Dr. Vicky Pope, the head of climate change advice at the Met Office Hadley Centre, wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian. Scientists must rein in misleading climate change claims that, sadly, equates (without naming names and without putting out specifics) those speaking strongly about Global Warming in relation to specific weather events or about trends (specifically Arctic Ice) with ASS (anti-science syndrome) promoting Global Warming deniers.
News headlines vie for attention and it is easy for scientists to grab this attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change. This message is more difficult to get heard. Scientists and journalists need to find ways to help to make this clear without the wider audience switching off.
Pope concludes by affirming the Theory of Global Warming, "The scientific evidence is overwhelming." Did Pope not realize that the ASS-sufferers would conveniently forget to discuss those words while using here as a hammer to decry 'global warming alarmists'?
However, rather than challenging bad reporting on global warming impacts or media reporting simply not even suggesting that global warming has a relationship to severe weather events/situations or Will-fully deceptive opinion pieces, it is sad that Pope has chosen to use 15 minutes of fame to attack those trying to raise the alarm about global warming's quite serious implications and the need for action as some equal to global warming deniers in their distortion of the science. The fact is that, almost without exception, the changes that we have actually seen over the past twenty years have outpaced the predictions from climate scientists. If anyone had been stating, 15 years ago, that we would have seen 10,000s die in a European heat wave, the massive heat wave and fires in Australia, Hurricane Katrina's wrath (well, that was predicted), the extent of Arctic ice retreat, how far north birds have shifted, insect-infested boreal forests, etc, there seems no question that Pope would have called them 'alarmists' or distorting the science. And now?
Basically just hours after this OPED, attendees at the American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago heard that Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates
The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday.
"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations,"
Again, Considering how hard it is to gain 15 minutes of fame, it is sad that Pope chose to devote her time to urge caution in discussion when, it seems, her issue about "apocalyptic" warmings is over timing, not extent of issue. For example, she cautions against speaking of Arctic ice disappearing in the near term even while stating that the Arctic will be ice free before the end of the century. It seems her caution is arguing over angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Pope is absolutely accurate that this is a complex situation, difficult to explain, "difficult to get heard."
Sadly, Pope provides little direct evidence as to supposed exaggerations and doesn't point to any specific person that merits being sent to the same circles of Hell reserved for global warming deniers willfully seeking to forestall sensible action to mitigate global warming. And, actually, with the one case that she points to, what is going on with the Arctic ice cap, she seems to be challenging the results from the real 'ice experts' at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which are quite apocalytic themselves. As Joe Romm put it,
In any case, Hadley thinks the Arctic will be ice free later this century on our current emissions path -- so I guess it is a case of Apocalypse now versus Apocalypse later.
Let us be clear about Pope's views. Her question and issue seems to be how to discuss global warming, how to discuss global warming's relationship to specific events, and whether people are overstating near term effects. But, on global warming itself:
When climate scientists like me explain to people what we do for a living we are increasingly asked whether we "believe in climate change". Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity's activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.
"The scientific evidence is overwhelming ..."
Despite this clearly stated end, as above, Pope's discussion is misguided in tone, which not surprisingly is providing ammunition for those fighting against any action to reduce global warming's impact and fighting, with all their strength, to confuse people about science and promote ASS (anti-science syndrome).
Misleading reporting within The Guardian
So, following the Pope's reasoned and restrained op-ed, of course her words were discussed with restraint and reason, ensuring the people understood that she was not calling into question whether global warming existed or whether humanity has a role. Of course ...
In The Guardian, itself, David Adams authored 'Apocalyptic climate predictions' mislead the public, say experts
Experts at Britain's top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.
I'm sorry, even if disagreeing with the tone/focus, reading that OPED doesn't get me to "blistering attack ..."
And, the equivalency argument is one that Adams emphasizes
The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent "apocalyptic predictions" about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist.
Let us be clear, it is possible to read the scientific evidence differently. That there is global warming and that humanity is a significant fact is now as close to fact as one can get in science (a very, very strongly supported scientific Theory that has stood up to serious examination after examination. But there are serious disputes (debates) about the extent, nature, and speed of impacts. But, there is a difference between debating 'details' and rejecting core.
Thus, it is perplexing that Pope is arguing that those who (evidently) disagree with her on extent/nature/speed and seek to make a clarion call for action to reduce Global Warming's impacts based on their concerns are equivalent to those who call for an absolute rejection of science, who reject the Theory of Global Warming, and who knowlingly distort evidence -- and do not honestly deal with those who callenge them.
Sigh ...
"Having to rein in extraordinary claims that the latest extreme [event] is all due to climate change is at best hugely frustrating and at worse enormously distracting. Overplaying natural variations in the weather as climate change is just as much a distortion of science as underplaying them to claim that climate change has stopped or is not happening."
Let us be clear, it is insane to write that any event was "all due to climate change". People who are serious about global warming simply don't say or write that.
And, are "extraordinary claims" anywhere as well funded or as assiduously distributed as the deniers' material?
In reality, where is Pope's balance in the reporting? Adams at least provides this:
"Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically."
Thus, while Adams includes material, buried in the center of the article, for understanding that Pope is no skeptic, but is concerned about how people speak re the issue of climate change, her strong statement re the reality of Global Warming doesn't make it into Adams' article.
But, even any hint of Pope's science falls out of the deniers' discussion
Senator James Inhofe (R-Exxon) and side-kick Marc Morano certainly couldn't have let this pass. And, Adams write-up provided sweet material to work with. Thus, the press release is entitled with Adams' misleading description of the OPED.
Climate of Change: UK Met Office Issues 'Blistering Attack on Scientific Colleagues' For 'Apocalyptic Climate Predictions'
Inhofe / Morano then add
"The record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer ice increasing again over the next few years," Pope explained.
