Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group News

The Congessional Budget Office release a report yesterday (May 4 2009) titled “Potential Impacts of Climate Change in the United States” (see for the full report).

In January 2009, I was asked to review the draft version of the report. Unfortunately, however, the report did not discuss the major substantive issues that I raised. While I was pleased to see land use change elevated to a first order forcing, the report, despite recognizing major remaining uncertainties with respect to our ability to skillfully predict the future climate, the report still perpetuates the erroneously narrow view of the IPCC and CCSP reports.

My January review is reproduced below:

This CBO draft report is based primarily on the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the national assessment recently released by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC).  The CBO report accepts the conclusions of these reports that

“Human activities around the world-primarily fossil fuel use, forestry, and agriculture-are producing growing emissions of greenhouse gases-most importantly carbon dioxide (CO₂)-as well as emissions of other gases and particulates. If allowed to continue unabated, the accumulation of those substances in the atmosphere and oceans is expected to have extensive, potentially serious and costly, but highly uncertain impacts on regional climate and ocean conditions throughout the world.”

and that the report

“…..summarizes the current state of scientific understanding of the potential effects of projected changes in climate and related developments. The [CBO report] describes the wide range of potential impacts, including changes in seasonal weather patterns; the amount and type of precipitation; storms and sea level; regular climate fluctuations; ocean acidity; ecosystems and biodiversity; agriculture, forestry, and fishing; water supply and other infrastructure; and human health. The discussion focuses mainly on projections of impacts in the United States but also refers to impacts elsewhere that could indirectly affect the United States.”

The report recognizes, however, that there remain significant uncertainties; i.e. it is written that

“The paper [the CBO report] emphasizes the extensive uncertainty about future climate-related developments and its implications for climate policy. Uncertainty arises from several sources, including limitations in current data, imperfect understanding of physical processes, and the inherent unpredictability of some aspects of the interacting components (land, air, water and ice, and life) that make up the Earth’s climate system.”

Reviewer Comment

The IPCC and NSTC reports (which is built on the IPCC report, and thus is not an independent assessment) do not adequately address the broader, more societally relevant conclusion with respect to the human involvement within the climate system, and the resultant  larger range of uncertainty that is reported in other assessments; e.g.

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

Kabat, P., Claussen, M., Dirmeyer, P.A., J.H.C. Gash, L. Bravo de Guenni, M. Meybeck, R.A. Pielke Sr., C.J. Vorosmarty, R.W.A. Hutjes, and S. Lutkemeier, Editors, 2004: Vegetation, water, humans and the climate: A new perspective on an interactive system. Springer, Berlin, Global Change - The IGBP Series, 566 pp.

The 2005 NRC report had the following findings,

“…..the traditional global mean TOA radiative forcing concept has some important limitations, which have come increasingly to light over the past decade. The concept is inadequate for some forcing agents, such as absorbing aerosols and land-use changes, that may have regional climate impacts much greater than would be predicted from TOA radiative forcing. Also, it diagnoses only one measure of climate change-global mean surface temperature response-while offering little information on regional climate change or precipitation.”

and

“Several types of forcings-most notably aerosols, land-use and land-cover change, and modifications to biogeochemistry-impact the climate system in nonradiative ways, in particular by modifying the hydrological cycle and vegetation dynamics. Aerosols exert a forcing on the hydrological cycle by modifying cloud condensation nuclei, ice nuclei, precipitation efficiency, and the ratio between solar direct and diffuse radiation received. Other nonradiative forcings modify the biological components of the climate system by changing the fluxes of trace gases and heat between vegetation, soils, and the atmosphere and by modifying the amount and types of vegetation. No metrics for quantifying such nonradiative forcings have been accepted. Nonradiative forcings have eventual radiative impacts, so one option would be to quantify these radiative impacts. However, this approach may not convey appropriately the impacts of nonradiative forcings on societally relevant climate variables such as precipitation or ecosystem function. Any new metrics must also be able to characterize the regional structure in nonradiative forcing and climate response.”

What this means is that the concept of emissions of CO₂dominating climate change (and the concept of “global warming”), by itself, does not accurately communicate the regional responses to the diverse range of human climate forcings. Regional variations in warming and cooling for example, such as from tropospheric aerosols and landscape changes, as concluded in the National Research Council report, have important regional and global impacts on weather.

The human climate forcings that have been ignored, or are insufficiently presented in the IPCC and NSTC reports, include

• The influence of human-caused aerosols on regional (and global) radiative heating
• The effect of aerosols on clouds and precipitation
• The influence of aerosol deposition (e.g. soot; nitrogen) on climate
• The effect of land cover/ land use on climate
• The biogeochemical effect of added atmospheric CO₂

What this means is that of the three hypotheses

• The human influence is minimal and natural variations dominate climate variations on all time scales;
• While natural variations are important, the human influence is significant and involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings, including, but not limited to the human input of CO₂;
• The human influence is dominated by the emissions into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide

the first and third hypotheses have been rejected.

The CBO draft report, however, accepts the third hypothesis as being correct, and that this framework can be used to predict regional impacts in the United States decades into the future.

A necessary (but still not sufficient condition) for accurate projections decades into the future of even changes in probabilities of weather events cannot be achieved without including these climate forcings. Thus, the CBO draft presentation of the expected impacts of climate change in the United States is based on a scientifically incomplete study in which there are serious omissions of scientific research.

The CBO report also makes the following statement:

• The accumulation of warming substances has tended to dominate, triggering an irregular but accelerating warming of the Earth’s surface and various consequent changes.

Reviewer comment

The observational data in the last decade conflict with the finding reported in the CBO draft report. For example, the global average lower tropospheric temperatures have not increased for at least 7 years, and indeed, show a recent decline. See (from http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html).

The tic marks on the x-axis are at yearly intervals starting in 1979 and continuing to the present. The vertical axis is the global average temperature anomaly in degrees Celsius in the lower troposphere from the RSS MSU satellite analysis.

There is no acceleration of warming. Studies of the surface temperature data are similarly finding a lack of accelerated warming, and, in fact, are even finding that for the last 8 years or so, that the IPCC model predictions of the global average surface temperature trend are not consistent with the observations. Moreover, there is new evidence of a significant warm bias in the land portion of the surface temperature data base that is used to construct the global average trend (e.g., see Pielke et al. 2007; Lin et al. 2007)

Another statement in the CBO draft is that

• The models replicate seasonal and large-scale regional variations in temperature and, to a lesser extent, precipitation; large-scale ocean currents; large-scale ocean and climate oscillations; and storms and jet streams in the middle latitudes.

Reviewer Comment

The IPCC predictions have not demonstrated seasonal or large-scale regional prediction skill on any climate time periods.  The inability of even the NOAA’s seasonal prediction models to skillfully predict the severe winter cold in the United States and Europe this winter illustrates how challenging this task is.

Also, the CBO draft writes

• The models plausibly replicate 20th century climate trends when they are run with historical emissions of greenhouse gases, other types of emissions, and variations in natural forces such as volcanic eruptions and fluctuations in solar energy. No model replicates those climate trends through variations in natural forces alone.

Reviewer Comment

None of the IPCC models skillfully predicted the major weather pattern variations (and their observed variations in frequency over time) for the 20^th century. The 1930s and 1950s droughts in the United States, for example, have not been accurately simulated by the IPPC models. The one climate metric that they focus on (the global average surface temperature trend) has been reasonably simulated primarily because they can determine what level of aerosols in the atmosphere over the past decades is required to explain the observed variations of warming and cooling during this time period.

The last specific CBO commented on in this review is

• Recent projections even suggest that annual temperatures may cool slightly over the next decade in Europe and North America while the global average temperature remains fairly steady. Such fluctuations are not necessarily inconsistent with an ongoing long-term warming trend brought about by human activities.

Reviewer Comment

This finding conflicts with the statement made earlier in the CBO that “The accumulation of warming substances has tended to dominate, triggering an irregular but accelerating warming of the Earth’s surface and various consequent change”!

This finding is an effort to cover a recently observed observation that global warming has stalled, at least for the present.

Conclusion by the Reviewer

The foundation of the CBO draft is that the hypothesis

• The human influence is dominated by the emissions into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide

 is correct.  The impacts that are predicted in the CBO report are predicated on this hypothesis being valid. However, it has been rejected in a variety of assessments and peer reviewed papers which were ignored on inadequately reported on in the IPCC and NSTC reports.  The hypothesis that has the support of a broad range of papers is that

• While natural variations are important, the human influence is significant and involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings, including, but not limited to the human input of CO₂.

