Thomson Scientific has an interesting interview with NOAA’s Chris Landsea online here. In the interview Chris discusses our work on normalized hurricane losses as well as the recent debate over hurricanes and global warming. According to Thomson Scientific, Chris is the 2nd most highly cited scientist in the world on tropical cyclones 1996-February 28, 2006, and he also has the 2nd most cites per paper. You can see an interesting map of the most cited papers on tropical cyclones here.

Last month I wrote an invited op-ed on the importance of adaptation in climate policy for the Guardian Unlimited, the online website of the Guardian newspaper, published in the UK. There won’t be much new to frequent readers here. The op-ed can be found here. Comments welcomed!

For about the past two years I have served on the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Federal Relations Advisory Committee (FRAC). One issue that occupies a lot of the time and attention of the FRAC is the pursuit of congressional earmarks. In the FRAC we have discussed earmarking priorities for the campus, heard from faculty who want to pursue an earmark, and heard status reports from our lobbyists on prospects for earmarks. It is safe to say that federal earmarks have been a pretty high priority of the FRAC, at least during my time on the committee.

Long-time readers of Prometheus may recall these two pieces (here and here) from the past 18 months in which I have discussed the issue of congressional earmarks and my sense that the issue needs some attention here at CU-Boulder. However, aside from these pieces that allude to our discussions in the FRAC, in general I have stayed away from publicizing my concerns with Colorado-Boulder’s approach to academic earmarks and sought to work within the system to create effective change. No more.

Last week I resigned from the FRAC not only because I have found the campus approach to dealing with earmarks far too ad hoc for a major university, but because I viewed the process within the FRAC for potentially improving the approach to earmarking to be ineffective. After two years my patience has run out for working within the system and I have decided to simply make my case in a more public manner. So just like a policy wonk I have written an op-ed for our campus paper, which I am certain will make some people on campus a bit unhappy with me. The op-ed appears in the 9 November 2006 issue of the Silver & Gold Record, the newspaper for faculty and staff at the University of Colorado.

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These are just a few random thoughts on the morning after a historic U.S. midterm election about the possible consequences for science and technology policies. In an effort to be fair, I should add a disclaimer to note that I had the opportunity to work for the Democrats in 1991 in the House Science Committee under Congressman George Brown (D-CA). Seeing what happened to many of my friends and former colleagues when control of the House changed over in 1994 left a sour taste with me, and not just for the Gingrich Republicans, but more generally for the arrogance of political partisanship. I believe that the seeds of the current Republican loss are found not just in the policies of the Bush Administration (but to be sure, this plays a big part), but more deeply in how Republicans have managed their control over Congress since 1994. So I will admit to some personal satisfaction in seeing the tide turn once again. With that out of the way, here are some thoughts about the 110th Congress.

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We are happy to release a new paper and dataset on normalized U.S. hurricane damages for the period 1900-2005. The paper and dataset can be found here. Please note that we are releasing the paper and the data upon submission for publication, so changes may result from the process of peer review. Comments are welcomed. In particular we are interested in hearing how people are using the dataset. I’ll be discussing the data in various future posts. Here is what one of our normalization schemes looks like, 1900-2005.

We wrote this piece (in PDF) for The Atlantic Monthly in 2000. It seems to have held up pretty well since then, though it is true that in this piece we don’t talk much about energy policy. If climate policy is to do any better than it present performance– both with respect to adaptation and mitigation — than a reframing of the issue is going to be necessary. Right now the approach is simply to turn up the volume on a framing that is fundamentally flawed. It’s a bit like talking louder to someone who doesn’t speak your language. Sure, you’ll get their attention, but eventually they’ll tune you out.

Have a look at our paper, comments welcomed.

Just over the horizon.

I’d like to see if we can push up that 30 April 2007 date. I’ll also see if we can swing some sort of discount for Prometheus readers

Mike Hulme, Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has written a thoughtful, accurate, and brave op-ed for the BBC on the curent state of the climate debate. Here is how he begins:

Climate change is a reality, and science confirms that human activities are heavily implicated in this change.

But over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country – the phenomenon of “catastrophic” climate change.

It seems that mere “climate change” was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be “catastrophic” to be worthy of attention.

The increasing use of this pejorative term – and its bedfellow qualifiers “chaotic”, “irreversible”, “rapid” – has altered the public discourse around climate change.

This discourse is now characterised by phrases such as “climate change is worse than we thought”, that we are approaching “irreversible tipping in the Earth’s climate”, and that we are “at the point of no return”.

I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.

It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the (catastrophe) sceptics. How the wheel turns.

His comments about being chastised for not going far enough in his pronouncements on climate change strike a chord very familiar to me. Comments by Mike Hulme echo those made by Steve Rayner, Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr, and others. Could it be that we are seeing the emergence of more responsible leadership on climate change among the scientific community? It sure looks that way.

Thanks Mike for speaking out.

This news story about an all-too-predictable spat between Kevin Trenberth and Bill Gray reminds me that we are overdue to provide an update on the issue of hurricanes and global warming.

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Fred Pearce at the New Scientist apprently thinks that if you are critical of the IPCC, then you must be one of those nasty “sceptics.” He writes in a news story:

Some insiders suggest that the IPCC may be more cautious in its upcoming report than it has been in the past, but this is unlikely to placate climate-change sceptics. Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado, Boulder, accuses the IPCC leadership of “seeing their role as political advocates rather than honest brokers”.

Of course, as readers here know well, Mr. Pearce is just wrong (I’ve emailed the New Scientist as well). I accept the results of IPCC Working Group I and have for many years advocated policy action on both adaptation and mitigation. Mr. Pearce’s lumping me in with the sceptics is particularly ironic because his entire article is a preemptive defense of IPCC scientists who are “targets of concerted attacks apparently designed to bring down their reputations and careers.” If Mr. Pearce wanted to know my views he might have just called, rather than assuming that anyone who puts forth a criticism of the IPCC must be a climate sceptic.

It must be nice to see the world in terms of only good guys and bad guys, with not a shade of grey in sight.