SeekerBlog

Roger A. Pielke Sr. runs the Climate Science Weblog. This is rather an “insiders blog”, particularly for scientists working “at the coal face” of climate science and public policy. I recommend the category collection “Climate Science Op-Eds”, as it touches on several critical science policy issues.

E.g., the top posting is always the most recent “Main conclusions” summary, comprised of eight key points. Here are just the last three bullets and the conclusions paragraph:

6. Global and regional climate models have not demonstrated skill at predicting climate change and variability on multi-decadal time scales.

7. Attempts to significantly influence regional and local-scale climate based on controlling CO2 emissions alone is an inadequate policy for this purpose.

8. A vulnerability paradigm, focused on regional and local societal and environmental resources of importance, is a more inclusive, useful, and scientifically robust framework to interact with policymakers, than is the focus on global multi-decadal climate predictions which are downscaled to the regional and local scales. The vulnerability paradigm permits the evaluation of the entire spectrum of risks associated with different social and environmental threats, including climate variability and change.

Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. These assessments have also not communicated the inability of the models to accurately forecast the spread of possibilities of future climate. The forecasts, therefore, do not provide any skill in quantifying the impact of different mitigation strategies on the actual climate response that would occur.

Back on July 27, 2006 we have What If Global Cooling Occurs?

…But what if the global average of the upper level of the oceans have cooled since mid-2003? What would be the consequences of such an observation? A recent presentation by Josh Willis at the Oceans Sciences meeting in Honolulu this year shows that the upper ocean has cooled significantly between 2003 and 2005.

Does this mean we should stop seeking alternative energy sources from fossil fuels. Should we stop pursuing energy efficiency? Should we advocate an increase in CO2 emissions to “combat” global cooling?

Hardly!

This straightforward “what if” clearly illustrates the need to pursue alternative energy to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and improve energy efficiency, regardless of whether we have global warming and cooling.

We need to separate climate policy from energy policy. This would permit the eight summary bullets that headline the Climate Science weblog to be assessed by the IPCC and the CCSP, rather than continuing to focus on the narrower perspective of long term effects of well-mixed greenhouse gas concentrations (see for a discussion of the need to change the current approach to climate policy).

Also recommended is this short essay by Carl Wunsch, Climate Change in My View. [ed - no it isn't clear, but is probable that humans are affecting climate]. This is a great essay, definitely RTWT:

A very insightful essay was written in March 2006 by Carl Wunsch in the Royal Society. It is entitled “Climate Change In My View”.. Professor Wunsch is Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography,Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. This piece was written in March 2006.

His essay is,

“People ask ‘is it clear that human activity is directly responsible for climate change?’ The context for answering this question must be another question: to what extent can the climate change all by itself?

[...]

Thus at bottom, it is very difficult to separate human induced change from natural change, certainly not with the confidence we all seek. In these circumstances, it is essential to remember that the inability to prove human-induced change is not the same thing as a demonstration of its absence. It is probably true that most scientists would assign a very high probability that human-induced change is already strongly present in the climate system, while at the same time agreeing that clear-cut proof is not now available and may not be available for a long-time to come, if ever. Public policy has to be made on the basis of probabilities, not firm proof.”