Thus, as reported in Pielke (2008),

 “Climate policy that is designed to mitigate the human impact on regional climate by focusing only on the emissions of CO₂is seriously incomplete unless these other first-order human climate forcings are included, or complementary policies for these other human climate forcings are developed. Moreover, it is important to recognize that climate policy and energy policy, while having overlaps, are distinctly different topics with different mitigation and adaptation options.

A way forward with respect to a more effective climate policy is to focus on the assessment of adaptation and mitigation strategies that reduce vulnerability of important societal and environmental resources to both natural and human caused climate variability and change. For example, restricting development in flood plains or in hurricane storm surge coastal locations is an effective adaptation strategy regardless of how climate changes.” 

My complete testimony in Pielke (2008) is added as an appendix to this review, since I was asked to testify on the same topic as in the CPO draft. 

To provide a more objective and balanced assessment of the role of humans within the climate system, as well as provide an accurate evaluation of the ability to make skillful multidecadal regional climate predictions, the CBO should contract with the National Research Council to convene a Panel for this purpose. Unlike what was chosen for the CCSP process, however, the individuals chosen should not be IPCC contributors, but involve climate scientists with less of a vested interest in the independent assessment.

References

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.

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.

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 Ch http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/Testimony-written.pdfange: Costs of Inaction” - Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman. June 26, 2008, Washington, DC., 52 pp. View Oral Summary at ADD House Testimony

I want to make sure my view of climate science is clear to those who read Climate Science and to those who comment on other weblogs. I have written on this subject before on Climate Science (e.g. see and see) and in published papers (e.g. see and see).

First, to provide some background (see also the March 19 on Climate Science) on my commitment to the environment, I have worked throughout my career to improve environmental conditions including air quality. This includes two terms on the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission where we implemented the oxygenated fuels program to reduce atmospheric CO emissions from vehicles,  to mandate strict regulations on wood and coal burning in residential fireplaces and stoves, and on asbestos concentrations in the air. 

I served on Governor Romer’s Blue Ribbon Committee to develop approaches to reduce diesel emissions into the atmosphere. I was also a member of an NRC committee that rejected an attempt to exempt certain locations such as Fairbanks Alaska from the national CO health standard (see ) and also an NRC committee to communicate the major concerns of overgrazing, which includes an increase in dust emissions into the atmosphere (see). I worked with the National Wildlife Federation to prevent a ski area from building in a pristine area of southwest Colorado. I  also served on a local board of the Nature Conservancy and was on  a committee in Fort Collins that mandated that the permit to construct and operate a brewrey near the city require the burning of natural gas rather than coal.

I have taught graduate classes and advised numerous graduate students in air pollution, modeling, weather and forecasting and climate at the University of Virginia, Colorado State University, the University of Arizona  and the University of Colorado in Boulder (even a class on the U.S. Wilderness System in which the preservation of pristine air quality is a major issue that we discussed). [see for recent classes].

Thus, based on this experience, I have the following recommendations and science findings:

•  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 (e.g. see NRC, 2005 and Kabat et al, 2004). 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 (e.g. see);
• The IPCC and CCSP assessments, as well as the science statements completed by the AGU, AMS and NRC, are completed by a small subset of climate scientists who are often the same individuals. This oligarchy has prevented science of the climate system to be properly communicated to policymakers (e.g. see, see and see).
• 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).
• Policymakers should look for win-win policies in order to improve the environment that we live in (e.g. see).  The costs and benefits of the regulation of the emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere need to be evaluated together with all other possible environmental regulations.  The goal should be to seek politically and technologically practical ways to reduce the vulnerability of the environment and society to the entire spectrum of human-caused and natural risks (e.g. see Chapter E in Kabat et al 2004).

I welcome discussion on these four points and would be glad to present guest weblogs by credentialed (peer reviewed published) climate scientists (please e-mail me if you would be interested in doing this). All perspectives with these credentials are welcome.

There continues to be a focus on carbon dioxide as the dominate human climate forcing (e.g. see). This is too narrow an approach to how society should reduce its risk to climate, and will have little actual affect on the weather and climate.

In July 2005, Climate Science published a weblog that highlighted the importance of spatial variations in  climate forcings on the weather and climate that we experience. This perspective emphasized that the correct approach to climate policy is to recognize and respond to the actual diversity of human climate forcings. The scientific literature supports the conclusion given below:

The human influence on climate is significant and involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings, including, but not limited to the human input of CO2.

