Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News

Mike MacCracken attended my George C. Marshall Institute seminar titled ”Considering the Human Influence on Climate” on May 14 2009.  First I want to thank the Institute again for graciously inviting me to present a lecture, and for encouraging the open participation by climate scientists and others of all viewpoints.

I also want to thank Mike for attending and for the time he took to complete his weblog. While he and I disagree on a number of substantive issues, he is willing to engage in constructive discussions, unlike quite a few others who are involved in the IPCC and CCSP process.

Mike has posted a summary of my talk titled “Michael MacCracken’s review of Roger Pielke, Sr.’s May 14 climate talk to the Marshall Institute”. While, he correctly summarized much of the talk, his summary does need clarification and correction in places.  Below, I will comment on these issues in which we disagree.

1. Mike’s comment:“Pielke noted that the term “climate change” was not the right term to be using because climate was always changing. True, but by how much and how rapidly really matters. The recent pace of change is very unusual, given the present set of surface conditions (i.e., we do not have continental ice sheets melting around the Northern Hemisphere).”

The climate system has had much larger natural excursions in the recent past. We provide examples in

Rial, J., R.A. Pielke Sr., M. Beniston, M. Claussen, J. Canadell, P. Cox, H. Held, N. de Noblet-Ducoudre, R. Prinn, J. Reynolds, and J.D. Salas, 2004: Nonlinearities, feedbacks and critical thresholds within the Earth’s climate system. Climatic Change, 65, 11-38

and

Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: Global climate models - Many contributing influences. Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Climate Change, Colorado Climate Foundation for Water Education, pp. 28-29.

We also need to make sure we do not use the term “climate change” when we are referring to “global warming or cooling”. Climate variability and change cover a much wider set of influences on society and the environment (e.g. see).

2.  Mike’s comment: “He then made the point that CO2 is not like a traditional pollutant in that CO2 is and has always been a part of the climate system. He later said that it should not therefore be regulated like a traditional pollutant—suggesting that it would seem that with EPA treating it as a pollutant needing to be regulated, in the future EPA could regulate water vapor and land cover. On these points Pielke is being quite sloppy—methane, non-methane hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and ozone are all present naturally and are being regulated as pollutants.”

Mike is the one who is not accurate here. Human caused emissions of “methane, non-methane hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and ozone“  can result in atmospheric concentrations, that humans are exposed to, that have direct health effects, while CO2 at current, or even doubled or tripled atmospheric concentrations, does not.

3. Mike’s comment: “The focus solely on CO2 is mainly in the media and so in the public discussion—mainly to keep the matter focused and not to make things overwhelmingly complex. In addition, for the long-term (over centuries to millennia), CO2 is the major factor contributing to climate change (as indicated by the recent paper in Proceedings of the National Aacdemy of Sciences by Susan Solomon).”

The claim that CO2 is dominant over centuries to millennia is oversimplistic. Landscape and aerosol emissions (e.g. dust, fires) also have long term changes.  Mike agrees the climate system involves these forcings, so he should be more vocal about letting the policymakers know this.

Moreover, with respect to policy actions, we are focusing on the coming decades, where all of the climate forcings that we identified in the 2005 NRC report are occurring; see

National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp.

Policymakers need to be correctly informed of the diversity of human climate forcings that are altering local, regional and global climate. The IPCC and CCSP reports did not provide an accurate report to policymakers on this fundamental climate science issue. 

 Mike writes “The focus solely on CO2 is mainly in the media and so in the public discussion—mainly to keep the matter focused and not to make things overwhelmingly complex”.  This narrow focus, also results in erroneous information being communicated to the public and policymakers!

4. Mike’s comment: “As specific illustrations of his assertion, Pielke showed the trends in satellite-derived observations of tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures (interestingly, and sensibly, using the RSS data set), indicating that while the former showed warming over the last four decades and the latter showed cooling over this period, the results for the last 10 years did not show the expected trends.”

