Climate Science Weblog
I have been interviewed by Hans von Storch for the August issue of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the AGU Newsletter. The interview is reproduced below. Comments that have been made on the interview can be read on Hans’s weblog Die Klimazwiebel.
Hans von Storch
Roger A. Pielke Sr. is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado and a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University. Pielke has studied weather and climate on local, regional and global scales using both models and observations throughout an over 40 year career. He has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books including “Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling” (1984; 2002), “The Hurricane” (1990), “Human Impacts on Weather and Climate” (1995; 2006), “Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts” (1997) and “Storms” (1999). Roger Pielke Sr. was elected a Fellow of the AMS in 1982 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004. He has served as Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Review and Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. He is currently serving on the AGU Focus Group on Natural Hazards (August 2009-present) and the AMS Committee on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification (October 2009-present). Dr. Pielke has also published over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 50 chapters in books, and made over 700 presentations during his career to date. A listing of papers can be viewed at the project website. He is among one of three faculty and one of four members listed by ISI HighlyCited in Geosciences at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, respectively.
Hans von Storch Question
Prof Pielke, you are an atmospheric scientist - what were the main scientific issues you have tackled in your long professional career?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
Our research team has investigated a wide range of climate processes. This includes studies in meteorology, hydrology, ecology and oceanography. Among our findings has been the clear demonstration of the close coupling between land surface processes and weather. I have also worked extensively to improve our understanding of the transport and dispersion of air pollution, as well as ways to reduce the risk from this environmental hazard.
Hans von Storch Question
How do you weigh the role and the potentials of models?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
Models are powerful tools with which to understand how the climate system works on multi-decadal time scale as long as there are observations to compare reality with the model simulations. However, when they are used for predictions of environmental and societal impacts decades from now in which there is no data to validate them, such as the IPCC predictions decades into the future, they present a level of forecast skill to policymakers that does not exist. These predictions are, in reality model sensitivity studies and as such this major limitation in their use as predictions needs to be emphasized. Unless accompanied by an adequate recognition of this large uncertainty they imply a confidence in the skill of the results that is not present.
Hans von Storch Question
You have become known for dissenting views in the present debate about the perspective of anthropogenic climate change. For example, you stress the role of land uses chances as another key driver in influencing our climate. Could you outline your position?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
My perspective is summarized in a recent publication with 18 other Fellows of the American Geophysical Union in an EOS article titled “Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases” [Pielke Sr. et al., 2009]. We wrote “the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment did not sufficiently acknowledge the importance of these other human climate forcings in altering regional and global climate and their effects on predictability at the regional scale” and because “global climate models do not accurately simulate (or even include) several
of these other first order human climate forcings, policymakers must be made aware of the inability of the current generation of models to accurately forecast regional climate risks to resources on multidecadal time scales.”
Hans von Storch Question
If you were right, how would the range of options for response measures for limiting man-made climate change within certain bounds differ from what is commonly considered?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
We need to recognize that the IPCC starts from an inappropriately narrow perspective that the human input greenhouse gases is the dominate environmental concern in the coming decades and then the IPCC presents policymakers with a resulting broad range of expected regional and local impacts. This is, however, at best a flawed significantly, incomplete approach.
The IPCC process should be inverted. In our 2009 EOS article that I referred to above, we recommend that the next assessment phase of the IPCC (and other such assessments) broaden its perspective to include all of the human climate forcings. It should also adopt a complementary and precautionary resource based assessment of the vulnerability of critical resources (those affecting water, food, energy, and human and ecosystem health) to environmental variability and change of all types. This should include, but not be limited to, the effects due to all of the natural and human caused climate variations and changes.
After these threats are identified for each resource, then the relative risk from natural and human-caused climate change (estimated from the GCM projections, but also the historical, paleo-record, and worst case sequences of events) can be compared with other environmental and social risks in order to adopt the optimal mitigation/adaptation strategy.
The issues we should focus on can be summarized in this set of questions:
1. Why is this resource important? How is it used? To what stakeholders is it valuable?
2. What are the key environmental and social variables that influence this resource?
3. What is the sensitivity of this resource to changes in each of these key variables? (this includes, but is not limited to, the sensitivity of the resource to climate variations and change on short (e.g. days); medium (e.g. seasons) and long (e.g. multi-decadal) time scales.
4. What changes (thresholds) in these key variables would have to occur to result in a negative (or positive) response to this resource?
5. What are the best estimates of the probabilities for these changes to occur? What tools are available to quantify the effect of these changes. Can these estimates be skillfully predicted?
