Climate Progress: An insider's view of climate science, politics, and solutions

By mid-century climate change will mean a high or extreme risk of water shortages in 14 states, according to a new study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

One-third of U.S. counties will face at least some higher risks of water shortages, with 400 counties at extremely high risk, the report by consulting firm Tetra Tech concludes.  CAP’s Tom Kenworthy has the story.

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MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel has been at the forefront of trying to explain many aspects of climate science to the public, especially in his field of expertise — hurricanes.  He has written a good essay on the hacked emails, ” ‘Climategate’: A Different Perspective,” originally published at the National Association of Scholars [NAS] website.  Near the end, he notes:

While the climategate email authors are castigated for not being paragons of virtue, the sins of others go unremarked. In the summer of 2009, a one-page letter was sent to Congress, signed by one actual climate scientist and six physicists with little or no background in climate science, three of whom were retired. Among other untruths, it contained the sentence, referring to evidence of anthropogenic global warming, “There is no such evidence; it doesn’t exist.” I confronted the sole climate scientist among the authors with this statement, and he confessed that he did not hold that to be the case. Last I checked, lying to Congress was a federal crime.

Emanuel doesn’t mention Richard Lindzen by name, but that is who he means (as is made clear here).  The laughable letter itself is here.  Emanuel is thus calling out his old friend Lindzen, plus William Happer and S. Fred Singer, as liars on climate science.  No argument here.

Kerry Emanuel is author of the terrific book, Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes.  In 2006 he was named one of Time’s “Time 100: The People Who Shape Our World.”  Here are more excerpts from his piece:
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Prof. Stephen Schneider, one of the truly important voices in climate science of our time, has died.  For over three decades, he had been researching and speaking out on the need to sharply and quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Schneider served as a consultant to Federal Agencies and White House staff in the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations…..

Schneider was the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers and other publications. He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II IPCC TAR and was engaged as a co-anchor of the Key Vulnerabilities Cross-Cutting Theme for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) at the time of his death.

Schneider managed this urgent message even while consistently focusing on the uncertainties inherent in the science — he understood that the uncertainties made the case stronger, not weaker, particularly since most of the uncertainty is on the high end of climate sensitivity and impacts.  And he managed this even while he battled and beat a rare cancer.”

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Here is an update of my review of the best papers on climate science in the past year.  If you want a broader overview of the literature in the past few years, focusing specifically on how unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gas emissions are projected to impact the United States, try “An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water.”

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Warning:  Please put your head in a vise before reading further.

Andy Revkin has just written the most illogical climate post on Earth.  Or maybe he’s written the most logical climate post on the Bizarro World Htrae.

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According to the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (2007):
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A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems….

Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.

The National Academy released three reports today on “America’s Climate Choices.”

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One of the country’s leading experts on the Arctic projects it will be essentially ice-free (in the fall) decades ahead of the projections of the climate models used in the 2007 IPCC report.  And that has quite dire implications and consequences for the likely future rate of climate change compared to those models.

The following chart is from Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in a presentation at the March State of the Arctic Meeting (click to enlarge):

*This projection is based on a combined model and data trendline focusing on ice volume.  By “ice-free,” Maslowski tells me he means more than an 80% drop from the 1979-2000 summer volume baseline of ~200,00 km^3.  Some sea ice above Greenland and Eastern Canada may survive into the 2020s (as the inset in his figure shows), but the Arctic as it has been for apparently a million years will be gone.

Note also that the Polar Science Center asserts “September Ice Volume was lowest in 2009 at 5,800 km^3 or 67% below its 1979 maximum.” If that figure is correct, then we may be on one of Maslowski’s faster-declining trend lines.  And yes, after apparently hundreds of thousands of years, this relatively rapid decline can, I think, safely be called a “death spiral” (especially if the Polar Science Center’s work discussed below is correct).

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Revkin asks me via Dot Earth, “What if The Public had Perfect Climate Information?”  Ahh, the hypothetical question that launches us into an alternative history.  Reminds me of that Saturday Night Live routine, “What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?”

I’d love your answer.  Here’s mine.

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Today, a large body of evidence has been collected to support the broad scientific understanding that global climate warming, as evident these last few decades, is unprecedented for the past 1000 years — and this change is due to human activities.  This conclusion is based on decades of rigorous research by thousands of scientists and endorsed by all of the world’s major national science academies….

Although uncertainties remain, they concern issues like the rate of melting of major ice sheets rather than the broader topic of whether the climate is changing.

This is from an article in the Politico, “The science behind climate science,” by four leading climate scientists:  Dr. James McCarthy, Dr. Lisa Graumlich, Dr. Chris Field, and Dr. James Hurrell.  You may remember Dr. Field from his terrific talk at CAP earlier this year.

Here’s more of the piece:
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At the end are some suggestions for how you can show your support for Abraham.

Back in May, engineering professor John Abraham eviscerated The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (TVMOB) in a must-see video.

TVMOB is, of course, a shameless purveyor of hate speech and anti-science disinformation (see Lord Monckton repeats and expands on his charge that those who embrace climate science are “Hitler youth” and fascists and links below).  [Please note that the picture on the right is not TVMOB nor do I think he would ever participate in this.]

TVMOB then tried to incite an academic hearing against Abraham. Now TVMOB has written a more detailed and more laughable response, which Deltoid debunks here:  “I think that they might have to rename it the Monckton gallop” and Eli Rabbett here and here.  DeSmogBlog explains why “most people will conclude that John Abraham is a careful scientist and that the Lord Monckton is a belligerent and unapologetic polemicist”.

Monbiot calls it “magnificently bonkers,” pointing out “how frequently climate change deniers resort to demands for censorship or threats of litigation to try to shut down criticism of their views.”

But, as Skeptical Science notes, what’s not funny is that

Now Monckton is trying to censor Abraham — urging Watts Up With That readers to pressure St. Thomas University to take down Abraham’s presentation.

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