to a 1980 to 2000 mean, whereas the RSS anomalies are off of a 1979 to 1998 mean. I don’t expect the differences to be that important in this analysis, particularly given the blunt approach to the graph, but if someone wants to show otherwise, I’m all ears.

2. It should be expected that the curves are not equal in 2000. The anomaly for 2000 according to RSS is 0.08, hence the red curve begins at that value. Figure 10.26 on p. 803 of Chapter 10 of the Working Group I report actually shows observed temperatures for a few years beyond 2000, and by zooming in on the graph in the lower left hand corner of the figure one can see that 2000 was in fact below the A1B curve.

So it appears that temperature trends since 2000 are not closely following the most relevant prediction of the IPCC. Does this make recent temperature trends inconsistent with the IPCC? I have no idea, and that is not the point of this post. I'll leave it to climate scientists to tell us the significance. I assume that many climate scientists will say that there is no significance to what has happened since 2000, and perhaps emphasize that predictions of global temperature are more certain in the longer term than shorter term. But that is not what the IPCC figure indicates. In any case, 2000-2007 may not be sufficient time for climate scientists to become concerned that their predictions are off, but I’d guess that at some point, if observations don’t match predictions they might be of some concern. Alternatively, if observations square with predictions, then this would add confidence.

Before one dismisses this exercise as an exercise in randomness, it should be observed that in other contexts scientists associated short term trends with longer-term predictions. In fact, one need look no further than the record 2007 summer melt in the Arctic which was way beyond anything predicted by the IPCC, reaching close to 3 million square miles less than the 1978-2000 mean. The summer anomaly was much greater than any of the IPCC predictions on this time scale (which can be seen in IPCC AR4 Chapter 10 Figure 10.13 on p. 771). This led many scientists to claim that because the observations were inconsistent with the models, that there should be heightened concern about climate change. Maybe so. But if one variable can be examined for its significance with respect to long-term projections, then surely others can as well.

What I’d love to see is a place where the IPCC predictions for a whole range of relevant variables are provided in quantitative fashion, and as corresponding observations come in, they can be compared with the predictions. This would allow for rigorous evaluations of both the predictions and the actual uncertainties associated with those predictions. Noted atmospheric scientist Roger Pielke, Sr. (my father, of course) has suggested that three variables be looked at: lower tropospheric warming, atmospheric water vapor content, and oceanic heat content. And I am sure there are many other variables worth looking at.

Forecast evaluations also confer another advantage – they would help to move beyond the incessant arguing about this or that latest research paper and focus on true tests of the fidelity of our ability to forecast future states of the climate system. Making predictions and them comparing them to actual events is central to the scientific method. So everyone in the climate debate, whether skeptical or certain, should welcome a focus on verification of climate forecasts. If the IPCC is indeed settled science, then forecast verifications will do nothing but reinforce that conclusion.

For further reading:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2003: The role of models in prediction for decision, Chapter 7, pp. 113-137 in C. Canham and W. Lauenroth (eds.), Understanding Ecosystems: The Role of Quantitative Models in Observations, Synthesis, and Prediction, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. (PDF)

Sarewitz, D., R.A. Pielke, Jr., and R. Byerly, Jr., (eds.) 2000: Prediction: Science, decision making and the future of nature, Island Press, Washington, DC. (link) and final chapter (PDF).

Posted on January 7, 2008 05:12 PM View this article | Comments (1)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Prediction and Forecasting | Scientific Assessments

Deja Vu All Over Again

The Washington Post had a excellent story yesterday by Marc Kaufman describing NASA’s intentions to increase the flight rate of the Space Shuttle program. This is remarkable, and as good an indication as any that NASA has not yet learned the lessons of its past.

According to the Post:

Although NASA has many new safety procedures in place as a result of the Columbia accident, the schedule has raised fears that the space agency, pressured by budgetary and political considerations, might again find itself tempting fate with the shuttles, which some say were always too high-maintenance for the real world of space flight.

