Post de referencia: 1. Introducción
Post de referencia: 2. Breve introducción a lo que el IPCC es y no es
Post de referencia: 3. A vueltas con la moderación científica
- Peter Sinclair – New Video: Mann and Rahmstorf on IPCC 2013 – Climate Denial Crock of the Week, 05/11/2013 – http://climatecrocks.com/2013/11/05/new-video-mann-and-rahmstorf-on-ipcc-2013/
“Stefan Rahmstorf: The IPCC has in the past underestimated important aspects of climate change. For example, sea-level rise in the last couple of decades has overtaken the speed of the upper range of previous projections of sea-level rise of the IPCC, the loss of the sea ice in the Arctic ocean has happened much faster than the IPCC projected. So there are some clear examples where the IPCC got it wrong and got it wrong in the direction of, unfortunately, underestimating the scale of the problem. Now you can of course debate whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that IPCC reports are conservative, but the most important thing is that you know that it’s conservative, so you understand the IPCC reports in the correct way.” - Keynyn Brysse et al (2013) – Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? – Global Environmental Change 23:327–337 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008 – Program in Science, Technology and Society, Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta – 4 autores
“The available evidence suggests that scientists have in fact been conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change. In particular, we discuss recent studies showing that at least some of the key attributes of global warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gases have been under-predicted, particularly in IPCC assessments of the physical science, by Working Group I … We suggest, therefore, that scientists are biased not toward alarmism but rather the reverse: toward cautious estimates, where we define caution as erring on the side of less rather than more alarming predictions. We call this tendency “erring on the side of least drama (ESLD).”.” - John Tyndall (1861) – On the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapors, and on the Physical Connexion of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction – Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science – FRS, Member of the Academies and Societies of Holland, Geneva, Göttingen, Zürich, Halle, Marburg, Breslau, la Societe Philomatique of Paris, &c.; Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution, and in the Government School of Mines – http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Spectroscopy/tyndall-1861.pdf
“The solar heat possesses. . . the power of crossing an atmosphere; but, when the heat is absorbed by the planet, it is so changed in quality that the rays emanating from the planet cannot get with the same freedom back into space. Thus the atmosphere admits of the entrance of the solar heat, but checks its exit; and the result is a tendency to accumulate heat at the surface of the planet.” - Uri Shwed and Peter S. Bearman (2010) – The temporal structure of scientific consensus formation – American Sociological Review 75:817–840 doi:10.1177/0003122410388488 – Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev; Columbia University – http://understandingautism.columbia.edu/papers/the-temporal-structure-of-scientific-consensus-formation.pdf
“Our results reject the claim of inconclusive science on climate change and identify the emergence of consensus earlier than previously thought. Given the weight of this case in illustrations of political interventions in science, it is noteworthy that its scientific representation, derived solely from peer-reviewed articles, resembles the spiral pattern of cases like skin cancer far more than cyclical cases such as the hazards of smoking. ” - Steven Sherwood (2011) – Science controversies past and present – Physics Today doi:10.1063/PT.3.1295 – Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales – http://physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v64/i10/p39_s1?bypassSSO=1
“Debates between mainstream scientists and silvertongued opponents cannot be won by the side of truth no matter how obvious the fallacies may be to an expert. Incredibly, as recently as the mid-19th century, a highly charismatic figure calling himself “Parallax” devoted two decades of his life to crisscrossing England arguing that Earth was flat. He debated legitimate astronomers—sometimes teams of them—in town-hall-type settings and wowed audiences.10 For similar reasons, Einstein himself gave up debating his critics early in the 1920s.6.” - Edward L. Bernays (1926, 1955) – Propaganda – Horace LiveRight New York 1926
“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons … who pull the wires which control the public mind.” - Walter Lippman (1921) – Public Opinion – Free Press – http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/CDFinal/Lippman/contents.html
“It is argued that the problem of the press is confused because the critics and the apologists expect the press to realize this fiction, expect it to make up for all that was not foreseen in the theory of democracy, and that the readers expect this miracle to be performed at no cost or trouble to themselves. The newspapers are regarded by democrats as a panacea for their own defects, whereas analysis of the nature of news and of the economic basis of journalism seems to show that the newspapers necessarily and inevitably reflect, and therefore, in greater or lesser measure, intensify, the defective organization of public opinion.” - James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore (2009) – Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming – Greystone – http://www.desmogblog.com/about-climate-cover
“Scientists from within the fossil fuel industries’ own organizations raised red flags about climate change as early as 30 years ago – and they specifically dismissed the credibility of deniers by 1995. Yet the fossil fuel industry has continued to support efforts to subvert the science, attacking real scientists and promoting a cast of “skeptics” in their place. DeSmogBlog looks behind these deniers to test their credentials and to search out their source of funding.” - Guy R. McPherson (2013) – Climate-change summary and update – Nature Bats Last, 27/04/2013 – Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona – http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/
“If you’re too busy to read the evidence presented below, here’s the bottom line: On a planet 4 C hotter than baseline, all we can prepare for is human extinction (from Oliver Tickell’s 2008 synthesis in the Guardian). Tickell is taking a conservative approach, considering humans have not been present at 3.5 C above baseline (i.e., the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, commonly accepted as 1750).” - Oliver Tickell – On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction – The Guardian, 11/08/2008 – http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/climatechange
“We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, «the end of living and the beginning of survival» for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction.” - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics – Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 ºC World Must Be Avoided – The World Bank, November 2012 – http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Full_Report_Vol_2_Turn_Down_The_Heat_%20Climate_Extremes_Regional_Impacts_Case_for_Resilience_Print%20version_FINAL.pdf
“While the global community has committed itself to holding warming below 2°C to prevent “dangerous” climate change, the sum total of current policies—in place and pledged—will very likely lead to warming far in excess of this level. Indeed, present emission trends put the world plausibly on a path toward 4°C warming within this century.» - World Energy Outlook 2013, Resumen Ejecutivo – Agencia Internacional de la Energía – http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WEO2013_Executive_Summary_Spanish.pdf
“En nuestro escenario central, que tiene en cuenta el efecto de las medidas ya anunciadas por los gobiernos para mejorar la eficiencia energética, apoyar las energías renovables, reducir las subvenciones a los combustibles fósiles y, en ciertos casos, fijar un precio a las emisiones de CO2, las emisiones de CO2 relacionadas con la energía subirán con todo cerca de un 20% hasta 2035. Esto encaminará al mundo por una senda que supondrá una elevación de la temperatura media a largo plazo de 3,6 °C, es decir, muy por encima del objetivo de 2 °C acordado internacionalmente.” - Peter N. Spotts – Little time to avoid big thaw, scientists warn – The Christian Science Monitor, 24/03/2006 – http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/p01s03-sten.html
“Ice on Greenland and Antarctica is already thinning faster than it’s being replaced – and faster than scientists thought it would, notes Richard Alley, a paleoclimatologist at Penn State University and member of one of the research teams. Only five years ago, he notes, climate scientists expected the ice sheets to gain mass through 2100, then begin to melt. «We’re now 100 years ahead of schedule,» he says.” - William R. Freudenburg and Violetta Muselli (2010) – Global warming estimates, media expectations, and the asymmetry of scientific challenge – Global Environmental Change 3:483-491 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.04.003 – http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Freudenburg_2010_ASC.pdf – Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
“The bias that is expected by the ASC perspective … involves systematic error, rather than individual prejudice. The Asymmetry of Scientific Challenge – attacks on new findings or hypotheses that might push scientific consensus in one direction [‘alarmist’], combined with an absence of comparably vigorous challenges to new findings or hypotheses that might have the opposite effect [‘contrarian’] – can lead to an initially imperceptible but cumulatively significant bias in what comes to be taken as the prevailing scientific consensus.” - J.A. Nelson (2011) – Ethics and the Economist: What Climate Change Demands of Us – Ecological Economics 85:145–154 doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.07.029 – Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Boston – http://www.e3network.org/papers/Ethics_and_the_Economist_033111.pdf
“Nicholas Stern has said that we need a «new industrial revolution» to address climate change (Stern 2011, 6). He also suggests that economists must consult other fields — including «science, technology, philosophy, economic history, [and] international relations» — as we develop our economic analysis (Stern 2011, 19). An even more basic revolution is, however, needed as well: An overhaul of the ideas of the Enlightenment, Beta Version, of the 18th century. This first version got off the drawing-boards of philosophers and has put to use in scientific, economic, and political practices worldwide. But it seems that a great many of the assumptions underlying Enlightenment Beta and early scientific thought were wrong, or at best very incomplete. The continued advance of science has, in fact, undermined the earlier version — and with it, the economics based on it.” - Stephen H. Schneider (2009) – Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate – National Geographic Books – Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University
“One of the more contentious issues was an updated diagram of climate risks, known as burning embers. Although a central feature of the TAR, if was left out of the 2007 report. The main opposition comprised officials representing the United States, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia … governments of the four big fossil fuel-dependent and producing nations opposed it. (The climate-risk diagram has since been published in the PNAS, so their suppression was only temporarily successful.) (p. 187).” - Catherine P. McMullen et al (2009) – Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 – United Nations Environmental Programme – http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/ ; http://www.unep.org/pdf/ccScienceCompendium2009/cc_ScienceCompendium2009_full_highres_en.pdf
“The science has become more irrevocable than ever: Climate change is happening. The evidence is all around us. And unless we act, we will see catastrophic consequences including rising sea levels, droughts and famine, and the loss of up to a third of the world’s plant and animal species. We need a new global agreement to tackle climate change, and this must be based on the soundest, most robust and up-to-date science available – Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations.” - Principles Governing IPCC Work – Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) – Junio 2012 – https://selectra.co.uk/sites/selectra.co.uk/files/pdf/ipcc-principles.pdf
“The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies. ” - Conference Statement – Statement on Implications for Global Security – World Conference on the Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security – Toronto, 30/06/1988 – http://www.cmos.ca/ChangingAtmosphere1988e.pdf
“Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war … Reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 20% of 1988 levels by the year 2005 as an initial global goal. Clearly, the industrialized nations have a responsibility to lead the way, both through their national energy policies and their bilateral and multilateral assistance arrangements. About one-half of this reduction would be sought from energy efficiency and other conservation measures. The other half should be effected by modifications in supplies … Initiate the development of a comprehensive global convention as a framework for protocols on the protection of the atmosphere.” - Lindsay Abrams – Rohrabacher: Global warming is a liberal plot to “create global government” – Salon, 12/08/2013 –http://www.salon.com/2013/08/12/rohrabacher_global_warming_is_a_liberal_plot_to_create_global_government/
“The federal government wants “to create global government to control all our lives,” Rohrabacher explained, and the made-up threat of global warming is their way of taking our freedom. Complicit are the scientists who use their loads of research money to “intimidate people who disagree with their attempt to frighten all of us into changing our lives and giving up our freedoms to make choices.” Who’s making those choices? According to Rohrabacher, a government official who, by the way, “probably comes from Nigeria” via the United Nations. ” - Robert J. Brulle (2014) – Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations – Climatic Change doi:10.1007/s10584-013-1018-7 – Drexel University – http://www.drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing Delay – Climatic Change.ashx
