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Washington D.C. – November 17, 2010 - Today in a hearing of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, three panels of witnesses debated a number of unresolved issues surrounding climate change science, including: the role of natural climate variability; sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gases; how uncertainty in data and conclusions is evaluated and communicated to the public; and how to promote greater scientific integrity in climate science.
In his prepared remarks, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment expressed concern regarding the “climategate” scandal, in which emails and documents leaked by the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit exposed a breach of the public trust. But, Inglis also noted, “[t]here is an irrefutable connection between the ways we use energy and the quantity of greenhouse gases that we emit.” He added, “[i]t’s difficult to get Congress to come to agreement on climate science, but I hope we’ll bridge that gap to build a more prosperous, secure, innovation-driven economy.”
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), Ranking Member of the Committee on Science and Technology, said “We must hold this Administration accountable for meeting a level of scientific integrity the public expects from their government.” Hall continued, “I think this hearing demonstrates that reasonable people have serious questions about our knowledge of the state of the science, what the evidence is, and what constitutes a proportional response. Sorting scientific fact from rhetoric is essential, and we have a long way to go on this topic.”
Framing the debate, Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discussed the physics of the role of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. “The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes,” Lindzen said. “The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak –and commonly acknowledged as such.”
Furthermore, Dr. Judith Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology, critiqued how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has dealt with such uncertainty. “The IPCC’s efforts to consider uncertainty focus primarily on communicating uncertainty, rather than on characterizing and exploring uncertainty in a way that would be useful for risk managers and resource managers and the institutions that fund science,” Curry said. “A number of scientists have argued that future IPCC efforts need to be more thorough about describing sources and types of uncertainty, making the uncertainty analysis as transparent as possible.”
Another witness discussed limitations of creating models based on current and projected CO2 emissions. Dr. Patrick Michaels, a Senior Fellow of Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute, highlighted significant limitations of such models as a tool. “For decades, scientists have attempted to model the behavior of our atmosphere as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are added above the base levels established before human prehistory,” Michaels noted. “The results are interesting but are highly dependent upon the amount of carbon dioxide that resides in the atmosphere, something that is very difficult to predict long into the future with any confidence… projecting greenhouse gas emissions so far into the future is, to choose a word carefully, useless.”
The following witnesses testified today before the Subcommittee:
Panel 1
Dr. Ralph Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences;
Dr. