The Midwest floods were rolling downstream last week, setting river stage records in Iowa, bursting levees on the Mississippi, and causing thousands to be displayed from their homes.  Billions have been lost in damaged and destroyed property and 24 lives lost.

In the midst of this tragedy, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) tried to capitalize on heightened public interest with an attempt to gain headlines by tying these tragic events to “global warming.” The EDF proclaimed:  Did Humans Cause the Midwest Flooding?  In the piece, EDF’s James Wang writes, “Another element [of the Midwest floods] may be global warming, which increases the probability of extreme weather events like torrential rain.” NCDC, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, headlined, Extreme Weather to Become More Common.  The respective headlines can be found here and here.

This is fear mongering, not the advancement of science.  And, it detracts from NOAA as a whole because its National Weather Service performed heroically - with its field staff working long hours coping with the floods and accompanying tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. It is unseemly to work to score public relations points when people are losing their homes, their crops, and their lives.

And, it leaves us to ponder a key question:  Does the science justify tying the Midwest floods to Global Warming? My answer?  An emphatic “no.” The record Midwest floods of 1993 and 2008 occurred after periods of rapid cooling.  The warmest year, 1998, did not have Midwest floods anywhere near the magnitude of those in 1993 and 2008.  It is my judgment the attempt to link the 2008 floods to Global “Warming” is completely unjustified.

Mike Smith is a certified consulting meteorologist and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the opinions stated above represent his personal point-of-view.  He is CEO of WeatherData Services, Inc., an AccuWeather Company, based in Wichita.  AccuWeather’s global warming blog can be viewed at: http://global-warming.accuweather.com/

Read more here.

There is another Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report that was made available yesterday. It is CCSP, 2008: Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate. It is led by the same individual, Tom Karl, Director of the National Climate Data Center, who produced the CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”, in which I resigned from and detailed the reasons in Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”. 88 pp including appendices.

This report perpetuates the use of assessments to promote a particular perspective on climate change, such as they write in the Executive Summary: “It is well established through formal attribution studies that the global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Such studies have only recently been used to determine the causes of some changes in extremes at the scale of a continent. Certain aspects of observed increases in temperature extremes have been linked to human influences. The increase in heavy precipitation events is associated with an increase in water vapor, and the latter has been attributed to human-induced warming.” This claim conflicts with the 2005 National Research Council report where a diversity of human climate forcings were found to alter global average radiative warming, including from atmospheric aersosols and due to the deposition of soot on snow and ice. The claim of an increase in atmospheric water vapor conflicts with a variety of observations as summarized on Climate Science (e.g. see).

To further illustrate the bias in the report, the assessment chose to ignore peer reviewed research that raises serious questions with respect to the temperature data that is used in their report. As just one example, they ignored research where we have shown major problems in the use of surface air temperature measurements to diagnose long term temperature trends including temperature extremes, including this. It was ignored. Yet the papers that use this land surface temperature data to claim changes in the extremes were included.

Since this assessment is so clearly biased, it should be rejected as providing adequate climate information to policymakers. There also should be questions raised concerning having the same individuals preparing these reports in which they are using them to promote their own perspective on the climate, and deliberately excluding peer reviewed papers that disagree with their viewpoint and research papers. This is a serious conflict of interest. Read more here.

The famous physicist Niels Bohr is attributed with saying that “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” Anyone who pays attention to weather forecasts or economic predictions knows how true this is. But given that the future can’t be predicted with perfect accuracy, seeing predictions fail is actually an important part of their usefulness.  Whether one is faced with evacuating from a possible hurricane landfall or investing in a mutual fund, decision-making is improved when uncertainties are readily understood.

On the highly politicized issue of climate change, however, understanding uncertainties is made difficult when scientists advocating for action oversell the predictive capabilities of climate models, such as those of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But action on climate change makes sense even if many climate scientists oversell predictive capabilities.

Scientists oversell the predictive capacity of climate models when they claim that the most recent weather events occurring around the world are consistent with predictions from climate models. For example, last fall a scientist who had contributed to the most recent IPCC reports said that the intense southern California wildfires occurring at the time “are consistent with what the latest modeling shows.” Similarly, in 2006 a Berkeley professor and climate change expert asserted that “the current heat waves throughout much of North America and Europe are consistent with the predictions of our global climate models.” A quick Internet search will reveal countless scientists who have made such claims about the predictive prowess of climate models.

But what does it mean to say that some weather events are “consistent with” climate model predictions?  The implication of such statements of course is that models are reliable and offer accurate predictions that have been borne out by experience. But unfortunately, the real answer is that saying that any recent weather events are “consistent with” model predictions is an empty statement. Read more here.