“This results in a data sample that contains financial information for the time period 2003 to 2010 on the annual income of 91 CCCM organizations funded by 140 different foundations. An examination of these data shows that these 91 CCCM organizations have an annual income of just over $900 million, with an annual average of $64 million in identifiable foundation support. The overwhelming majority of the philanthropic support comes from conservative foundations. Additionally, there is evidence of a trend toward concealing the sources of CCCM funding through the use of donor directed philanthropies.” - Eli Kintisch (2013) – For Researchers, IPCC Leaves a Deep Impression – Science 342:24 doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.24
“IPCC by the Numbers (Working Group I report on climate science): 859 authors and editors from 39 nations; 2214 pages; 41 climate models; 2 million gigabytes of modeling data; 9200 papers cited; 54,677 comments. … The IPCC’s prestige drives researchers to finish work. To have a chance of being cited in last week’s report, researchers had to submit their papers to a journal by 31 July 2012.” - Harold T. Shapiro et al (2010) – Climate Change Assessments: Review of the processes and procedures of the IPCC – Interacademy Council – Presidente Emérito del Interacademy Council; Catedrático de Economía y Asuntos Públicos, Princeton University – http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report/Climate Change Assessments, Review of the Processes & Procedures of the IPCC.pdf
“The Committee concludes that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well.” - Ottmar Edenhofer et al (Eds.) (2011) – Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srren/SRREN_Full_Report.pdf – 11 autores
- Christopher B. Field et al (2011) – Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) – Fact Sheet – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – Carnegie Institution for Science – http://ipcc.ch/news_and_events/docs/srex/SREX_fact_sheet.pdf – 29 autores
- James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato (2011) – Earth’s Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow – Science for Peace – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute – http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_15/PaleoImplications.pdf
“The past is the key to the future. Contrary to popular belief, climate models are not the principal basis for assessing human-made climate effects. Our most precise knowledge comes from Earth’s paleoclimate, its ancient climate, and how it responded to past changes of climate forcings, including atmospheric composition. Our second essential source of information is provided by global observations today, especially satellite observations, which reveal how the climate system is responding to rapid human-made changes of atmospheric composition, especially atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Models help us interpret past and present climate changes, and, in so far as they succeed in simulating past changes, they provide a tool to help evaluate the impacts of alternative policies that affect climate.” - Pascale Braconnot et al (2012) – Evaluation of climate models using palaeoclimatic data – Nature Climate Change 2:417–424 doi:10.1038/nclimate1456 – Institut Pierre Simon Laplace/Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Unité Mixte de Recherches CEA-CNRS-UVSQ – 8 autores
“Evaluation of model simulations against palaeodata shows that models reproduce the direction and large-scale patterns of past changes in climate, but tend to underestimate the magnitude of regional changes.” - Virginie Guemas et al (2013) – Retrospective prediction of the global warming slowdown in the past decade – Nature Climate Change 3:649–653 doi:10.1038/nclimate1863 – Institut Català de Ciències del Clima (IC3) – 4 autores
“Our results hence point at the key role of the ocean heat uptake in the recent warming slowdown. The ability to predict retrospectively this slowdown not only strengthens our confidence in the robustness of our climate models, but also enhances the socio-economic relevance of operational decadal climate predictions.” - Rob Painting – Climate Models Show Remarkable Agreement with Recent Surface Warming – Skeptical Science, 28/05/2014 – http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Models-Show-Remarkable-Agreement-with-Recent-Surface-Warming.html
“By failing to account for these and other factors, the CMIP5 collection of climate models erroneously simulate more warming of Earth’s surface than would be expected. When the input into the climate models is adjusted to take into consideration both the warming and cooling influences on the climate that actually occurred, the models demonstrate remarkable agreement with the observed surface warming in the last 16 years.” - Richard A. Kerr (2007) – Pushing the Scary Side of Global Warming – Science 316:1412-1415 doi:10.1126/science.316.5830.1412 – Editor in Chief
“A big part of IPCC’s problem, say MacCracken and others, was its strict adherence to the use of models. By IPCC standards, “if it’s not in a model, it’s speculation,” says Rahmstorf. By ignoring factors that can’t yet be modeled, he says, IPCC came up with deceptively reassuring numbers.” - José Manuel Moreno (2014) – Panorámica General del Volumen II del Quinto Informe del IPCC – Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Vicepresidente del Grupo II del IPCC – http://adaptecca.es/sites/default/files/noticias/panoramica_general-_j.m._moreno.pdf
- Guy McPherson (2013) – Climate-change summary and update – Nature Bats Last, 27/04/2013 – Professor emeritus at the University of Arizona – http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/
“Even mainstream scientists minimize the message at every turn. As we’ve known for years, scientists almost invariably underplay climate impacts. I’m not implying conspiracy. Science selects for conservatism. Academia selects for extreme conservatism. These folks are loathe to risk drawing undue attention to themselves by pointing out there might be a threat to civilization. Never mind the near-term threat to our entire species (they couldn’t care less about other species). If the truth is dire, they can find another, not-so-dire version.” - Dan Satterfield (2013) – Has The Political Divide Become A Scientific Divide as Well?? – Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal, 30/08/2013 – http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2013/08/30/has-the-political-divide-become-a-scientific-divide-as-well/
“I can say from my own experience that at any science meeting 20 years ago, you would run across pretty much the same mix of political beliefs as you would by taking a random poll on the street. There is little doubt that this is certainly not the case anymore. The Salt Lake Tribune has a fascinating piece on this in Thursday’s edition, and it’s well worth a read. I can attest that the 6% figure of republican scientists quoted in the Tribune piece seems about right.” - Chris Mooney (2005) – The Republican War on Science – Perseus Books – ISBN: 978-0-465-04675-1 – 342 Págs.