6. What actions (adaptation/mitigation) can be undertaken in order to minimize or eliminate the negative consequences of these changes (or to optimize a positive response)?
7. What are specific recommendations for policymakers and other stakeholders?
I have been commissioned as Chief Editor of a set of five books which will apply this bottom-up, resource based perspective.
Hans von Storch Question
You have retired a few years ago from your active duty as a professor at Colorado State University. Did retirement present for you a loss of opportunities, for instance with respect to teaching, or an opening of new possibilities?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
I continue to work with graduate students at the University of Colorado, and at other institutions including Purdue University and the University of Alabama at Huntsville. I continue to be active in research and mentoring of younger scientists.
Hans von Storch Question
What would you consider the two most significant achievements in your career?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
First, the opportunity to mentor graduate students and postdoctoral research staff, a number of who have become leaders in atmospheric and climate science has been an achievement I am proud of. Second, the perspective that climate is an integrated nonlinear physical, chemical and biological system, which requires the understanding of all components of the atmosphere, ocean, land and cryosphere, is starting to become more widely accepted. I have sought to promote this view over the last 20 year. This broader view of climate as a complex, nonlinear geophysical system is more scientifically robust than has been presented in the IPCC reports.
Hans von Storch Question
When you look back in time, what where the most significant, exciting or surprising developments in atmospheric science?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
The ability to monitor the climate system from space has provided a much better understanding of climate as a system. We also are developing an improved recognition of the difficult challenges we face in seeking to skillfully predict climate decades from now. In terms of negative developments, the bias in the funding of climate science research which tends to exclude perspectives that differ from the IPCC viewpoint is a major concern. Also, the introduction in the last 10-15 years of the publication in peer reviewed research papers of climate forecasts and impacts decades into the futures. Their publication subverts the scientific process since these predictions are not testable until after that time period has elapsed.
Hans von Storch Question
Is there a politicization of atmospheric science?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
Very definitely. There is a clear intent, for example, in the climate assessment report process to exclude scientists who disagree with the IPCC perspective from research papers and from funding. This was exemplified in the CRU e-mails, but it is a much wider problem as I have documented on my weblog, testimony to the U.S. Congress and in Public Comments.
Hans von Storch Question
What constitutes “good” science?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
“Good” science is completed when hypotheses are presented and tested with real world data to see if they can be refuted. Unfortunately, the IPCC uses multi-decadal global climate model predictions as a basis for policy action yet these model predictions cannot be tested since we need to wait decades to obtain the real world data. Even in hindcasts of the last few decades, these models have shown no regional predictive skill.
Hans von Storch Question
What is the subjective element in scientific practice? Does culture matter? What is the role of instinct?
Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply
Science needs to advance by following the scientific method. This needs to be independent of culture or any other external influence.
Hans von Storch Closing Comment
For further reading about the opinions and views of Dr. Pielke Sr.’s refer to his blog.
References
Pielke, R., Sr., et al. (2009), Climate Change: The Need to Consider Human Forcings Besides Greenhouse Gases, Eos Trans.
By Judy Lin
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Friday endorsed an oil-company funded ballot initiative that seeks to indefinitely delay California’s landmark global warming law.
The announcement comes two days after the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive refused to take a position during her debate with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.
In a statement, Fiorina said she prefers a national energy policy and called California’s 2006 law, known as AB32, a “job killer.”
“The real solution to these challenges lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action,” Fiorina said. “That’s why we need a comprehensive, national energy policy that funds energy R&D and takes advantage of every source of domestic energy we have - including nuclear, wind and solar - in an environmentally responsible way.”
After Wednesday night’s debate, Fiorina told reporters she was not ready to take a position on Proposition 23.
“My emphasis in this race is on federal issues,” she said. “Look, I’m not trying to be evasive here. I really am trying to indicate that we have to put our emphasis on the right priorities.”
Boxer opposes Proposition 23. She said during the debate that Fiorina’s indecision at the time could turn into a missed opportunity for the U.S. to take the lead in developing alternative-energy technologies.
“If we overturn California’s clean-energy policies, that’s going to mean that China takes the lead away from us with solar, that Germany takes the lead away from us with wind,” Boxer said. “But I guess my opponent is kind of used to creating jobs in China and other places.”
Boxer has repeatedly criticized Fiorina for shipping jobs overseas during her time heading HP in 1999-2005. Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski on Friday said Fiorina is siding with out-of-state oil companies while Boxer supports turning California into an economic hub of clean energy that will rely less on fossil fuels.
Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said California already leads the nation in renewable energy standards and suspending AB32 would not hamper development of those technologies.
A July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that two-thirds of Californians favor the state’s global warming law, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels over the next decade. It has been championed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says it will encourage an expansion of California’s green technology industry.
Forty-five percent of respondents said they believe cutting greenhouse gas emissions will add jobs, compared with 23 percent who said there will be fewer jobs, according to the poll.
Critics of the law say it will impose higher costs on businesses, encouraging many to move their operations out of state. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, called Fiorina’s position a “very good move.”
“We think it’s very important that at the end of the day, it’s about the economy,” Coupal said.
If approved by voters, Proposition 23 would delay the law from taking effect until California’s unemployment falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for four consecutive quarters. That has happened just three times during the past three decades, according to the California Employment Development Department statistics.
California’s unemployment rate is 12.3 percent.
No on Prop. 23 spokesman Steven Maviglio said Fiorina is going against most Californians.
“It’s unfortunate she is out of sync with two-thirds of Californians who strongly believe in our clean-energy and clean-air standards,” he said.
Oil companies have contributed $6.2 million to the Proposition 23 campaign as of Friday, according to the secretary of state’s website.
Most of that money is from two Texas-based oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, including a recent $1 million donation from Tesoro that was publicly reported on Thursday.
Fiorina also took positions on other November ballot measures, saying she opposes Proposition 21, which would impose an $18 vehicle license surcharge to help fund state parks. In exchange, most California vehicles would get free admission and parking to state parks and beaches.
Read more here.
By Mara Gay, AOL
(Sept. 3)—When the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a rally for “green jobs” in Detroit, he arrived in the Motor City in a massive Cadillac SUV. But his exit from the Motor City was a lot more environmentally friendly—thanks to some car thieves.
The robbers stole the civil rights activist’s rented 2009 Escalade SUV on Monday. He was in Detroit for Saturday’s Jobs, Justice and Peace Rally in downtown Detroit.
“We were traveling for Jobs, Justice and Peace and we came [outside the hotel] next morning and it was gone,” Jackson told AOL News today in a phone interview. “It was obvious that it was stolen.”
Bill Pugliano, Getty Images
The Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Rebuild America: Jobs, Justice and Peace march last month in Detroit.Police found the car later that day, stripped of its wheels but otherwise intact, WXYZ reported.
Jackson, who led the march along with United Auto Workers President Bob King, said there was nothing contradictory about renting an SUV and promoting green jobs.
“We were promoting a car manufacturer and representing the American worker, whatever car they chose,” Jackson said. “My wife has a Smart Car, but for the purposes that we were traveling, the car was—it fit the bill.”
One Detroit columnist disagreed. “Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy,” Detroit News columnist Henry Payne wrote. “While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.”
Payne noted that Jackson wrote a column for CNN.com last month promoting energy independence. “If our country gets serious about energy savings and independence from oil, we could rebuild domestically and power the U.S. economy with American jobs,” Jackson wrote Aug. 16 along with Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.
It’s not the first time a high-profile person has had his car stolen in the Motor City in recent days. A GMC Yukon Denali from Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s security detail was stolen and stripped of its rims last week.
Bing condemned the robberies. “It is our hope the community will continue to support the administration’s effort to communicate that any activity compromising the quality of life in Detroit is intolerable,” the mayor said in a written statement to WXYZ.
Jackson said he rented a sedan, not an SUV, to drive for the rest of his trip to Detroit. He couldn’t remember the make. See more here.
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Payne: The irony of Jesse Jackson’s stripped SUV
Henry Payne, The Michigan View.com
Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit. Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.
Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.
Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.
“We need an economy that creates employment that can’t be shipped overseas,” the Green Rev wrote for CNN about the march. “Home-grown American labor will be installing windmills and solar panels. A green economy is not an abstract concept.”
Well, its certainly abstract to Jesse, but I digress.
“Even now, the only sector of the economy that has seen job growth during the recession is the green job sector. Time is of the essence.”
Actually, time long ago passed Detroit by because Jesse’ favored government mpg mandates and UAW wages stripped the Big Three’s ability to compete against non-union transplants. These jobs were real - unlike the artificial, government subsidized green jobs he shakes down the feds for today. Real jobs produced big, profitable SUVs like the one Jesse prefers to ride in. His SUV has been stripped by thugs - a fitting metaphor for what Jesse and his pals have done to the auto industry for the last 35 years.
Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com