I think that climate scientists should welcome the interest of the House Energy and Commerce committee as an opportunity to make their case. I don’t know much about Barton and I’ve only seen him in the E&C hearings, but he’s obviously a smart guy and I think that you have to take his comments about a serious interest in the issues at face value. He’s exactly the sort of guy that you have to engage. You should be thankful for the engagement.

It is irresponsible for people who are worried about climate policy to get into ridiculous controversies over withholding data and code. If you think that climate policy is serious, this argument is unwinnable. People like yourself should be telling Mann, Briffa, Jones, Jacoby, Lonnie Thompson, the whole crowd, to clean up their act pronto. Archive their code and data right now. They are dragging your community through the mud. It’s you that should be protesting about it, not me.

People who are worried about AGW should be anxious to get rid of bad and irrelevant arguments. Get rid of all the self-indulgent stuff in IPCC 4 AR – a history of climate science??? OK in an academic book, but not in an assessment report. Why should a nickel of policy money go to this sort of puffery?

If the hockey stick doesn’t matter, than IPCC 4AR should get rid of the corresponding paleoclimate section in IPCC 4AR, rather than trying to buttress it with equally vulnerable articles.

“…it is all about the broader issue of whether or not GW is anthropogenic or not. On this front the scientific battle has been over for quite some time, thus there is no moral equivalency in this political debate.”

Oh, really? According to the NASA GISS surface data, the total warming from 1885 to 2005 was approximately 1.0 degree Celsius:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt

How much of that temperature change was anthropogenic, and how much was not anthropogenic?

For extra credit, how much of the portion that you think is anthropogenic would you assign to greenhouse GASES (e.g., CO2, methane) versus other anthropogenic factors (e.g. land use changes, or anthropogenic emissions of aerosols).

Note: If you think anthropegenic aerosols (or land use changes) have a negative net forcing, you could have a result something like this. (These numbers are completely hypothetical…you obviously know the real answers.)

Natural = 0.3 deg Celsius

Anthropogenic GHGs = 0.5 deg Celsius

Anthropogenic land use change = 0.3 deg Celsius

Anthropogenic aerosols = -0.1 deg Celius

Total = 0.3 + 0.5 + 0.3 – 0.1 = 1.0 deg Celsius

Mark (An Enquiring Mind, Wanting to Know)

Thanks. I think we have plowed this ground before, so I’ll be brief.

1. Politicization of sceince is inevitable and desriable.

2. But there are healthy and unheathy ways to politicize science.

3. Pathological politicized science includes stealth issue advocacy when a scientist claims to be discussing only science but is using teh science to advance a particular agenda.

4. There is nothing wrong with striaght out advocacy for a particular agenda — that is democracy at work — so long as it is recognized that such advocacy goes well beyond science.

5. There can be a problem when all or most scientists engage in straight out advocacy. What can be lost is new and innovative options. So I recommend that some, hopefully authoritative groups like the NRC or IPCC, might play the role of honest broker of policy options — presenting a broad spectrum of choices and their relationship with the state of the science.

For the gory details, please buy the book

I have the very clear impression that you think James Hasen is wrong to be “advocating policy”. Perhaps if you could give me a clear answer as to why that is (if it is) I would begin to understand your views.

On your 1a – the HS isn’t irrelevant to D&A. Its just that its only one bit of it.

Thanks for your comments. A few replies.

1a. The HS debate is not about detection and attribution. To the extent that it is, it is because the IPCC presented it in such a fashion. If indeed it is not relevant to D&A or policy more generally, as most people now seem to agree, then the IPCC made a big mistake including it in a Summary for Policymakers as it was not policy relevant!

1b. I have no problem with political battles – that is how we get the business of society done. I do take issue with people who hide their political battles behind science – which we see often at both camps of the HS debate, and among various bloggers.

2. You have oversimplified my views here. Don’t forget that I testified last week before Congress as well — I may not get an invite back — but I did try to present the policy significance of my work. When the transcript is available, have a look at the questions by Rep. Shays on policy options, very interesting. Experts who testify without placing their work into policy context run the most risk of being used as pawns in the process. Compare von Storch’s testimony with the others, for instance.

Hansen in particular has taken an advocacy stance on the climate issue, so there was absolutely no reason for him not to appear. His reason for not appearing was absurd. We all have a duty in my view to respond when called by the government that funds our research (and in Hansen’s case pays his salary). As I have said many times, the best way for scientists to depoliticize the science is to explicitly address the significance of science for policy options. Scientists can do this in advocacy fashion (i.e., picking an option or camp and getting behind it) or in honest broker fashion (i.e., by associating the science with a range of consistent options).

3. I don’t get #3. Want to try again?

———-
[excerpt from July 2005 Nature interview with RK Pachauri - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7047/full/436007a.html

"Was it unwise to give Mann's 'hockey stick' so much prominence in the IPCC's summary for policy-makers?

No. It is no exaggeration and it doesn't contradict the rest of the IPCC assessment. Of course you can always argue about details. But we assess all the available literature, and we found the hockey stick was consistent with that."

[My comments]

The fact that he is even being asked this question should be enough for him to offer a more nuanced reply. How about: “I am sure that at the time we would have done nothing different. but with the advantage of hindsight, it is clear that by emphasizing a single study we opened the door for a narrow debate, when the IPCC presents a large body of literature to reach conclusions that do not depend critically upon any one single paper.”
————-

The IPCC could have easily have convened a panel or committee of outside experts (chaired by someone critical but fair like Hans von Storch) to take a look at its review procedures and address some of the questions that have been raised about its use of the HS in its report. If nothing else this would have indicated a willingness to address criticisms, and engage in a bit more transparency. I have documented other somewhat questionable actions by the IPCC in its WGII (on disaster damages and storm surge) that suggest that there might be reason to take an independent look at the process. Just about every organization undergoes outside, independent evaluation, so why not the IPCC? It has done nothing remotely like this. A consequence is that it has fed rather than defused the politics of the HS debate.

Thanks!

I would like to call you out on two or three points I see as unfair or internally inconsistent.

1. You present this battle with a false equivalency between the sides. Obviously, the Hockey Stick is not being debated in congress because of its concern about the appropriate use of statistics in the field of dendrochronology, it is all about the broader issue of whether or not GW is anthropogenic or not. On this front the scientific battle has been over for quite some time, thus there is no moral equivalency in this political debate. As such, I have a lot of trouble with you condeming scientists and bloggers who “wage their political battles through the science”. How can it possibly be otherwise when the scientific battle is over and only the political battle rages?

2. You (quite rightly) note that scientists are allowing themselves to be used as political pawns in a process that you agree with Rep. Inslee is not at all about what it claims to be about, yet only a few days ago you were very critical of James Hansen for declining to be so used. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, it seems.

3. After all this complaining about scientists politicizing their work, you turn around and criticism these same folks because they could have “defused the hockey stick debate a long time ago by taking a conciliatory stance with respect to the critics”, a completely political tactic.

Thanks for your attention.

Has it? How can it? There hasn’t been a report since. Unless you mean the AR4 text. Or do you mean reactions by individuals associated with the IPCC? I’m not sure – can you clarify please.