“During the administration of president George H.W. Bush … the White House budget office broke this rule, deliberately altering the scientific testimony of NASA climate expert James Hansen to weaken his conclusions … one of the most disturbing phenomena discussed in this book involves attacks on individual scientists aimed at discrediting their work.” - Judy Fahys (2013) – Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science – The Salt Lake Tribune, 28/08/2013 – http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56795477-90/science-scientists-gop-http.html.csp
“He says most examples are in the environmental sciences. And he points to the time in 2009 when majority-party Republicans in the Utah Capitol put climate-science doubters on a pedestal – while rejecting the mainstream scientist view about the danger global warming poses and even taking a beef about a Utah State University physicist to the university president. «Scientists just don’t get those people,» he says of Republicans who adhere to party orthodoxy about scientific questions on climate change, evolution and other hot-button issues. «They [in the GOP] are driving us away, people like me.» He points to the 6 percent statistic from a 2009 Pew poll, and wondered aloud if any other voting group offered lower GOP support.” - Bernard Barber (1961) – Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery – Science 134:596-602 doi:10.1126/science.134.3479.596 – Director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise Science at Cardiff University, UK – Texto de una conferencia pronunciada el 20/12/1960 en el encuentro de la American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) de Nueva York – http://web.missouri.edu/~hanuscind/8710/Barber1961.pdf
“If ‘the edge of objectivity’ in science, as Charles Gillispie has recently pointed out, requires us to take physical and biological nature as it. is, without projecting our wishes upon it, so also we have to take man’s social nature, or his behavior in society, as it is. As men in society, scientists are sometimes the agents, sometimes the objects, of resistance to their own discoveries ” - James Hansen (2007) – Scientific reticence and sea level rise – Environmental Research Letters 2 024002 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/2/024002 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute – http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Hansen.pdf
“I believe there is a pressure on scientists to be conservative. Papers are accepted for publication more readily if they do not push too far and are larded with caveats. Caveats are essential to science, being born in skepticism, which is essential to the process of investigation and verification. But there is a question of degree. A tendency for ‘gradualism’ as new evidence comes to light may be ill-suited for communication, when an issue with a short time fuse is concerned. However, these matters are subjective. I could not see how to prove the existence of a ‘scientific reticence’ about ice sheets and sea level. Score one for the plaintiff, and their ally and ‘friend of the court’, the United States federal government.” - Bernard Barber (1961) – Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery – Science 134:596-602 doi:10.1126/science.134.3479.596 – Director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise Science at Cardiff University, UK – http://web.missouri.edu/~hanuscind/8710/Barber1961.pdf
“New conceptions about the electronic constitution of the atom were also resisted by scientists when fundamental discoveries in this field were being made at the end of the 19th century. The established scientific notion was that of the absolute physical irreducibility of the atom. When Arrhenius published his theory of electrolytic dissociation, his ideas met with resistance for a time, though eventually, thanks in part to Ostwald, the theory was accepted and Arrhenius was given the Nobel prize for it (19). ” - Bernard Barber (1961) – Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery – Science 134:596-602 doi:10.1126/science.134.3479.596 – Director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise Science at Cardiff University, UK – http://web.missouri.edu/~hanuscind/8710/Barber1961.pdf
“Max Planck is another who noticed resistance in general because he had experienced it himself, in regard to some new ideas on the second law of thermodynamics which he worked out in his doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Munich in 1879. Ironically, one of those who resisted the ideas proposed in Planck’s paper, according to his account, was Helmholtz: «None of my professors at the University had any understanding for its contents,» says Planck. «I found no interest, let alone approval, even among the very physicists who were closely connected with the topic. Helmholtz probably did not even read my paper at all.” - Richard P. Feynmann et al (1997) – Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a curious character – W.W. Norton & Company, New York – ISBN-13: 978-0393316049 – 352 págs – http://buffman.net/ebooks/Richard_P_Feynman-Surely_Youre_Joking_Mr_Feynman_v5.pdf
“It’s interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. Why didn’t they discover the new number was higher right away? It’s a thing that scientists are ashamed of – this history – because it’s apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan’s, they thought something must be wrong – and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan’s value they didn’t look so hard.” - Keynyn Brysse et al (2013) – Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? – Global Environmental Change 23:327–337 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008 – Program in Science, Technology and Society, Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta
“The risk of being accused of being overly dramatic, even hysterical, raises an additional (and worrisome) aspect of this issue: its gender dimension. Feminist scholars including Margaret Rossiter, Sandra Harding, and Donna Haraway have long discussed the strong association of science with supposedly male characteristics,” such that ‘proper’ science is perceived to be ‘‘tough, rigorous, rational, impersonal, masculine, competitive, and unemotional’’ (Rossiter, 1982, p. xv; see also Harding, 1986; Haraway, 1989). - John H. Mercer (1968) – Antarctic Ice and Sangamon Sea Level – International Association of Science Hydrology Symposium 79:217–225 – Institute of Polar Studies, Ohio State University – http://web.mac.com/redifiori/Russell_Di_Fiori/Sangamon_Fossil_Project_files/Sangamon%20sea%20level.pdf
“The portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that is grounded below sea level and is in dynamic equilibrium with the Ross and Filchner ice shelves would disintegrate, raising sea level by about 4 m to 6 m. That this has happened at least once during the Pleistocene is suggested by a well-marked sea level stand of about 6 m, dated by uranium and thorium isotopes at about 120,000 years ago, probably at the end of the Sangamon Interglacial. The present West Antarctic Ice Sheet has re-formed since then.” - J. H. Mercer (1978) – West Antarctic ice sheet and CO2 greenhouse effect: a threat of disaster – Nature 271:321-325 doi:10.1038/271321a0 –Institute of Polar Studies, The Ohio State University
“If the global consumption of fossil fuels continues to grow at its present rate, atmospheric CO2 content will double in about 50 years. Climatic models suggest that the resultant greenhouse-warming effect will be greatly magnified in high latitudes. The computed temperature rise at lat 80° S could start rapid deglaciation of West Antarctica, leading to a 5 m rise in sea level.” - James Hansen (2007) – Huge sea level rises are coming – unless we act now – NewScientist 2614, 25/07/2007 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526141.600-huge-sea-level-rises-are-coming–unless-we-act-now.html
“John Mercer effect: … I noticed that researchers who suggested that his paper was alarmist were regarded as more authoritative. It seems to me that scientists downplaying the dangers of climate change fare better when it comes to getting funding.” - Eric Rignot et al (2014) – Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica from 1992 to 2011 – Geophysical Research Letters doi:10.1002/2014GL060140 – University of California Irvine, Dept. Earth System Science – 5 authors
“These rapid retreats proceed along regions of retrograde bed elevation mapped at a high spatial resolution using a mass conservation technique (MC) that removes residual ambiguities from prior mappings. Upstream of the 2011 grounding line positions, we find no major bed obstacle that would prevent the glaciers from further retreat and draw down the entire basin.” - Ian Joughin et al (2014) – Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Underway for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica – Science doi:10.1126/science.1249055 – Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Lab, University of Washington – 3 authors
“Except possibly for the lowest-melt scenario, the simulations indicate early-stage collapse has begun. Less certain is the timescale, with onset of rapid (> 1 mm per year of sea-level rise) collapse for the different simulations within the range of two to nine centuries.” - Justin Gillis and Kenneth Chang (2014) – Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans as Antarctic Ice Melts – The New York Times, 12/05/2014 – http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/science/earth/collapse-of-parts-of-west-antarctica-ice-sheet-has-begun-scientists-say.html
“The finding, which had been feared by some scientists for decades, means that a rise in global sea level of at least 10 feet may now be inevitable. The rise may continue to be relatively slow for at least the next century or so, the scientists said, but sometime after that it will probably speed up so sharply as to become a crisis. ‘This is really happening,’ said Thomas P. Wagner, who runs NASA’s programs on polar ice and helped oversee some of the research. ‘There’s nothing to stop it now. But you are still limited by the physics of how fast the ice can flow.’.” - James Hansen (1988) – The Greenhouse Effect: Impacts on Current Global Temperature and Regional Heat Waves – United States Senate, 23/06/1988 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies + Columbia University Earth Institute
“Altogether the evidence that the earth is warming by an amount that is too large to be a chance fluctuation and the similarity of the warming to that expected from the greenhouse effect represents a very strong case. In my opinion, that the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.” - James Hansen (2007) – Climate Catastrophe – NewScientist, 28/07/2007 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute
“I noticed that researchers who suggested that his paper was alarmist were regarded as more authoritative. It seems to me that scientists downplaying the dangers of climate change fare better when it comes to getting funding … After I published a paper in 1981 that described the likely effects of fossil fuel use, the US Department of Energy reversed a decision to fund my group’s research, specifically criticising aspects of that paper. I believe there is pressure on scientists to be conservative.” - James Hansen (2007) – Huge sea level rises are coming – unless we act now – NewScientist 2614, 25/07/2007 – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526141.600-huge-sea-level-rises-are-coming–unless-we-act-now.html
“After I published a paper in 1981 that described the likely effects of fossil fuel use, the US Department of Energy reversed a decision to fund my group’s research, specifically criticizing aspects of that paper. I believe there is pressure on scientists to be conservative.” - Naomi Oreskes (1999) – Living with uncertainty, learning from mistakes: Reply to Victor Baker and Mott Greene [review of The Rejection of Continental Drift] – Earth Sciences History 18:344–350 – http://hess.metapress.com/content/596816g646036661/fulltext.pdf
- Keynyn Brysse et al (2013) – Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? – Global Environmental Change 23:327–337 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008 – Program in Science, Technology and Society, Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta – 4 authors
“The key point here is that to the extent that the external politics of climate change may be acting as a forcing function, that function tends to act in the same direction as the internal values of the scientific community. We base this claim on the observation of similar patterns in debates that had, in and of themselves, no obvious political, social, or economic ramifications, and where there was no relevant industry to pressure scientists. Consider the debate in the 1980s and 90s over the idea that dinosaurs (and other organisms) did not go extinct gradually at the end of the Cretaceous Period, as they failed to adapt to changed environmental circumstances, but were wiped out more or less instantaneously when a giant meteorite struck the Earth. ” - Ross Garnaut (2008) – Garnaut Climate Change Review – Australian Government – http://www.garnautreview.org.au/index.htm
“There are nevertheless large uncertainties in the science. There is debate and recognition of limits to knowledge about the times and ways in which the risk will manifest itself. Every climate scientist has views on some issues that differ from the mainstream in detail. There are prominent dissenters on this matter, gathered under the rubric of ‘sceptic’. For the most part ‘sceptic’ is a misnomer for their position, because these dissenters hold strongly to the belief that the mainstream science is wrong.” - George Monbiot (2013) – Abbottalypse Now – The Guardian, 05/09/2013 – http://www.monbiot.com/2013/09/05/abbottalypse-now/
“Abbott is following a familiar script, the 4 Ds of climate change inaction, promoted by fossil fuel lovers the world over. Deny, then defer, then delay, then despair … To those four Ds you can add an R: retreat. Like Canada, Australia is slipping back down the development ladder, switching from secondary and tertiary industries towards primary resource extraction.” - Ross Garnaut (2011) – Garnaut Climate Change Review – Update 2011: Update Paper 5: The science of climate change – Australian Government – http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/update-papers/up5-the-science-of-climate-change.pdf
“My own experience and observations of related phenomena suggest that the source of bias is scholarly reticence. It is not optimism that is unscholarly, but being too far away from the mainstream. That could potentially cut either way on climate change. However, in circumstances in which the mainstream has been moving steadily towards more certain views that human-induced climate change is substantial and potentially damaging, and towards expectations of more severe damage, not being too far away from the mainstream has been associated with understatement of the risks … There must be a possibility that scholarly reticence, extended by publications lags, has led to understatement of the risks.” - Keynyn Brysse et al (2013) – Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? – Global Environmental Change 23:327–337 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008 – Program in Science, Technology and Society, Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta – 4 authors
