Summary: The climate science debate not only holds answers vital to our future, but allows us to learn from this demonstration of science in motion. Unfortunately activists on both Left and Right have gained control of the public debate, neither interested in the science except to advance their political goals. Here we look at the exciting developments on the cutting edge of the climate sciences.
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The essence of science is trial and error, as described by biologist Lewis Thomas in his wonderful essay “To Err is Human”. Scientists form theories and make conjectures. True or false, science either way. That’s what provides much of its excitement. We see this today in the climate sciences, although journalists too often conceal it from us, preferring the myth of “the science is settled” (now shown to be absurd).
The pause in surface temperature warming has sparked a new phase of research in the climate sciences. Among other effects, it invalidated several high profile forecasts. Some were informal predictions, such as this by Dr David Viner of the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, quoted in The Independent, 20 March 2000:
{W}ithin a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
Or this, more formal, from the NASA press release “Arctic Meltdown“, 27 February 2001:
… in 10 years’ time, if melting patterns change as predicted, the North-West Passage could be open to ordinary shipping for a month each summer. These predictions come in a recently declassified report of a meeting of American, British and Canadian Arctic and naval experts in April last year, organised by Dennis Conlon of the US Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Virginia. Entitled “Naval Operations in an Ice-Free Arctic” …
Peter Wadhams of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge agrees that the Arctic could soon open up. “Within a decade we can expect regular summer trade there,” he predicts.
Some projections are both formal and important. The flattish trend of global surface temperatures during the pause has fallen below the lower bound of the projections used by the IPCC (strictly speaking, not predictions). See the below updated version of Figure 10.1 from the IPCCC’s AR5 WGI from “Contribution of natural decadal variability to global warming acceleration and hiatus“, Masahiro Watanabe et al, Nature Climate Change, in press. The grey shaded area shows projections from CMIP5 (a set of model outputs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5, used in the IPCC’s AR5). The black line is actual global surface temperature (from the UK’s HadCRUT data).
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It’s a small gap, but might grow to become serious if the pause lasts for years — or even decades (as some forecast). The pause gives us some time to prepare for future climate change — and take measures to reduce it. But we might squander this gift of time. Much depends on the possible political effects of the pause in global warming,
Other effects of the pause
Events prove some scientists right, and some wrong. Sometimes the right ones were in the minority. For example the eminent climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr (see Wikipedia) has long said that the focus on the surface air temperature was inappropriate. For example:
“The spatial pattern of ocean heat content change is the appropriate metric to assess climate system heat changes including global warming.” (source)
For this he was smeared and called a denier by activists. Such as those at Skeptical Science (more accurately called “skeptical of science”). See this page calling him a “climate misinformer” (note that all of Pielke’s quotes shown there now appear correct). See this note for more detail and references to his work.
Now the oceans’ role have become a central focus of current research and is one of the leading explanations for the pause (see section 7 here). This rise and fall of reputations is part of the drama of science, concealed by activists who choose their heroes and villains by their political utility.
What’s next for the climate sciences?
The first round of debate was about the existence of the pause. Has there been a statistically significant change to the short-term warming trend? See the statements of scientists and some of their research here. That round has ended.
The second round was debate about the causes of the pause. It’s still running strong, with 11 broad causes identified. As yet there is no consensus on their interrelationships and relative importance. See some of the research here.
The third round has barely begun, giving estimates of the pause’s duration. This might prove to be the key question. See some of the research here.
Behind all of these is a larger debate about the reliability of the current generation of climate models (e.g. see this and this). That’s a question only time can answer.
These are high stakes debates, often petty or even vituperative (neither unusual in academia). Massive research funding, career success, public policy decisions, and perhaps the fate of the world depend on the results. As laypeople, we can just watch and learn. Let’s not treat it as a baseball game, cheering for “our” team.
For More Information
(a) Reference Pages about climate on the FM sites:
- About the warming pause
- The important things to know about global warming
- My posts
- Studies & reports, by subject
- The history of climate fears
(b) Other posts about the cutting edge in climate science:
- When did we start global warming? See the surprising answer., 18 October 2012
- Still good news: global temperatures remain stable, at least for now., 14 October 2012
- Scientists explore causes of the pause in warming, perhaps the most important research of the decade, 17 January 2014
- One of the most important questions we face: when will the pause in global warming end?, 25 August 2013
- Four views of exciting new climate research. See the difference., 12 February 2014
- Climate scientists speak to us. What is their consensus opinion?, 19 February 2014
- Worst case scenarios versus fat tails: a discussion about climate change, 23 April 2014
- The core of the climate debate: how much of the past warming did we cause?, 25 August 2014
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