A NASA official is quoted in the story:

"The schedule we've made is very achievable in the big scheme of things. That is, unless we get some unforeseen problems."

The Post has exactly the right follow up to this comment:

The history of the program, however, is filled with such problems -- including a rare and damaging hailstorm at the Kennedy Space Center last year as well as the shedding of foam insulation that led to the destruction of Columbia and its crew in 2003. . . "This pressure feels so familiar," said Alex Roland, a professor at Duke University and a former NASA historian. "It was the same before the Challenger and Columbia disasters: this push to do more with a spaceship that is inherently unpredictable because it is so complex."

John Logsdon, dean of space policy experts and longtime supporter of NASA, recognizes the risks that NASA is taking:

Every time we launch a shuttle, we risk the future of the human space flight program. The sooner we stop flying this risky vehicle, the better it is for the program.

Duke University’s Alex Roland also hit the nail on the head;

Duke professor Roland said that based on the shuttle program's history, he sees virtually no possibility of NASA completing 13 flights by the deadline. He predicted that the agency would ultimately cut some of the launches but still declare the space station completed.
"NASA is filled with can-do people who I really admire, and they will try their best to fulfill the missions they are given," he said. "What I worry about is when this approach comes into conflict with basically impossible demands. Something has to give."

It is instructive to look at the 1987 report of the investigation of the House Science Committee into the 1986 Challenger disaster, which you can find online here in PDF (thanks to Rad Byerly and Ami Nacu-Schmidt). That report contains lessons that apparently have yet to be fully appreciated, even after the loss of Columbia in 2003. Here is an excerpt from the Executive Summary (emphasis added, see also pp. 119-124):

The Committee found that NASA’s drive to achieve a launch schedule of 24 flights per year created pressure throughout the agency that directly contributed to unsafe launch operations. The Committee believes that the pressure to push for an unrealistic number of flights continues to exist in some sectors of NASA and jeopardizes the promotion of a "safety first" attitude throughout the Shuttle program.
The Committee, Congress, and the Administration have played a contributing role in creating this pressure. . . NASA management and the Congress must remember the lessons learned from the Challenger accident and never again set unreasonable goals which stress the system beyond its safe functioning.

One would hope that the House Science Committee has these lessons in mind and is paying close attention to decision making in NASA. It would certainly be appropriate for some greater public oversight of NASA decision making about the Shuttle flight rate and eventual termination. Otherwise, there is a good chance that such oversight will take place after another tragedy and the complete wreckage of the U.S. civilian space program.

For further reading:

Pielke Jr., R. A., 1993: A Reappraisal of the Space Shuttle Program. Space Policy, May, 133-157. (PDF)

Pielke Jr., R.A., and R. Byerly Jr., 1992: The Space Shuttle Program: Performance versus Promise in Space Policy Alternatives, edited by R. Byerly, Westview Press, Boulder, pp. 223-245. (PDF)

Posted on January 7, 2008 12:21 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Risk & Uncertainty | Science Policy: General | Space Policy

January 05, 2008

My Comments to Science on Hillary Clinton's Science Policy Plans

I was recently asked by Eli Kintisch at Science to comment on Hillary Clinton's recent discussion of science policies. Eli quotes a few of my comments in this week's Science, which has a special focus on the presidential candidates. My full reaction to Eli is below:

Hi Eli-
The document seems typical for this early stage of the campaign -- that is, it blends a heavy dose of political red meat, with the entirely vacuous, with hints of some innovative and perhaps even revolutionary new ideas, accompanied with a range of budget promises that almost certainly can't be met. But most significantly is the fact that she has put some science policy ideas forward to be discussed, which is far more than most other candidates of either party have done related to science.

*The red meat is all of the "I'm not George Bush" type statements, such as the stem cell proposal and re-elevation of the science advisor position.