“It is not merely that dramatic claims open scientists to criticisms from skeptics and other external opponents; dramatic claims lay scientists open to criticism from their peers. Because science operates according to a prestige economy in which reputation is paramount, anything that might incite the distrust of one’s peers is to be avoided. Yet, ironically, if our argument is even in part correct, then the desire to preserve one’s reputation for objectivity and dispassion may introduce a bias into one’s work. What begins as an effort to preserve good judgment may in fact cloud it.” - Keynyn Brysse et al (2013) – Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? – Global Environmental Change 23:327–337 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.008 – Program in Science, Technology and Society, Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Alberta – 4 autores
“We argue that the scientific values of rationality, dispassion, and self-restraint tend to lead scientists to demand greater levels of evidence in support of surprising, dramatic, or alarming conclusions than in support of conclusions that are less surprising, less alarming, or more consistent with the scientific status quo. Restraint is a community norm in science, and it tends to lead many scientists (ceteris paribus and with some individual exceptions) to be cautious rather than alarmist, dispassionate rather than emotional, understated rather than overstated, restrained rather than excessive, and above all, moderate rather than dramatic (on community norms, see Bernard, 1927; Conant, 1953; Merton, 1979; Keller, 1985; Harding, 1986; Haraway, 1989). We call this tendency ‘‘erring on the side of least drama (ESLD).’’ ” - Rosslyn Beeby (2011) – Climate of fear: scientists face death threats – Canberra Times – http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/climate-of-fear-scientists-face-death-threats/2185089.aspx
“Australia’s leading climate change scientists are being targeted by a vicious, unrelenting email campaign that has resulted in police investigations of death threats. The Australian National University has confirmed it moved several high-profile climate scientists, economists and policy researchers into more secure buildings, following explicit threats to their personal safety.” - Tim Lambert – Another day, another death threat – Deltoid, 15/07/2011 – http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/another_day_another_death_thre_1.php
“Another scientist got a death threat a couple of days ago. This time it was Hans Schellnhuber. The Australian reports: ‘Anger against scientists involved in the climate debate is reaching dangerous levels and it’s only a matter of time before one is murdered, says leading German physicist Hans Schellnhuber … While he was opening a recent climate conference in Melbourne, a man in the front row waved a noose at him. «I was confronted with a death threat when I gave my public lecture,» Professor Schellnhuber said. ‘Somebody got to his feet and showed me a rope with a noose. «He showed me this hangman’s rope and he said: ‘Mr. Schellnhuber, welcome to Australia’.» Of course, the folks who deny AGW will deny that this happened, but for the rest of you, here it is on video: …” - William R. Freudenburg and Violetta Muselli (2010) – Global warming estimates, media expectations, and the asymmetry of scientific challenge – Global Environmental Change 3:483-491 doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.04.003 – Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) – http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Freudenburg_2010_ASC.pdf
“The ASC expectation, more specifically, is that the scientific outcome is likely to be precisely the opposite of the one that is most often feared — in the case of global climate disruptions, a bias toward underestimating rather than overestimating likely climate disruptions — precisely because so much of the prevailing pattern of scientific challenge has had the opposite focus and concern. ” - M.Granger Morgan and M. Henrion (1992) – Uncertainty: a guide to dealing with uncertainty in quantitative risk and policy analysis – Cambridge University Press – ISBN-13: 978-0521427449 – 346 Págs.
- Timothy M. Lenton (2012) – Arctic Climate Tipping Points – AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 41:10-22 doi10.1007/s13280-011-0221-x – College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter + UK and School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
“Results from an expert elicitation concur that if global warming exceeds 4ºC there is a high probability of passing the tipping point (Kriegler et al. 2009). An alternative surface energy balance model predicts a more distant threshold at around 6ºC global warming (J. Bamber, personal communication). However, recent work suggests the tipping point could be much closer at 0.7–1.7ºC global warming (A. Robinson and A. Ganopolski, personal communication).” - Kirsten Zickfeld et al (2007) – Expert judgements on the response of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation to climate change – Climatic Change 82:235–265 doi:10.1007/s10584-007-9246-3 – School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria + Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Journals/zickfeld_etal_2007.pdf – 6 authors
“All experts anticipate a weakening of the AMOC under scenarios of increase of greenhouse gas concentrations. Two experts expect a permanent collapse of the AMOC as the most likely response under a 4×CO2 scenario. Assuming a global mean temperature increase in the year 2100 of 4 K, eight experts assess the probability of triggering an AMOC collapse as significantly different from zero, three of them as larger than 40%. Elicited consequences of AMOC reduction include strong changes in temperature, precipitation distribution and sea level in the North Atlantic area.” - Benjamin P. Horton et al (2013) – Expert assessment of sea-level rise by AD 2100 and AD 2300 – Quaternary Science Reviews 84:1–6 doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.11.002 – 23/11/2013 – Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers University
“For the low scenario, which limits warming to <2 °C above pre-industrial temperature and has slowly falling temperature after AD 2050, the median ‘likely’ range provided by the experts is 0.4–0.6 m by AD 2100 and 0.6–1.0 m by AD 2300, suggesting a good chance to limit future sea-level rise to <1.0 m if climate mitigation measures are successfully implemented. In contrast, for the high warming scenario (4.5 °C by AD 2100 and 8 °C in AD 2300) the median likely ranges are 0.7–1.2 m by AD 2100 and 2.0–3.0 m by AD 2300, calling into question the future survival of some coastal cities and low-lying island nations.” - E.A.G. Schuur et al (2013) – Expert assessment of vulnerability of permafrost carbon to climate change – Climatic Change 119:359–374 doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0730-7 – 26/03/2013 – University of Florida – http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-0730-7.pdf – 42 authors
“Because of the continued dominance of fossil fuel emissions, permafrost C release, if at a scale hypothesized here, is more likely to act as an important accelerator of climate change rather than a tipping point mechanism. In this way, permafrost C emissions on top of rapidly growing fossil fuel emissions would make temperature targets significantly harder to achieve than currently assessed by the IPCC. ” - Elmar Kriegler et al (2008) – Imprecise probability assessment of tipping points in the climate system – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.0809117106 – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) – http://www.pnas.org/content/106/13/5041.full.pdf+html – 5 authors
“They allocate significant probability to some of the events listed above … We deduce conservative lower bounds for the probability of triggering at least 1 of those events of 0.16 for medium (2–4 °C), and 0.56 for high global mean temperature change (above 4 °C) relative to year 2000 levels.” - Antony Millner et al (2012) – Do probabilistic expert elicitations capture scientists’ uncertainty about climate change? – Climatic Change 116:427–436 doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0620-4 – Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California – 4 authors
“The hypothesis that those experts who violate SEU on the Climate Problem are doing so because their knowledge of the distribution of S is ambiguous is consistent with all these patterns. Although our results reflect the opinions of a moderate number of experts, our statistical analysis is exact, and does not rely on asymptotic methods that only hold for large samples … If anything, it is likely that accounting for the ambiguity in our knowledge recommends stronger mitigation policies than those based on conventional probabilistic decision tools (Millner et al. 2012; Lemoine and Traeger 2012; Woodward and Bishop 1997).” - M. Granger Morgan and Carnegie Mellon (2011) – Certainty, uncertainty, and climate change – Climatic Change doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0184-8 – Head, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
“Most of the conventional tools of policy analysis implicitly assume that: 1. There is a single (public-sector) decision maker who faces a single problem (in the context of a single polity); 2. Values are known (or knowable), static, and exogenously determined; 3. The decision maker should select a policy by maximizing expected utility; 4. The impacts involved are of manageable size and can be valued at the margin; 5. Time preference is accurately described by conventional exponential discounting of future costs and benefits; 6. The system under study can reasonably be treated as linear; 7. Uncertainty is modest and manageable.” - Jeroen P. van der Sluijs et al (2010) – Beyond consensus: reflections from a democratic perspective on the interaction between climate politics and science – Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2:409–415 doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2010.10.003 – Science Technology and Society, Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University – 3 authors
“Interfacing strategy 1: quantify uncertainties In the ‘Linear Model’ of interfacing science and policy [22],1 science informs policy by producing objective, valid, and reliable knowledge … In classical terms, the true entails the good; in modern terms, truth speaks to power … … The drawback of this approach is that there is a semblance of certainty, for example, because the numbers coming from the increasingly complex models suggest that there is more knowledge and more certainty than is actually the case. ” - Michael Oppenheimer et al (2008) – Negative learning – Climatic Change 89:155–217 doi:10.1007/s10584-008-9405-1 – Department of Geosciences, Princeton University – http://www.princeton.edu/step/people/faculty/michael-oppenheimer/recent-publications/climatechange2008.pdf – 3 authors
“New technical information may lead to scientific beliefs that diverge over time from the a posteriori right answer. We call this phenomenon, which is particularly problematic in the global change arena, negative learning. Negative learning may have affected policy in important cases, including stratospheric ozone depletion, dynamics of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and population and energy projections.” - M. Granger Morgan and Hadi Dowlatabadi (2009) – Best Practice Approaches for Characterizing, Communicating and Incorporating Scientific Uncertainty in Climate Decision Making – U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product 5.2 – 16/01/2009 – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap5-2/final-report/sap5-2-final-report-all.pdf
“In some cases, all the research in the world may not eliminate key uncertainties on the timescales of decisions we must make.” - Jeroen P van der Sluijs et al (2010) – Beyond consensus: reflections from a democratic perspective on the interaction between climate politics and science – Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2:409–415 doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2010.10.003 – Science Technology and Society, Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University – 3 authors
“Interfacing strategy 2: build scientific consensus … In response to the phenomenon that science does not speak with one voice to policy but tends to speak many, often conflicting truths, to power, the emergence of a Consensus Model can be observed in an attempt to ‘rescue’ the Linear Model from conflicting certainties and multiple framings. Within this interfacing model uncertainty is primarily perceived as a problematic lack of unequivocalness … This approach is geared towards generating robust findings representing ‘the best of our knowledge’ that is used as a proxy for the scientific truth that is needed in the Linear Model.” - Silke Beck et al (2014) – Towards a Reflexive Turn in the Governance of Global Environmental Expertise: The Cases of the IPCC and IPBES – Gaia 23:80-87 doi:10.14512/gaia.23.2.4 – Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – http://www.oekom.de/fileadmin/zeitschriften/gaia_leseproben/GAIA2_2014_080_087_Beck.pdf – 16 authors
“The requirement of unanimity and the orchestration of procedures, however (so runs the argument), leads to the fact that scientific findings and views deviating from the mainstream are systematically ignored or excluded.” - Anthony G. Patt (1999) – Extreme outcomes: the strategic treatment of low probability events in scientific assessments – Risk, Decision and Policy 4:1–15 – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
“This study applies behavioural decision theory to a strategic model of assessments. The model classifies assessment into three groups – consensus, advisory, and advocacy – according to the assessment’s intended audience, purpose, and process. It predicts that consensus-seeking assessments will often omit information about extreme events … A case study of assessments of climate change, using the particular extreme event of the rapid melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, finds these predictions to hold. The assessment type explains a large part of the variance between assessments in coverage of extreme events.” - Michael Oppenheimer et al (2007) – The limits of consensus – Science 317:1505-1506 doi:10.1126/science.1144831 – Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University – 4 authors – http://www.princeton.edu/step/people/faculty/michael-oppenheimer/research/Oppenheimer-et-al-(2007)-The-limits-of-Consensus-.pdf
