Comment Submitted to Dot Earth by Roger A. Pielke Sr.
The conflict between a top-down global model (IPCC) perspective and a bottom-up resource vulnerability focus is clearly illustrated by the NCAR/UCAR priorities of Rick Anthes and Kevin Trenberth regarding the physical and social sciences.
Rick Anthes and Kevin Trenberth (both of whom I know quite well) are excellent research scientists who have also strongly advocated for the top-down model driven framework. This is why they accept the viewpoint “that global warming is unequivocal”, and see the models as the uniquely qualified mechanism to deliver information on the future climate to the social science community.
Climate Science has weblogged on this issue at http://climatesci.org/index.php?s=anthes&submit=Search, where I wrote
“Climate Science…..has recommended an inversion of the focus where the first step is to identify local and regional vulnerabilities to key resources (e.g. food, energy, water) to determine the magnitude of changes in climate and other environmental conditions that would result in a negative effect on these essential resources. We do not need a global climate model prediction to do this! Rather, we need the involvement of the social science community, which NCAR, under the direction of Rick Anthes, has elected to cut.
This was a short sighted decision which is clearly based on focusing funds in order to support greater computing and observational power. While Climate Science agrees that funds are needed to improve our understanding of the climate system on decadal time scales (the assessment of model predictability; the use of climate models and observations for process studies and diagnostic analyses;…), a significant amount of funds should be allocated for the assessment of societal and environmental vulnerabilities. NCAR’s (and UCAR’s) decision to cut the social science program at NCAR has removed an effective program to examine these vulnerabilities.”
The advantages of the vulnerability approach, as contrasted with the GCM climate model downscaling is summarized in Table E.7
in
Pielke, R.A. Sr., and L. Bravo de Guenni, 2004: Conclusions. Chapter E.7 In: Vegetation, Water, Humans and the Climate: A New Perspective on an Interactive System. Global Change - The IGBP Series, P. Kabat et al., Eds., Springer, 537-538.
The removal of an outstanding social scientist, Mickey Glantz, is clear evidence that Rick Anthes and Kevin Trenberth do not see the vulnerability bottom-up resource framework as a priority activity at NCAR.