*The vacuous includes the comment that you starred on political appointees. The meaning of this statement depends entirely on the definition of "legitimate basis" and "unwarranted supression" -- well, what is "legitimate" and "unwarranted"? -- as written it is a political Rorschach test, which can be good politics but certainly does nothing to clarify the specific science policies she would enact. Also, the idea that civil servants and scientists are free from politics in regulatory decision making probably needs more thinking through -- but balancing accountability and expertise probably requires more wonky discussion than a campaign sound bite can provide.

*The most innovative idea is the $50 billion strategic energy fund, which is short on details, but promises real money to an area desperately in need of support. This stands out as something really new and potentially very exciting.

*The promises that probably can't be met include keeping the Shuttle contractors in business while pursuing a new human spaceflight program, while at the same time fully funding earth sciences research and a new space-based climate research program, while putting NIH on a doubling trajectory over the next 10 years, not to mention a bit for aeronautics and the $50 billion for energy research. Good luck finding room in the R&D budget for all of that. But again, more politics than science policy, this time aimed at more specific constituencies looking to see that their concerns get some play.

The biggest criticism I have is the comment about the NIH budget, which her husband set on a doubling trajectory and which was completed under Bush. To suggest that NIH has suffered a lack of support is not a great argument. Also, a minor criticism, the part about the U.S. national assessment on climate change says that Bush hasn't released one for 6.5 years, but Clinton/Gore took more than 7 years to release theirs. The national assessment is more political red meat, and probably tangential to where the action is on climate issues anyway.

Hope this helps, please follow up if clarification is needed . . .

Best regards,

Roger

Roger Pielke, Jr.
University of Colorado

Posted on January 5, 2008 10:16 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Science + Politics | Science Policy: General | Technology Policy

January 02, 2008

Technology ,Trade, and U.S. Pollution

At the Vox blog Georgetown's Arik Levinson asks:

Since the 1970s, US manufacturing output has risen by 70% but air pollution has fallen by 58%. Was this due to improved abatement technology or shifting dirty production abroad?

He answers the question with some very nice empirical research. Here are his conclusions:

What is the bottom line? Increased net imports of polluting goods account for about 70 percent of the composition-related decline in US manufacturing pollution. The composition effect in turn explains about 40 percent of the overall decline in pollution from US manufacturing. Putting these two findings together, international trade can explain at most 28 percent of the clean-up of US manufacturing.

Why should we care?

If the 75% reduction in pollution from US manufacturing resulted from increased international trade, the pundits and protestors might have a case. Environmental improvements might be said to have imposed large, unmeasured environmental costs on the countries from which those goods are imported. And more importantly, the improvements in the US would not be replicable by all countries indefinitely, because the poorest countries in the world will never have even poorer countries from which to import their pollution-intensive goods. The US clean-up would simply have been the result of the US coming out ahead in an environmental zero-sum game, merely shifting pollution to different locations. However, if the US pollution reductions come from technology, nothing suggests those improvements cannot continue indefinitely and be repeated around the world. The analyses here suggest that most the pollution reductions have come from improved technology, that the environmental concerns of antiglobalization protesters have been overblown, and that the pollution reduction achieved by US manufacturing will replicable by other countries in the future.

Posted on January 2, 2008 09:07 AM View this article | Comments (2)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Technology and Globalization

Natural Disasters in Australia

Here (in PDF) is an interesting analysis by researchers at Macquarie University in Australia:

The collective evidence reviewed above suggests that social factors – dwelling numbers and values – are the predominant reasons for increasing building losses due to natural disasters in Australia. The role of anthropogenic climate change is not detectable at this time. This being the case, it seems logical approach that in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent investments be made to reduce society’s vulnerability to current and future climate and climate variability.