These forcings include

• The influence of human-caused aerosols on regional (and global) radiative heating
• The effect of aerosols on clouds and precipitation
• The influence of aerosol deposition (e.g. soot; nitrogen) on climate
• The effect of land cover/ land use on climate
• The biogeochemical effect of added atmospheric CO2

This July 2005 weblog What is the Importance to Climate of Heterogeneous Spatial Trends in Tropospheric Temperatures? is repeated today

“The 2005 National Research Council report concluded that:

“regional variations in radiative forcing may have important regional and global climate implications that are not resolved by the concept of global mean radiative forcing.”

And furthermore:

“Regional diabatic heating can cause atmospheric teleconnections that influence regional climate thousands of kilometers away from the point of forcing.”

This regional diabatic heating produces temperature increases or decreases in the layer-averaged regional troposphere. This necessarily alters the regional pressure fields and thus the wind pattern. This pressure and wind pattern then affects the pressure and wind patterns at large distances from the region of the forcing which we refer to as teleconnections.

The regional diabatic forcing can be caused by land-use/land-cover change (e.g. , Chase et al. 2000) or by aerosol emissions. Even natural surface variations such as in ocean color produce such teleconnections in a general circulation model (see Atmospheric response to solar radiation absorbed by phytoplankton )

There is debate, however, regarding whether the magnitude of the regional diabatic forcing is large enough to result in long distance teleconnections. However, observed multi-decadal trends in tropospheric-averaged temperatures are large enough to result in large-scale circulation trends (see, for example, A Comparison of Regional Trends in 1979-1997 Depth-Averaged Tropospheric Temperaturesfor the magnitude of the 1979-1997 regional trends). Thus land-use/land-cover changes and aerosol clouds that produce regional tropospheric temperature anomalies of a similar magnitude (or larger magnitude) would be expected to have significant teleconnection effects.

If this is true, than regional diabatic heating due to human activities represents a major, but under-recognized climate forcing, on long-term global weather patterns. Indeed, this heterogenous climate forcing may be more important on the weather that we experience than changes in weather patterns associated with the more homogeneous spatial radiative forcing of the well-mixed greenhouse gases (see the NASA press release, which is based on the multi-authored paper 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).

The Second Public review draft of the Unified Synthesis Product (Global Climate Change in the United States) is posted. Comments will be accepted from 13 January through 27 February 2009. See also Federal Register notice. (posted 13 January 2009). The full CCSP report is available.

Climate Science has posted on the first draft of this report; see

http://climatesci.org/2008/08/05/comments-on-ccsp-report-unified-synthesis-product-global-climate-change-in-the-united-states-by-roger-a-pielke-sr/

Comments On CCSP Report Unified Synthesis Product Global Climate Change in the United States By Roger A. Pielke Sr.

CCSP Draft Report Comments as Submitted by Professor Ben Herman of the University of Arizona

Guest Weblog: A Comment On The Report “Unified Synthesis Product Global Climate Change in the United States” By Joseph D. Aleo

 The Co-Editors are

Thomas R. Karl,
NOAA National Climatic Data Center

Jerry M. Melillo,
Marine Biological Laboratory

Thomas C. Peterson,
NOAA National Climatic Data Center

The comments that we provided were not responded to [at least that we can find]. This CCSP report is nothing more than a rehash of the same material as presented in the first version.  If you accept the perspective of the Editors, you can use this report to promote your political agenda.

However, if you want a true balanced perspective of climate issues in the United States, it is not going to satisfy that need. 

The Report is a failure in presenting the diversity of viewpoints that appear in the peer reviewed literature. Policymakers who use this report to promote particular policy actions are either cherry picking for their own advocacy or remain oblivious that there are other scientifically well supported perspectives.

Interested readers can look at the Public Comment that I submitted for the first CCSP report, where the comments regarding how Tom Karl handled that report are certainly applicable to the current report also;

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.

Also, for an overview as to what is missing in the Karl et al 2009 perspective, see

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.

Kevin Gurney of Purdue University has alerted us to a valuable source of information on the emission inventory of CO2 into the atmosphere. Climate Science has weblogged on this Vulcan project previously (see).

The e-mail from Kevin Gurney announcing the release is

Greetings,

Today we are releasing a new version of the Vulcan data product, version 1.1……This version has a number of improvements including an improved area source module, better mobile diurnal emissions representation,and better residential and commercial time structure.