I presented the RSS data since their figures were easier to extract from their webpage than the corresponding analysis of the UAH group. Both analyses show a lack of lower tropospheric warming in recent years. However, from your comment, it appears you have concluded the RSS analyses are superior. This issue was addressed, however, in an independent assessment and reported in the peer reviewed literature;

Randall R. M., B. M. Herman (2008), Using limited time period trends as a means to determine attribution of discrepancies in microwave sounding unit–derived tropospheric temperature time series, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D05105, doi:10.1029/2007JD008864. 

I reported on this paper on my weblog (see), where I concluded that

“While both UAH and RSS are outstanding research groups, with respect to the assessment of multi-decadal tropospheric temperature trends, the independent comparison reported in Randall and Herman indicates that the trend values of the UAH group are more accurate.”

5.  Mike’s comment: “For sea ice, Pielke suggested that Arctic sea ice had recovered its average area this past winter and Antarctic sea ice cover had recently been increasing, drawing the conclusion that sea ice feedback is not monotonic.”

I did not report that the Arctic sea ice has recovered to its long terms average (see my slide 8). Arctic sea ice has been below average for several years, and we published on this issue even before the more recent greater decline; see

Pielke Sr., R.A., G.E. Liston, and A. Robock, 2000: Insolation-weighted assessment of Northern Hemisphere snow-cover and sea-ice variability.J. Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 3061-3064.

Pielke Sr., R.A., G.E. Liston, W.L. Chapman, and D.A. Robinson, 2004:Actual and insolation-weighted Northern Hemisphere snow cover and sea ice — 1974-2002. Climate Dynamics, 22, 591-595 DOI10.1007/s00382-004-0401-5.

6. Mike’s comment: “…..he suggested, measuring the temperature at 2 meters above the surface tends to yield a warm bias—for reasons that seemed to me a bit obscure during his lecture.”

The paper below provides a discussion of the reason for this bias. We have another paper, almost through the review process, which shows this is a global scale issue for all land areas.

Lin, X., R.A. Pielke Sr., K.G. Hubbard, K.C. Crawford, M. A. Shafer, and T. Matsui, 2007: An examination of 1997-2007 surface layer temperature trends at two heights in Oklahoma. Geophys. Res. Letts., 34, L24705, doi:10.1029/2007GL031652.

7. Mike’s comment: …”many other variables suggest that the surface temperature is rising. For example, snow cover is retreating; ranges of species are shifting, etc.”

Observational data conflicts with Mike’s assertion.  Although not specifically on the range of species, with respect to phenology  (see) the new White et al 2009 article reported on in that weblog writes

“We found no evidence for time trends in spring arrival from ground- or model-based data; using an ensemble estimate from two methods that were more closely related to ground observations than other methods, SOS trends could be detected for only 12% of North America and were divided between trends towards both earlier and later spring.”

For northern hemisphere snow cover, see from the Rutgers Snow Lab, where since about 1988 there has been no clear long term trend in this metric of snow cover.

8. Mike’s comment: ” …it seems to me that while land cover change can indeed affect local weather, even by significant amounts, and might well need to be locally regulated, the increase in the CO2 concentration is very dramatically altering the underlying baseline climate for everyone in the world—and so it has drawn the attention of international regulators.”

Mike has ignored, or is unaware, of the rich literature that documents that human caused landscape results in alterations of regional and global climate including; for example, the Asian monsoon (e.g. see); the summer weather over the eastern USA (e.g. see); and planetary circulation patterns (e.g. see).  A NASA press release on our Florida research effectively summarizes this issue (see).

9. Mike’s comment: “I also agree with Pielke that the spatial variations in aerosols and their forcing should be considered, but I am more interested in scales larger than in the more localized areas that Pielke seemed to focus on.”

Mike and I agree on this issue. I am also concerned about scales larger than localized areas. However, Mike is inconsistent in his conclusion. If spatial variations in aerosol heating are important in terms of their role in altering regional scale circulation features, land use/land cover change, and other aspects of landscape dynamics, should be of a comparable importance.

10. Mike’s comment: “Near as I could discern, he believes the main problem is that IPCC and other assessments are not, even after review, sufficiently accounting for his views on the effects of land cover change on the regional weather and climate.”

My concerns with the assessment process are much more significant than just that my per reviewed viewpoint on the important climate issues was excluded. The problem with the assessment process is that indepedent evaluations of them are not being completed.  I have documented the resulting narrowness of the IPCC and CCSP assessments in detail, and invite Mike to respond to the specific concerns that I report.  This documentation can be read at

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.