Roger Pielke, Jr. is a professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado and a former director of its Center for Science and Technology Policy Research

With the failure of the Lieberman-Warner global-warming bill in the Senate last Friday, I am reminded of the long and grand tradition the scientific community has had in promoting “bad science.” (It is mere coincidence that the acronym for this term is “BS.") While the failure of the carbon cap-and-trade legislation was largely a result of economic concerns over what it would cost the country, its proponents will no doubt return next year with claims that no price is too great to save us from planetary destruction.

But I believe that the huge cost of “doing something” substantial about global warming will inevitably cause us to reexamine the science. Just how certain are we that recent warming really has been caused by SUVs spewing carbon dioxide and cows belching methane? After all, the greater the cost of the advertised fixes, the more certain we must be that the scientific consensus really is more than just a political statement.

And why should the science of global warming be so uncertain? Mostly because it is a whole lot easier to make scientific measurements than it is to figure out what those measurements are telling us about how the natural world works. The famous humorist and writer Mark Twain once said, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

I consider the theory that global warming is caused by mankind to be just one more example of the continuing tradition scientists have of extrapolating well beyond what they think they know. In his 1883 book Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain also expressed perfectly the proclivity of scientists for turning observations of the natural world into long range predictions which were clearly outlandish. Twain humorously extrapolated an observed change in the length of the Mississippi River forward and back in time by millions of years to demonstrate the absurdity of the conclusions one can reach when one assumes something currently observed will continue to happen at the same rate, indefinitely. Twain famously concluded “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact.”

Possibly the most prolific purveyor of failed environmental predictions is the MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” recipient, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich. Beginning in the 1960s, Dr. Ehrlich embarked on a series of premonitions that included dead oceans by 1979, hundreds of thousands of smog deaths in cities, pesticide-related cancers reducing average life expectancy to 42 years by 1980, and such an abuse of pesticides that would cause other countries to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. out of fear of global poisoning. Read much more here.

Climate experts agree that the seriousness of manmade global warming depends greatly upon how clouds in the climate system respond to the small warming tendency from the extra carbon dioxide mankind produces. To figure that out, climate researchers usually examine natural, year-to-year fluctuations in clouds and temperature to estimate how clouds will respond to humanity’s production of greenhouse gases.

When researchers observe natural changes in clouds and temperature, they have traditionally assumed that the temperature change caused the clouds to change, and not the other way around. To the extent that the cloud changes actually cause temperature change, this can ultimately lead to overestimates of how sensitive Earth’s climate is to our greenhouse gas emissions. This seemingly simple mix-up between cause and effect is the basis of a new paper that will appear in the “Journal of Climate.” The paper’s lead author, Dr. Roy W. Spencer, a principal research scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, believes the work is the first step in demonstrating why climate models produce too much global warming.

Spencer and his co-author, principal research scientist William (Danny) Braswell, used a simple climate model to demonstrate that something as seemingly innocuous as daily random variations in cloud cover can cause year-to-year variation in ocean temperature that looks like—but isn’t—“positive cloud feedback,” a warmth-magnifying process that exists in all major climate models. “Our paper is an important step toward validating a gut instinct that many meteorologists like myself have had over the years,” said Spencer, “that the climate system is dominated by stabilizing processes, rather than destabilizing processes—that is, negative feedback rather than positive feedback.”

The paper doesn’t disprove the theory that global warming is manmade. Instead, it offers an alternative explanation for what we see in the climate system which has the potential for greatly reducing estimates of mankind’s impact on Earth’s climate. “Since the cloud changes could conceivably be caused by known long-term modes of climate variability—such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or El Nino and La Nina—some, or even most, of the global warming seen in the last century could simply be due to natural fluctuations in the climate system,” Spencer said. Read abstract here.

There is an article in Scientific American by David Biello entitled “Impure as the Driven Snow - Smut is a bigger problem than greenhouse gases in polar meltdown”. The article states that “Belching from smokestacks, tailpipes and even forest fires, soot-or black carbon-can quickly sully any snow on which it happens to land. In the atmosphere, such aerosols can significantly cool the planet by scattering incoming radiation or helping form clouds that deflect incoming light. But on snow-even at concentrations below five parts per billion-such dark carbon triggers melting, and may be responsible for as much as 94 percent of Arctic warming. Photo courtesy od NOAA’s Mark Dennett.

“Impurities cause the snow to darken and absorb more sunlight,” says Charlie Zender, a climate physicist at the University of California, Irvine. “A surprisingly large temperature response is caused by a surprisingly small amount of impurities in snow in polar regions.”