Of course, perhaps it was due to space constraints, Inhofe and Morano forgot to provide any indication that Pope doesn't question Global Warming, that she rejects their rejection of science. Since they couldn't find the electrons to bring that to readers' attention, lets revisit Pope's conclusion:
Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity's activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.
"The scientific evidence is overwhelming ..."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY
To build this alternative fuel infrastructure will take LOTS of carbon based (so called "fossil"
because a good part of it is abiogenic) fuels adding more carbon dioxide (plant food) into the
atmosphere. People starving because of food diverted to make biodiesel! Amazon deforestion (killing trees that love co2) to grow sugarcane to make ethanol! Denmark and Germany just figured
that their vast array of wind turbines did not put a dent in the production of carbon dioxide of their countries. Ay! Ay!! Ay!!!
And with this global finance collapse, who will build this alternative fuel infrastructure? We are so screwed!!!
Meanwhile, I am planting some banana trees in Alaska.
The NSIDC website has announced today that satellite sensor errors have been causing it to under report the actual amount of Arctic sea ice over the past two or three months. While corrections have not yet been completed, it appears that when they are, the accurately reported sea ice will be close to the average sea ice for the period 1979-2000. Rather than the arctic ice disappearing, as some alarmists have predicted, it appears the Arctic ice is well and recovering from the low levels of 2007. The polar bears are safe.
Just how this Arctic Sea Ice recovery is to be explained, as more evidence of man-made global warming, remains to be seen.
But really, it can't be happening. How could putting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere possibly have any effect on the atmosphere? I mean, it's so big! It's the atmosphere! It does crazy things all the time!
And speaking of things that are big, how about that ocean? It is huge! I'm sure that no matter how many fish we catch, there will always be more fish. I mean, the ocean is so big, I bet there's a kazillion fish in there! Even if there's no fish over here right now, I'm sure they just went somewhere else for a while. Fish are crazy, you know! Just never know what they're gonna do next.
That Mississippi River sure is ginormous too, ya know. I don't really see why we bother with sewage treatment plants and the like. I can't see how we could possibly add enough sewage to, like, kill any fish or whatever. I mean, the Mississippi river is just that big. And doesn't sewage just sort of magically evaporate when it touches water? That's why we have flush toilets, right?
Consider running a car in a sealed garage (asphyxiation of driver) or outside (basically unmeasurable impact on a global, atmospheric scale). We've been "diluting" our carbon pollution into the atmosphere for generations. We've passed the point of this dilution working to make it no longer an issue.
...
Great comment. Thanks.
Humans have yet to register that we have exponentially increased our numbers to the point that anything we all do is going to have global impacts on the biosphere.
It makes me think of the 19th century Europeans who arrived in the new world and saw fish so numerous you could practically walk across a river on their backs, and flocks of birds so vast they blocked out the sun.
"So many animals," they thought, "We could never possibly dent their numbers." And they proceeded to slaughter indiscriminately. Now the passenger pigeon is extinct, among many others.
Humans can indeed change the world. The question is how we choose to do it.
"The frozen bogs of Siberia are melting, and the thaw could have devastating consequences for the planet, scientists have discovered. They have found that Arctic permafrost, which is starting to melt due to global warming, is releasing five times more methane gas than their calculations had predicted. That level of emission is alarming because methane itself is a greenhouse gas. Increased amounts will therefore accelerate warming, cause more melting of Siberian bogs and Arctic wasteland, and so release even more. 'It's a slow-motion time bomb,' said climate expert Professor Ted Schuur, of the University of Florida."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/10/russia.climatechange
http://www.aibs.org/bioscience-press-releases/080828_thawing_permafrost_likely_to_boost_global_warming.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,505819,00.html
We don't need people like her opening their yaps.
I happen to be one of those (working in Earth Science) who has long said that the predictions my colleagues have been making are too conservative, and time after time, I've been proven right (along with others who share my view). But the old-timers simply can't believe what us younger folks are saying - they were brought up to believe that climate change happens over eons when, simply, we don't know anything of the kind because the science isn't good enough to nail down precise dates for various changes that have occurred in the past...
.
You dig ditches, right?'
I've caught you in so many egregious exaggerations, some bordering on outright lies, it is difficult fior me to believe that you have any academic credentials greater than an Associate Degree.
" because the science isn't good enough to nail down precise dates for various changes that have occurred in the past..."
Your kind of 'science' hasn't been doing particularly well with the present either.
"Now a new study by V. Ramanathan of the University of California, San Diego, published online this week in Nature Geoscience, finds that soot may be more than twice as potent a warming influence as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated last year."
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/soot-in-the-greenhouse-and-kitchen/
"Mark Meier of the University of Colorado at Boulder analyzed information about glacier volumes worldwide, from several thousand years ago to the present, and studied the last 40 years in more detail. He estimates that sea level is likely to rise perhaps twice as much as the International Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) recently predicted. "
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=22244
"One of the most concerning aspects of recent data is evidence that, in some places, the Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice 30 years ahead of current IPCC predictions."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/20/wwf.climate.report/index.html
"Newly elected Vice Chair of the IPCC and climate scientist, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele said. "It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it's vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious."
NL, read it and weep!
http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2008/WWFPresitem9361.html
Come to NewsBusters forum and debate me 1:1 on the subject.
We will see how well your ''Science' stands up.
In a recent study among scientists, scientists were asked two questions:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures
have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing
mean global temperatures?
"Results show that overall, 90% of participants answered “risen” to question 1
and 82% answered yes to question 2. In general, as the level of active research
and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement with the two
primary questions."
"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the
role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand
the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists."
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf