Re: [asa] Creation Care

On 1/21/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
> But -- what is more likely to get publicized, to draw funding, resources,
> notoriety, a cover in Science or Nature or Time, etc: a study that says
> human produced greenhouse gasses will cause 20 degrees of warming by 2110,
> putting New York and LA entirely underwater, or a study that says the more
> likely range is 2-5 degrees, causing relatively modest disruption?

Let's look at last's week Science to see what gets published:

"A semi-empirical relation is presented that connects global sea-level
rise to global mean surface temperature. It is proposed that, for time
scales relevant to anthropogenic warming, the rate of sea-level rise
is roughly proportional to the magnitude of warming above the
temperatures of the pre–Industrial Age. This holds to good
approximation for temperature and sea-level changes during the 20th
century, with a proportionality constant of 3.4 millimeters/year per
°C. When applied to future warming scenarios of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, this relationship results in a projected
sea-level rise in 2100 of 0.5 to 1.4 meters above the 1990 level."

This is the kind of articles that are always in the premier journals.
When you review the literature as Randy and I have you do not find the
apocolyptic predictions which could not survive peer review but the
more moderate defensible positions like above. BTW, the modest
increases such as above IS the consensus. More below.

   I think
> the NY Times article I linked in the discussion thread is telling here: why
> are the climate scientists who accept human induced warming but project more
> modest effects called "heretics?" Why do even mainstream climate scientists
> feel threatened if they don't speak in catastrophic terms?

The problem with the NY Times article is the so-called heretics have
the same views as mainstream climate scientists. Those who project
more modest effects are not called heretics they are called
mainstream. Far from feeling threatened they still give the more
moderate predictions because those are the ones that are
scientifically defensible. See here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/01/consensus-as-the-new-heresy

"In reading about the new 'heretics' then, one might have expected
that associated with them would be statements that would contradict
IPCC or that we (as mainstream scientists who do not claim to be
heretics) would otherwise find objectionable. So let's consider the
specific tenets of the 'new heresy' mentioned in the article:

From Carl Wunsch: 'It seems worth a very large premium to insure
ourselves against the most catastrophic scenarios. Denying the risk
seems utterly stupid. Claiming we can calculate the probabilities with
any degree of skill seems equally stupid'. Agreed.

"Many in this camp seek a policy of reducing vulnerability to all
climate extremes while building public support for a sustained shift
to nonpolluting energy sources". Sensible.

There is "no *firm* evidence of a heat-triggered strengthening in
storms in recent years" (our emphasis). Well, what the WMO statement
to which this assertion is attributed actually said was (first bullet
point): "Though there is evidence both for and against the existence
of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate
record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point." We
agree with that statement - this particular subject is definitely in a
state of flux.

"Recent increase[s] in the impact of storms was because of more people
getting in harm's way, not stronger storms". Again, the WMO report did
not state this. What it stated was (third bullet point of statement;
emphasis added): "The recent increase in societal impact from tropical
cyclones has largely been caused by rising concentrations of
population and infrastructure in coastal regions". These are not quite
the same. Once again, we agree with what the WMO actually said.
Interestingly, the second bullet point of the WMO statement, not
mentioned in the article, "No individual tropical cyclone can be
directly attributed to climate change" was voiced by us more than a
year ago.

"Global warming is real, it's serious, but it's just one of many
global challenges that we're facing,". Of course.

From Mike Hulme: "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," he wrote. "I believe climate change is real, must be faced and
action taken. But the discourse of catastrophe is in danger of tipping
society onto a negative, depressive and reactionary trajectory."
Agreed. And we said much the same thing when commenting on the
'Climate Porn' report.

"It is best not to gloss over uncertainties". Duh!

"efforts to attribute recent weather extremes to the climate trend,
though they may generate headlines in the short run, distract from the
real reasons to act". We couldn't agree more, and have stated as much
before.

"'An Inconvenient Truth' may push too hard". Perhaps at last, there is
a (moderate) difference of opinion. We agree with Eric's review of the
movie earlier this year, i.e. while there were a few things to quibble
with, Gore got the science basically right.

The only substantial disagreement, then, is over a movie review. On
all other points of substance the 'heresy' and the old orthodoxy are
the same."

...
"Much of the sensationalist talk in the public discourse (and to which
the scientists in the piece, and we, rightly take exception) are not
the pronoucements of serious scientists in the field, but distorted
and often out-of-context quotes that can be further mangled upon
frequent repetition. We have often criticised such pieces (here, or
here for instance) and it is important to note that the 'shrill voices
of doom' referred to by Mike Hulme were not scientists, but
campaigners."
...
The plain fact is that the vast majority of scientific judgement on
this issue - as outlined in the IPCC documents including the AR4
coming up in February- does indeed cover the 'middle stance', which we
would state as being in agreement with the statement of the National
Academies of the G8 last year that 'the scientific understanding of
climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking
prompt action'. As Jim Hansen states in his quote - it's still
surprising that there are some people who don't know this yet.

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Received on Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:54:54 -0700