We have also released a portion of the vulcan inventory on Google Earth. You can see information down to the county level by sector and per capita. We included the geocoded powerplant and airport emissions. A flyover has been created and it is up on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu-s9IHPGmM

You can also now donate directly to the Vulcan project.

As always, all of the Vulcan information can be accessed from the vulcan website at:

www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan

In the associated press release, this project is described further (see). An excerpt reads

“The Vulcan layer on Google Earth shows carbon dioxide emissions in metric tons at the state level, county level and per capita. It also breaks down emissions by the different sectors   the emissions, including aircraft, commercial, electricity production, industrial, residential and transport.”

An important perspective on this climate forcing is also presented in the press release where it is written

“Carbon dioxide is the most important human-produced gas contributing to global climate change, Gurney said.”

Climate Science agrees with this statement as it accurately reflects that the atmospheric concentrations of this gas is the one undergoing the most change from the pre-industrial atmosphere.

What is a critically important next step, however, is to do the same kind of analysis for the other human climate forcings including inventories of the input into the atmosphere and locations of deposition of human-caused aerosols including sulphates, nitrogen compounds and soot, as well as of the alteration of the landscape by human management in terms of how the surface fluxes of heat, moisture, momentum and trace gases such as carbon dioxide are altered.

Such a comphrehensive inventory would provide policymakers with information on all of the first order human climate forcings. This inventory is needed since, as reported in testimony to Congress (see) and concluded in a National Research Council Report (see)

The human influence on climate is significant and involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings, including, but not limited to the human input of CO2.
 

There is renewed emphasis on the need to regulate CO2 as a pollutant; e.g. see

US EPA To Reconsider Pollution Ruling On CO2

BREAKING: Obama Pledges to Regulate CO2 from Coal Plants

Climate Science has weblogged in the past on this issue:

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 regulation of CO2 will open a pandora’s box with respect to government regulation. The text in the most recent weblog on this subject stated that

What the listing of carbon dioxide as a pollutant would do is to implicitly declare that any human activity that affects climate could be considered a pollutant. This would logically mean, for instance,  that the EPA could regulate land use since, as extensively documented in the peer reviewed literature (e.g. see), landscape change is a human climate forcing.

This plan to regulate CO2 as a pollutant (since it is a human climate forcing) would give them the legal rationale to permit the implementation of additional federal regulations for other human climate forcings including the zoning of how land is developed.  Everyone should realize the implications and significance of this potential expansion of federal authority.  There may be societal benefits to such broad climate regulation authority, however, this issue should be more effectively discussed and debated than it has been up to the present.

One of my colleagues, who I have the highest respect for, Professor George Kallos of the University of Athens, has another excellent study of a weather and climate issue, which is reported on below.

A presentation in Cyprus entitled Modeling Aerosol-Radiation-Cloud and Precipitation Processes in the Mediterranean Region by George Kallos and colleagues from the University of Athens School of Physics, Atmospheric Modeling and Weather Forecasting Group. The motivation for the study are listed as:

• Physiographic characteristics are partially responsible for the formation of particular climatic conditions in the Mediterranean Region.
• Regional climatic patterns are defined as a result of balancing between large scale flow and mesoscale circulations.
• The resulted circulation has a general trend from North to South (pressure gradient and differential heating between land and water).
• Air masses reaching the Mediterranean region are not clearly defined as pure maritime or continental because their characteristics are modified relatively fast.
• The air masses in the area have a mixture of natural and anthropogenic origin aerosols with varying optical and hygroscopic properties.
• Therefore, aerosol-cloud-radiation processes have some unique characteristics.
• Desert dust and sea salt are major sources of PM [particulate matter] in the atmosphere.
• Their impacts in the atmosphere are many and of course the feedbacks are considerable.
• The impacts are ranging from modification of the radiative forcing to cloud formation and precipitation.
• Therefore, perturbations in dust and/or sea salt particle production can have impacts on radiative properties, cloud formation and water budget.
• These links are not one way but there are feedbacks that are critical for both meteorological and climatological-scale phenomena.
• The links and feedbacks become more complicated because of the coexistence of anthropogenically-produced aerosols and chemical transformations.

This presentation was also provided by Dr. Kallos in describing CIRCE: Climate Change and Impact ResearCh: the Mediterranean Environment

There have been claims that the Earth is entering period of strong climate cooling; e.g. see

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

Such predictions of cooling, however, are no more substantiated by skillful validated predictions of this cooling, than are the IPCC predictions of more-or-less uniform global warming.