“Setting aside or minimizing the importance of key structural uncertainties in underlying processes is a frequent outcome of the drive for consensus [refs]. For example, ranges of projected warming and atmospheric composition in AR4 include an amplifying effect of interactions between climate and the carbon cycle. However, the estimated uncertainty in this effect is based largely on models that omit a number of poorly understood processes (11), such as feedbacks on carbon contained in permafrost; changes in marine ecosystem structure; and responses to land-use history, nutrient limitation, and air-pollution effects.” - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1974) – Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases – Science 185:1124-1131 doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 – Department of Psychology, Hebrew University – http://www.math.mcgill.ca/vetta/CS764.dir/judgement.pdf
“This article described three heuristics that are employed in making judgements under uncertainty: … (iii) adjustment from an anchor, which is usually employed in numerical prediction when a relevant value is available. These heuristics are highly economical and usually effective, but they lead to systematic and predictable errors. A better understanding of these heuristics and of the biases to which they lead could improve judgements and decisions in situations of uncertainty.” - Jeroen van der Sluijs et al (1998) – Anchoring devices in science for policy: the case of consensus around climate sensitivity – Social Studies of Science 28:291-323 doi:10.1177/030631298028002004 – Department of Science, Technology and Society, Utrecht University
“This paper adds a new dimension to the role of scientific knowledge in policy by emphasizing the multivalent character of scientific consensus. We show how the maintained consensus about the quantitative estimate of a central scientific concept in the anthropogenic climate-change field – namely, climate sensitivity – operates as an ‘anchoring device’ in ‘science for policy’ … The drawbacks of this [consensus model] approach are that it leads to anchoring towards previously established consensus positions [ref], it hides diversity of perspectives thereby unduly constraining decision-makers options [ref], it underexposes issues over which there is no consensus whereas it is precisely this dissent that tends to be extremely relevant to policymaking [ref].” - Stefan Rahmstorf (2007) – A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise – Science 315:368-370 doi:10.1126/science.1135456 – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_science_2007.pdf
“When applied to future warming scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this relationship results in a projected sea-level rise in 2100 of 0.5 to 1.4 meters above the 1990 level.” - J.R. Kummer and A.E. Dessler (2014) – The impact of forcing efficacy on the equilibrium climate sensitivity – Geophysical Research Letters doi:10.1002/2014GL060046 – Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University
“Previous estimates of ECS based on 20th-century observations have assumed that the efficacy is unity, which in our study yields an ECS of 2.3 K (5%-95%-confidence range of 1.6-4.1 K), near the bottom of the IPCC’s likely range of 1.5-4.5 K. Increasing the aerosol and ozone efficacy to 1.33 increases the ECS to 3.0 K (1.9-6.8 K), a value in excellent agreement with other estimates. Forcing efficacy therefore provides a way to bridge the gap between the different estimates of ECS.” - Eric Rignot (2014) – Global warming: it’s a point of no return in West Antarctica. What happens next? – The Guardian, 17/05/2014 – NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/17/climate-change-antarctica-glaciers-melting-global-warming-nasa
“There is also a bigger picture than West Antarctica. The Amundsen sea sector is not the only vulnerable part of the continent. East Antarctica includes marine-based sectors that hold more ice. One of them, Totten glacier, holds the equivalent of seven meters of global sea level.” - Kaitlin M. Keegan et l (2014) – Climate change and forest fires synergistically drive widespread melt events of the Greenland Ice Sheet – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1405397111 – Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College – 4 authors
“Since Arctic temperatures and the frequency of forest fires are both expected to rise with climate change, our results suggest that widespread melt events on the Greenland Ice Sheet may begin to occur almost annually by the end of century. These events are likely to alter the surface mass balance of the ice sheet, leaving the surface susceptible to further melting.” - Mathieu Morlighem et al (2014) – Deeply incised submarine glacial valleys beneath the Greenland ice sheet – Nature Geoscience doi:10.1038/ngeo2167 – University of California, Irvine, Department of Earth System Science – http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/ngeo2167.pdf – 5 authors
“Our findings imply that the outlet glaciers of Greenland, and the ice sheet as a whole, are probably more vulnerable to ocean thermal forcing and peripheral thinning than inferred previously from existing numerical ice-sheet models.” - Kenneth Chang (2014) – The Big Melt Accelerates – The New York Times, 19/05/2014 – http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/science/the-melting-isnt-glacial.html
“Greenland, with 10 percent of the world’s ice, has enough to raise sea level by 23 feet. ‘I still think Greenland is the most important thing to watch for this century,’ Dr. Scambos said.” - James H. Wittke et al (2013) – Evidence for deposition of 10 million tonnes of impact spherules across four continents 12,800 y ago – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110:E2088-E2097 PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1301760110 – Geology Program, School of Earth Science and Environmental Sustainability, Northern Arizona University – 28 authors
“We present detailed geochemical and morphological analyses of nearly 700 spherules from 18 sites in support of a major cosmic impact at the onset of the Younger Dryas episode (12.8 ka).” - David J. Meltzer et al (2014) – Chronological evidence fails to support claim of an isochronous widespread layer of cosmic impact indicators dated to 12,800 years ago – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi:10.1073/pnas.1401150111 – 12/05/2014 – Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University – 4 authors
“According to the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH), ∼12,800 calendar years before present, North America experienced an extraterrestrial impact that triggered the Younger Dryas and devastated human populations and biotic communities on this continent and elsewhere … There is no reason or compelling evidence to accept the claim that a cosmic impact occurred ∼12,800 y ago and caused the Younger Dryas.” - IPCC Working Group I (2013) – 5th Assessment Report The Physical Science Basis – Summary for Policymakers – Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change – 27/09/2013 – http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGI_AR5_SPM_brochure.pdf
“Projections in this Summary for Policymakers are for the end of the 21st century (2081–2100) given relative to 1986–2005, unless otherwise stated. To place such projections in historical context, it is necessary to consider observed changes between different periods. Based on the longest global surface temperature dataset available, the observed change between the average of the period 1850–1900 and of the AR5 reference period is 0.61 [0.55 to 0.67] °C. However, warming has occurred beyond the average of the AR5 reference period. Hence this is not an estimate of historical warming to present (see Chapter 2).”
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