Zender, physicist Mark Flanner and other colleagues built a model to examine how soot impacts temperature in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Temperatures in the northern polar region have already risen by 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.88 degrees Fahrenheit) since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The researchers incorporated information on soot produced by burning fossil fuels, wood and other biofuels, along with that naturally produced by forest fires and then checked their model predictions against global measurements of soot levels in polar snow from Sweden to Alaska to Russia and in Antarctica as well as in nonpolar areas such as the Tibetan Plateau.

The researchers also took into account the natural darkening of snow as it ages. “The larger crystals eat the smaller ones and get larger, and that means they get darker and absorb more sunlight,” Zender explains. “When soot is there it heats the snow. It acts like a little toaster oven.”

This article builds on a growing set of evidence on the major role of the deposition of soot on snow and ice as a contributor to radiative warming from what it would be in the absence of human activity. Climate Science has posted weblogs on this subject (e.g. see and see) and it is welcome that much needed attention is finally being given to this topic.

Demands to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other greenhouse gases are intensifying. Many environmental groups, foreign governments, state governors, the Congress, and presidential candidates assert that the only way to avoid a climate catastrophe is to prevent emissions from reaching levels that constitute dangerous interference with the climate system. To achieve that end, the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 60% or more by mid-century from some recent level, such as 2005 is promoted. Is such a goal achievable? At what cost? The answers to those questions are overwhelmed by the appeal to the dire consequences of supposedly failing to act, but they are significant to any calculation of the feasibility of a public policy for addressing climate change and the mix of energy sources. Advocates claim that such reductions are achievable with existing and almost commercial technology and without imposing serious economic harm on economies. Such fanciful claims divert attention from the true crux of the issue, which is how can the world reconcile its growing energy needs and reduce the extreme poverty of 1.6 billion people with demands to reduce CO2 emissions.

The Energy Information Administration estimates that fossil energy-coal, oil, and gas-will remain our dominant sources of energy for decades to come. So, where will the gigaton reduction in CO2 emissions come from while the population and economy are growing? The reality is that the technologies needed for reductions on the scale demanded do not exist. When and if they do come into existence, it will take decades to put them in place because the nation’s capital stock turns over slowly. Nuclear power is one alternative to coalgenerated electricity, but it is currently more expensive and faces continued political opposition. Ironically, some cap and trade proponents also oppose more nuclear power. Natural gas, which is also a substitute, is rising in price because of political decisions preventing increased domestic production. Forcing utilities to shift to natural gas will drive its price higher, impacting home owners and driving investments in industries like chemicals overseas. There also is no abundant and affordable substitute for gasoline and diesel fuels in the near term.

The bottom line is that a growing population and growing economy are not compatible with lower emissions, given the state of today’s technology and the technologies that could be in the market in the next decade. Proponents of cap and trade legislation should be held accountable for reconciling their assertions with economic, energy and technology realities. It is hard to understand why thoughtful senators would support a legislative approach that is so obviously flawed. The only explanation is a willingness to embrace an illusion because the facts are not politically expedient. A number of people claimed in 1997 that the Kyoto Protocol would fail, and it has. Cap and trade schemes also will fail and we challenge advocates to show us why they won’t have the same fate as Kyoto. Assertions and well meaning intentions are not a substitute for cold, hard facts. Read full detailed analysis here.

I see that we are once again having to hear how NASA’s James Hansen was dissuaded from talking to the press on a few of the 1,400 media interviews he was involved in over the years.

Well, I had the same pressure as a NASA employee during the Clinton-Gore years, because NASA management and the Clinton/Gore administration knew that I was skeptical that mankind’s CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming. I was even told not to give my views during congressional testimony, and so I purposely dodged a question, under oath, when it arose.

But I didn’t complain about it like Hansen has. NASA is an executive branch agency and the President was, u
ltimately, my boss (and is, ultimately, Hansen’s boss). So, because of the restrictions on what I could and couldn’t do or say, I finally just resigned from NASA and went to work for the University here in Huntsville. There were no hard feelings, and I’m still active in a NASA satellite mission and fully supportive of its Earth observation programs.

In stark contrast, Jim Hansen said whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to the press and congress during that time. He even campaigned for John Kerry, and received a $250,000 award from Theresa Heinz-Kerry’s charitable foundation—two events he maintains are unrelated. If I had done anything like this when I worked at NASA, I would have been crucified under the Hatch Act. Does anyone besides me see a double standard here?  See Roy’s Global Warming and Nature’s thermostat site here. See also Roy’s response on this blog post on Climate Science to another Real Climate Rant about his recently published paper in the Journal of Climate.