Protecting The IPCC Turf - There Are No Independent Climate Assessments Of The IPCC WG1 Report Funded And Sanctioned By The NSF, NASA Or The NRC.

The appendices in Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2008: A Broader View of the Role of Humans in the Climate System is Required In the Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Effective Climate Policy.Written Testimony for the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Hearing “Climate Change: Costs of Inaction” – Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman. June 26, 2008, Washington, DC., 52 pp.

11. Mike’s comment: “On the question of having the author teams be neutral, I don’t think a coherent vision emerged. For this to be implemented, these neutral authors would, at the start, have to not be doing research in the area, for it would not be helpful to change the process if all that we ended up with was a new set of authors citing their own work.”

The assumption that the authors would be “neutral” or “not to be doing research in the area” is not correct. There are many well-qualified climate scientists working on climate research, who do not have the significant vested interest in the outcome of a climate assessment. 

As an example of the current conflict of interest, Tom Karl was Chair of the committee evaluating the quality of his own surface temperature trend data in the CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences“.  I was strong-armed on that committee to accept Tom Karl’s conclusion on the robustness of his data and analyses. This failure in the assessment process led us subsequently to complete our own multi-authored peer reviewed assessment which we reported on, for example, in

Pielke Sr., R.A. J. Nielsen-Gammon, C. Davey, J. Angel, O. Bliss, N. Doesken, M. Cai., S.  Fall, D. Niyogi, K. Gallo, R. Hale, K.G. Hubbard, X. Lin, H. Li, and S. Raman, 2007: Documentation of uncertainties and biases associated with surface temperature measurement sites for climate change assessment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 88:6, 913-928.

Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.

 12.  Mike’s comment: “In seeking win-win strategies, Pielke also urged that the climate effects of all factors, including natural variability, be accounted for in addition to the climate change effects of greenhouse gases. Well, the National Assessment urged that as well. Indeed, regional assessment leaders were urged to consider three types of scenarios for the 21st century: (a) a repeat of the 20th century climate, but with altered societal conditions; (b) the changes in climate projected by a set of climate models (unfortunately, appropriate and complete model results were then available from only two modeling groups, although less complete results could also be used in some analyses); and (c) based on longer-term paleoclimatic data (derived, for example, from tree-ring reconstructions and other means), evaluate where sensitive thresholds might be and their likelihood and consequences. It is true that the first (and so far only) time through the National Assessment process most of the emphasis was on the use of the model-based scenarios, but the intent was there (although unfortunately not the resources and the time)—the effort really needed to be continued and improved rather than halted as the Bush-43 Administration ended up doing”.

I am glad that Mike and I agree on the scenario approach above. However, the choice of ONLY the model-based scenarios resulted in a seriuosly incomplete miscommunication to policymakers of the actual possible threats we face in the future. I urge Mike to encourage funding in the current Administation for such an inclusive vulnerability assessment.

13. Mike’s comment: “I would also note that I do not think that scientists should be asked what they “believe,” but instead what their analysis and interpretation of the evidence indicates.”

I agree with Mike on this. However, he is in error in reporting what is written on my powerpoint slide on this issue. I wrote “The climate science community should be polled with respect to which of the following three hypotheses have been rejected” (see slide 53).

14. Mike’s comment: “in that for four IPCC assessments there has been unanimous acceptance of the IPCC chapters by the nations of the world without any nation taking exception..”

Mike is mixing up a political acceptance of the chapters with the scientific rigor of the assessments. We have completed a preliminary poll of the climate science community (see) and found more diversity of perspectives than claimed by Mike’s statement of the “unanimous acceptance of the IPCC chapters”.

15. Mike’s comment: “Overall, my sense was that this was a more thoughtful discussion of the issues than Prof. Pielke has presented in the past—and one that one could engage with. So, that’s progress. ”

I agree with Mike on this, and welcome his contributution to a constructive debate.  I also want to thank again the George C. Marshall Institute for their graciousness in providing a venue so that these discussions can take place.  We need more such opportunities, if the public and policymakers are going to be provided the true diversity of viewpoints by climate scientists on the role of humans within the climate system.

Thomas Fuller  has posted a response from me on his website which started on Climate Science on May 25 2009 (see). The post is Examiner.com’s exclusive global warming debates: Roger Pielke Sr., part 1.

In Mr. Fuller’s post, he writes

“Part 2 has yet to be conducted with Dr. Pielke—so here’s a challenge to those who made it this far. Do you have questions you would like posed to Dr. Pielke? Leave them in the comments and I’ll cherry pick the ones I like and include them for Round 2 of our interview.”

I thank Tom for doing this and encourage Climate Science readers to submit comments to him.

Our research group and collaborating colleagues have published several papers with major findings with respect to climate science. This weblog lists several of these findings, along with the peer reviewed papers in which they are based on:

• A conservative estimate of the warm bias resulting from measuring the temperature near the ground is around 0.21°C per decade (with the nighttime minimum temperature contributing a large part of this bias). Since land covers about 29% of the Earth’s surface, the warm bias due to just this one effect explains about 30% of the IPCC estimate of global warming. In other words, consideration of this one bias in temperature would reduce the IPCC trend to about 0.14°C per decade; still a warming, but not as large as indicated by the IPCC. [based on Lin, X., R.A. Pielke Sr., K.G. Hubbard, K.C. Crawford, M. A. Shafer, and T. Matsui, 2007: An examination of 1997-2007 surface layer temperature trends at two heights in Oklahoma. Geophys. Res. Letts., 34, L24705, doi:10.1029/2007GL031652; Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., and J.R. Christy, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., submitted.] - for other uncertainties and biases in the monitoring of multi-decadal global average surface temperature trends; see).

• From observations of the spatial distribution of the human input of aerosols in the atmosphere in the lower latitudes, the aerosol effect on atmospheric circulations (through their diabatic heating effect on the three dimensional pressure field), can be 60 times greater than the effect due to the radiative heating effect of the human addition of well-mixed greenhouse gases [based on Matsui, T., and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2006: Measurement-based estimation of the spatial gradient of aerosol radiative forcing. Geophys. Res. Letts., 33, L11813, doi:10.1029/2006GL025974].

• Extensive peer-reviewed research has shown that the focus on just carbon dioxide as the dominate human climate forcing is too narrow. We have found that natural variations are still quite important, and moreover, the human influence is significant, but it involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings, including, but not limited to the human input of CO2 [ based on Rial, J., R.A. Pielke Sr., M. Beniston, M. Claussen, J. Canadell, P. Cox, H. Held, N. de Noblet-Ducoudre, R. Prinn, J. Reynolds, and J.D. Salas, 2004: Nonlinearities, feedbacks and critical thresholds within the Earth’s climate system. Climatic Change, 65, 11-38; Pielke Sr., R.A., G. Marland, R.A. Betts, T.N. Chase, J.L. Eastman, J.O. Niles, D. Niyogi, and S. Running, 2002: The influence of land-use change and landscape dynamics on the climate system- relevance to climate change policy beyond the radiative effect of greenhouse gases. Phil. Trans. A. Special Theme Issue, 360, 1705-1719.

The acceptance of CO2 as a pollutant by the EPA , yet it is a climate forcing not a traditional atmospheric pollutant, opens up a wide range of other climate forcings which the EPA could similarly regulate (e.g., land use, water vapor). These other forcings, such as land-use change and from atmospheric pollution aerosols, may have a greater effect on our climate than the effects that have been claimed for CO2.

Our peer reviewed papers have not been refuted by any subsequent peer reviewed articles. Interested climate scientists are invited to contact me, if they are interested in posting a guest weblog as to what scientific reasons exist to reject any of the findings listed above.

This past Thursday, May 14, 2009, I gave a presentation at the Army and Navy Club in Washington DC sponsored by the George C. Marshall Institute.

The talk is titled  ”Considering the Human Influence on Climate” and the powerpoint slides are available (see). I appreciate the opportunity that the Marshall Institute provided to present my perspective on the climate issue, and to urge that independent assessments of climate science are very much needed.

SECOND UPDATE: See the May 20 2009 article by Jayne O’Donnell and James R. Healey in USA Today titled

“Safety could suffer if we boost mileage by making cars smaller”

Updated pm May 19 for clarity at the beginning of the first sentence of the paragraph below the bullets

Today, President Obama is announcing the establishment of a new car fuel mileage standard of 35.5 miles per gallon ( see Automakers, Obama announce mileage, pollution plan by Ken Thomas and Philip Elliot).  Their article includes the new framework for this standard where they report

“Historically, the program was a fleet average,” said Browner, who headed the EPA during the Clinton administration. “What we’re doing here is proposing standards for every category of car.”

 This increase in the standard could be achieved by one or more of the following:

• technology could improve the efficiency of the combustion process
• technology could provide/permit the use of alternative energy sources such as hybrid and electric engines
• vehicles could be made smaller and/or lighter

The first approach would use the current type of combustion engine and make it even more efficient than it is at present. The second method reduces tailpipe emissions of the combution products from the vehicle, although the emissions from the source of the energy (i.e. power plants) needs to be included in the assessment of mileage. The third approach could use lighter materials to build the cars and/or they could be made smaller.

I agree that the technology improvements in the first two bullets would be a win-win for both the environment and for the reduction of the import of foreign energy sources, and should be achievable without a reduction in safety.

However, if the approach is just to make cars smaller and/or lighter, the potential increase in injuries and deaths as a result makes this a poor approach; e.g. see

Another Example Of An Environmental Tradeoff - Reduced CO2 Emissions And Lower Fuel Cost Versus Personal Safety

Congress should require that the fuel standard not be achieved by simply reducing the size and/or weight of cars, but through technology improvements.

I have generally supported most EPA actions which have been designed to support environmental improvement. These regulations have resulted in much cleaner water and air quality over the past several decades; e.g. see

National Research Council, 2003: Managing carbon monoxide pollution in meteorological and topographical problem areas. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 196 pp.

However, the EPA Endangerment Findings for CO2 as a climate forcing falls far outside of the boundary of the type of regulations that this agency should be seeking.

The EPA on April 17, 2009 released this finding in “Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act”.  

This report is a clearly biased presentation of the science which continues to use the same reports (IPCC and CCSP) to promote a particular political viewpoint on climate (and energy) policy).

The text includes the statements

“The Administrator signed a proposal with two distinct findings regarding greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act:

Action

“The Administrator is proposing to find that the current and projected concentrations of the mix of six key greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This is referred to as the endangerment finding.

The Administrator is further proposing to find that the combined emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and HFCs from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change. This is referred to as the cause or contribute finding.”

As Climate Science has shown in the past; e.g. see

New Plans To Regulate CO2 As A Pollutant

Comments On The Plan To Declare Carbon Dioxide as a Dangerous Pollutant

A Carbon Tax For Animal Emissions - More Unintended Consequences Of Carbon Policy In The Guise Of Climate Policy

Will Climate Effects Trump Health Effects In Air Quality Regulations?

Supreme Court Rules That The EPA Can Regulate CO2 Emissions

Science Issues Related To The Lawsuit To The Supreme Court As To Whether CO2 is a Pollutant

the “cause” for their endangerment finding can cover any human caused climate forcing. For just one example, the paragraph above could be rewritten as

The Administrator is further proposing to find that the combined emissions of CO2 and CH4 from agriculture contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change. This is referred to as the cause or contribute finding.”

The EPA, by expanding its authority to be able to regulate for climate, will have enormous power to regulate all aspects of society. The seriousness of this grasp for power, using “science” as the tool, needs to be widely communicated and debated.

Further information is given at “Overview of EPA’s Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act”, where it includes the information

 ”After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence on the causes and impacts of current and future climate change, as well as other effects of greenhouse gases, the Administrator concludes that the science compellingly supports a positive endangerment finding for both public health and welfare. In her decision, the Administrator relied heavily upon the major findings and conclusions from recent assessments of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

“The Administrator is proposing this endangerment finding after considering both observed and projected future effects of climate change, key uncertainties, and the full range of risks and impacts to public health and welfare occurring within the United States. The scientific evidence concerning risks and impacts occurring outside the United States, including risks and impacts that can affect people in the United States, provides further support for this proposed endangerment finding.”

What these statements tell us is that their finding includes results from multi-decadal climate predictions, which have never shown regional predictive skill, including any ability to predict past major weather events such as droughts!

Nevertheless, they make claims with respect to the climate risks as if these are certain, despite the absence of skill in predicting them for the 20th century. They claim that

 ”The effects of climate change observed to date and projected to occur in the future include, but are not limited to, more frequent and intense heat waves, more severe wildfires, degraded air quality, more heavy downpours and flooding, increased drought, greater sea level rise, more intense storms, harm to water resources, harm to agriculture, and harm to wildlife and ecosystems. The Administrator considers these impacts to be effects on public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”

In the document “Frequently Asked Questions on the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases”, they have the Q&A

 ”On what science was the proposed Endangerment Finding based?

“The Administrator relied heavily on existing, peer-reviewed scientific literature. In particular, she relied on reports and conclusions from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the National Research Council, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because they represent the current state of knowledge on climate change science, vulnerabilities, and impacts. These studies are authored by leading scientific experts and underwent multiple layers of peer review, including, in many cases, review and acceptance by government agencies.”

As documented in

Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2008: A Broader View of the Role of Humans in the Climate System is Required In the Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Effective Climate Policy.Written Testimony for the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Hearing “Climate Change: Costs of Inaction” – Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman. June 26, 2008, Washington, DC., 52 pp.

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.

Protecting The IPCC Turf - There Are No Independent Climate Assessments Of The IPCC WG1 Report Funded And Sanctioned By The NSF, NASA Or The NRC.

the conflict of interest (with most of the same individuals leading the reports) is easy to see; i.e. the Federal (non-EPA) expert reviewers for the EPA Endangerment findings (see “Technical Support Document for the Proposed Findings”) are

Virginia Burkett, USGS; Phil DeCola; NASA (on detail to OSTP); William Emanuel, NASA; Anne Grambsch, EPA; Jerry Hatfield, USDA; Anthony Janetos; DOE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Linda Joyce, USDA Forest Service; Thomas Karl, NOAA; Michael McGeehin, CDC; Gavin Schmidt, NASA; Susan Solomon, NOAA; Thomas Wilbanks, DOE Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

In conclusion, the EPA Endangerment findings is the culmination of a several year effort for a small group of climate scientists and others to use their positions as lead authors on the IPCC, CCSP and NRC reports to promote a political agenda.

Now that their efforts have reached the federal policy decision level, Climate Science urges that there be an independent commission of climate scientists who can evaluate the assement process that led to the EPA findings as well as the climate science upon which it is constructed.

Physics Today has just published an invited opinion piece

Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.

The article starts with the text

“The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I presents a narrow view of the state of climate science. Attempts to significantly influence regional and local-scale climate based on controlling carbon dioxide emissions alone cannot succeed since humans are significantly altering the global climate in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of CO₂. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. When the IPCC focuses its policy attention on CO₂, it neglects other important aspects of the impact of human activities on climate.”

The conclusion of the article reads

 ”Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of CO₂. Significant, societally important climate change on the regional and local scales, due to both natural and human climate forcings, can occur due to these diverse influences. The result of the more complex interference of humans in the climate system is that attempts to significantly influence regional and local-scale climate based on controlling CO₂ emissions alone is an inadequate policy for this purpose. There is a need to minimize the human disturbance of the climate by limiting the amount of CO₂ that is emitted into the atmosphere by human activities, but the diversity of human climate forcings should not be ignored.”

The entire article can be read  at http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-334.pdf.

Mother Jones has just published an interview with me by Kiera Butler that was conducted several months ago: Q&A: Roger A. Pielke Sr.  It is discussed very effectively by my son on Prometheus yesterday (see).

As written in the Prometheus weblog, it is a pretty good interview (although some editing would have made several of the issues clearer and the header to the interview oversimplifies my perspective). Nonetheless, presenting my different perspective, which is broader and more inclusive than reported  in the IPCC and CCSP reports, is an example of open-minded and effective journalism.

For other summaries of my perspective on climate science, please read

Roger A. Pielke Sr.’s Perspective On The Role Of Humans In Climate Change

Roger A. Pielke Sr.’s Perspective On Adaptation and Mitigation

and

House Testimony of Roger A. Pielke Sr. “A Broader View of the Role of Humans in the Climate System is Required In the Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Effective Climate Policy”.

There is considerable discussion on the relative roles of adaption and mitigation with respect to the findings in the 2007 IPCC report (e.g., see).  Thus, I have concluded that it is worthwhile to specifically define my views on this subject, as I did on the related subject of the human role within the climate system; see

Roger A. Pielke Sr.’s Perspective On The Role Of Humans In Climate Change

First, it needs to be emphasized that climate and energy policies, while there are overlaps, are distinctly different issues. As reported on Climate Science (e.g. see and see), the 2007 IPCC approach, and other related reports, are actually energy policy proposals cloaked in the guise of climate change.

Following is a short summary of my view on climate and energy policies with respect to adaptation and mitigation:

• Climate policy in the past has been, with the limited exception of deliberate weather modification (see), focused on adaptation. Dams, zoning so as to limit habitation in flood plains, etc are examples of this adaptation. 
• For the coming decades, adaptation still needs to be the primary approach. As reported in the 2005 National Research Council report (Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties) the human influence on the climate system involves a diverse range of forcings. Thus, a focus on controlling the emissions of carbon dioxide by itself (i.e. mitigation) is an inadequate approach for an effective climate policy.
• Energy policy, however, clearly must emphasize an active management policy since a vibrant economy and society requires energy. However, all energy sources are not the same in terms of how they affect the environment and their availability. For example, the dependence of the United States, Europe and other countries on oil from politically unstable regions of the world needs to be eliminated.
• The current focus of the IPCC and others on climate change with their emphasis on global warming, as a guise to promote energy policy, therefore, is an erroneous and dishonest approach to communicate energy policy to policymakers and the public. The optimal energy policy requires expertise and assessments that involves a much broader community than the climate science profession.

There continues to be misunderstandings on my viewpoint on the role of humans within the climate system. This weblog is written to make sure it is clear, and can be used whenever someone asks the question as to where does Pielke Sr. stand on this issue.

 As I have written in the Main Conclusions of Climate Science

“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.”

and that

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

These conclusions are different from those who claim that the global average radiative effect of carbon dioxide is by far the major human climate forcing, as well as from those who conclude that natural climate variations dominate climate change and that the human climate forcings are inconsequential.

My viewpoint is also well articulated in

National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp

and you are encouraged to read the Executive Summary of that report [a report which whas been ignored by the media despite its broad base of authorship and its extensive review before it was published].

The reason that those who focus on the global average radiative forcing of carbon dioxide are missing the bulk of human climate forcings include the following:

1. Atmosphere and ocean circulations respond to regional forcings not a global average (e.g., see and see)

2. The other human climate forcings include

• the diverse influence of human-caused aerosols on regional (and global)  radiative heating (e.g., see).
• the effect of aerosols on cloud and precipitation processes (e.g., see)
• the influence of aerosol deposition on climate (e.g., see and see)
• the effect of land cover/land use on climate (e.g., see and  see)
• the biogeochemical effect of added atmosopheric CO2 has a greater effect on the climate system than the radiative effect of added CO2 (e.g. see).

Natural climate variations and change, have also been underestimated (and are only poorly understood) based on examination of the historical and paleo-climate record (e.g., see and see).

Human climate forcings have a more significant role in altering the weather than does a global average increase in the radiative effect of an increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2.  This does not mean that we should not work to limit the increase of this gas in the atmosphere, but it is not the dominant climate forcing that affects society and the environment.

Policies that focus on CO2 by itself are ignoring definitive research results (such as reported in the 2005 National Research Council report) that humans have a much broader influence on the climate system than was communicated in the 2007 IPCC report.  To neglect these other climate forcings represents a failure by policymakers (and the media) to utilize this scientifically robust information.

The neglect of including the diversity of human climate forcings indicates that the real objective of those promoting the radiative effect of the addition of atmospheric CO2 as the dominant human climate forcing is to promote energy and lifestyle changes. Their actual goal is not to develop effective climate policies.