What the science does tell us is that the human influence on climate is significant and involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings, including, but not limited to the human input of CO2 (e.g. see). Natural variations are important (and still not yet adequately understood; e.g. see), and the human influence is also significant and involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings (including, but not limited to the human input of CO2).

To assume we understand enough about natural climate variations and long term trends to skillfully predict a sudden cooling of the global climate is not supported by peer reviewed scientific research.  We need to recognize that accurate climate prediction is a much more daunting challenge than is reported in the news article above, and in the 2007 IPCC report.

For summary of the Climate Science perspective on climate, please see my 2007 House testimony.

There was a recent Nature news article

Barratt, A., 2008: Forecasting the future of hurricanes. Nature News. Published online December 11, 2008. doi:10.1038/news.2008.1298.

The article is  titled

A meteorologist’s new model zooms in on how climate change affects Atlantic storms.

by Anna Barnett

“The world’s most advanced simulation of extreme weather on a warming Earth completed its first run on 5 December. Greg Holland at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, is leading the project, which nests detailed regional forecasts into a model of global climate change up to the mid-21st century. Under the model’s microscope are future hurricane seasons in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, along with rainfall over the Rocky Mountains and wind patterns in the Great Plains.”

This type of article perpetuates the myth that the climate science community currently has the capability to make skilled regional multi-decadal predictions [in this case of hurricane activity]. Such claims to not conform even to the statements by IPCC authors.

For example, see An Essay “The IPCC Report: What The Lead Authors Really Think” By Ann Henderson-Sellers where she reports that

“The rush to emphasize regional climate does not have a scientifically sound basis.”

Even Kevin Trenberth, one of the Lead IPCC authors, has written (see)

“the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate.”

[see the Climate Science posting on the Trenberth essay - Comment on the Nature Weblog By Kevin Trenberth Entitled “Predictions of climate”.]

The Nature article Forecasting the future of hurricanes is yet another example of not critically and objectively assessing claims made by climate scientists. What ever happened to objective journalism in Nature?

There is an article on geoengineering of the climate system;

Levi, B. G., 2008: Will desperate climates call for desperate geoengineering measures? Earth scientists ponder the wisdom of large-scale efforts to counter global warming. Physics Today, 61:8, 26-28.

Excerpts of the article read

“Concerned that Earth’s climate will change to an unacceptable degree or at an unacceptable rate before economies can shift significantly away from carbon-based energy sources, some scientists have begun casting their eyes in a previously shunned direction: geoengineering, or intentional and large-scale intervention to prevent or slow changes in the climate system.

Geoengineering sometimes refers strictly to techniques for increasing Earth’s albedo, or reflectivity, to lower its temperature and compensate for greenhouse warming. More broadly, the term can include efforts to accelerate some of the natural processes for removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere. Many such ideas have been around for decades. In the past few years, however, the debate over their potential deployment has intensified.”

The figure below, reproduced from their paper (unfortunately, the image is poor), presents different geoengineering approaches and their relative costs and risks.

 (Figure originally from Kurt House, Harvard University.)

Each of these porposals for geoengineering of climate, however, are fraught with very significant risk!

As discussed in an early Climate Science weblog What is the Importance to Climate of Heterogeneous Spatial Trends in Tropospheric Temperatures?

“…..regional diabatic heating due to human activities represents a major, but under-recognized climate forcing, on long-term global weather patterns. Indeed, this heterogeneous climate forcing may be more important on the weather that we experience than changes in weather patterns associated with the more homogeneous spatial radiative forcing of the well-mixed greenhouse gases…”

The proposed options of geoengineering of climate illustrated in the figure would result in new human heterogeneous climate forcing. Since we do not even yet know the consequences of the existing inadvertent non-homogeneous human climate forcings such as land use/land cover change and aerosols (i.e. see), the introduction of deliberate heterogeneous human climate forcings is dangerous and irresponsible.

The claim in the Levi Physics Today article that geoengineering “intervention” [can] prevent or slow changes in the climate system is completely wrong. Geoengineering  would cause changes in the climate system!  The Levi focus almost exclusively on the role of the addition of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is blind to the importance of altering the spatial pattern of climate forcing as a result of geoengineering.