We are aware of few policies explicitly developed to help Australian communities adapt to future climate change (Leigh et al., 1998). One positive example is improved wind loading codes introduced in the 1980s as part of a National Building Code of Australia. These codes have been mentioned already and were introduced for all new housing construction following the destruction of Darwin by Tropical Cyclone Tracy in 1974. As a result, dramatic reductions in wind-induced losses were observed following Tropical Cyclones Winifred (1986) and Aivu (1989) (Walker, 1999) and most recently, Larry (2006) (Guy Carpenter, 2006). While these measures were introduced in response to the immediate threat from current climatic events, the benefits will hold true under any future.

An increased threat from bushfires under global climate change is often assumed. However, our analyses suggest that while the prevalence of conditions leading to bushfires is likely to increase, the impact is unlikely to be as dramatic as the combined changes of all of the other factors that have so far failed to materially affect the likelihood of bushfires losses over the last century. This is not to ignore the threat posed by global climate change, but, at least in the case of fire in Australia, the main menace will continue to be the extreme fires. The threat to the most at-risk homes on the bushland-urban interface can only be diminished by improved planning regulations that restrict where and how people build with respect to distance from the forest. Again these are political choices.

Posted on January 2, 2008 02:17 AM View this article | Comments (0)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters

January 01, 2008

Is there any weather inconsistent with the the scientific consensus on climate?

Two years ago I asked a question of climate scientists that never received a good answer. Over at the TierneyLab at the New York Times, John Tierney raises the question again:

What behavior of the climate system could hypothetically be observed over the next 1, 5, 10 years that would be inconsistent with the current consensus on climate change? My focus is on extreme events like floods and hurricanes, so please consider those, but consider any other climate metric or phenomena you think important as well for answering this question. Ideally, a response would focus on more than just sea level rise and global average temperature, but if these are the only metrics that are relevant here that too would be very interesting to know.

The answer, it seems, is "nothing would be inconsistent," but I am open to being educated. Climate scientists especially invited to weigh in in the comments or via email, here or at the TierneyLab.

And a Happy 2008 to all our readers!

Posted on January 1, 2008 10:26 AM View this article | Comments (7)
Posted to Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Scientific Assessments

December 26, 2007

End-of-2007 Hurricane-Global Warming Update

There are a few new papers out on hurricanes (or more generally, tropical cyclones) and global warming that motivate this update.

Before sharing these new papers, let me provide a bit of background.

Regular readers will know that I began studying hurricanes during my post-doc years at NCAR, and even co-authored a book on them (PDF) with my father. I've been fortunate to get to know many of the people in the science community who study hurricanes and also to become familiar with the literature on hurricanes and climate change.

Let me also remind readers that I believe that there is little policy significance in the debate over hurricanes and global warming. Why not? Because no matter who is right, it won't do much to alter the ranking of alternative policies focused on addressing future storm impacts. This is an argument I make in this recent paper, which I'll point to for interested readers:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2007. Future Economic Damage from Tropical Cyclones: Sensitivities to Societal and Climate Changes, Proceedings of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 365:2717-2729.(PDF)

But from a political perspective, the issue remains of considerable importance, as those advocating action on energy policies based on stemming the impacts from future cyclones place themselves far out on a thin limb. As tempting as it is to invoke the impacts of hurricanes as a justification for action on climate-related energy policies, it really should be a "no go zone."

In 2004, I along with Chris Landsea, Max Mayfield, Jim Laver, and Richard Pasch decided to prepare a short, accessible summary on the state of the debate over hurricanes and climate change, which ultimately was published as a peer-reviewed paper in 2005 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (PDF). In that paper we concluded that the debate over hurricanes (and their impacts) and climate change would not be resolved anytime soon, and we provided three reasons for this:

First, no connection has been established between greenhouse gas emissions and the observed behavior of hurricanes (Houghton et al. 2001; Walsh 2004). Emanuel (2005) is suggestive of such a connection, but is by no means definitive. In the future, such a connection may be established [e.g., in the case of the observations of Emanuel (2005) or the projections of Knutson and Tuleya (2004)] or made in the context of other metrics of tropical cyclone intensity and duration that remain to be closely examined. Second, the peer-reviewed literature reflects that a scientific consensus exists that any future changes in hurricane intensities will likely be small in the context of observed variability (Knutson and Tuleya 2004; Henderson-Sellers et al. 1998), while the scientific problem of tropical cyclogenesis is so far from being solved that little can be said about possible changes in frequency. And third, under the assumptions of the IPCC, expected future damages to society of its projected changes in the behavior of hurricanes are dwarfed by the influence of its own projections of growing wealth and population (Pielke et al. 2000). While future research or experience may yet overturn these conclusions, the state of the peer-reviewed knowledge today is such that there are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term.

If I might pat ourselves on our collective backs for a moment, these conclusions that we reached in 2005 were echoed in 2006 by a much more comprehensive assessment report prepared by the World Meteorological Organization:

A consensus of 125 of the world’s leading tropical cyclone researchers and forecasters says that no firm link can yet be drawn between human-induced climate change and variations in the intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones.

And then in 2007 by the IPCC. IPCC lead author Neville Nicholls characterized the report's conclusions on hurricanes and climate change as follows:

We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link.

So our 2005 paper has held up really well. Did we get some recognition from the IPCC for providing an accurate assessment of the state of the scientific debate and its relevance? Well, no. But maybe we at least could point to a citation in the relevant IPCC chapter, which of course summarized all of the peer-reviewed literature? Actually the IPCC ignored our review. It is not that they were unaware of it. The lead author for the relevant chapter (Chapter 3 of WG 1), Kevin Trenberth, said of our paper at the time it was released:

I think the role of the changing climate is greatly underestimated by Roger Pielke Jr. I think he should withdraw this article. This is a shameful article.

So, despite providing an accurate assessment of hurricanes and global warming in 2005 which was ultimately backed up by WMO and IPCC, given Kevin Trenberth's obvious bias against our views, we weren't really surprised to see our paper go uncited by the IPCC chapter that Kevin was lead author on. I did notice that Trenberth was somehow able to find room to mention his own work 95 times in that chapter, but I digress.

So our assessment of the state of the hurricane-global warming has held up really well. And in fact, I'd say that our assertion of the lack of a conclusive connection seems even stronger today. Over recent weeks I have become aware of 4 significant new papers on hurricanes and climate change that raise important questions about many aspects of the debate. I highlight these four papers not because they point toward certainty in the debate, quite the opposite: they indicate that the debate is alive and well, and uncertainty continues to reign on this subject. And unless you are paying attention to the literature, you'll probably never hear of these papers.

The first paper is one I mentioned a few weeks ago by Vecchi/Soden published in Nature . That paper suggested that identifying the signal of global warming in tropical cyclone behavior would be challenging in the context of ongoing climate variability. I wondered why that paper escaped media attention, despite being published in Nature and being a major contribution to the ongoing debate. Here are three other papers that will probably also escape media attention.

Statistician William Briggs has two new papers. One is in press with the Journal of Climate, and is titled "On the changes in number and intensity of North Atlantic tropical cyclones" (PDF). That paper concludes:

We find that to conclude that there has been an increase in the number of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic basin depends on from what date you start looking. Looking from 1900 gives strong evidence that an increase has taken place; however, data early from that period are certainly tainted by inadequate and missing observations, so the confidence we have in this evidence is greatly reduced. Starting from (the years around) 1966 does not give evidence of a linear increase, but starting from (the years around) 1975 does. These potential increases are noted after controlling for the effects of CTI, NAOI, and the AMO. These differences due to start date could be real, perhaps because of some underlying cyclicity in the data that coincidentally bottomed out around 1975 (after controlling for AMO etc.), or it may just be a good lesson that it's possible to pick and choose your starting date to argue either way: yes, there's been an increase, or no, there hasn't been.

Briggs is presenting a second paper at the upcoming AMS meeting in which he applies the same technique to other basins, in a paper titled, "Changes in number and intensity of tropical cyclones" (PDF). That paper concludes:

We find little evidence tha

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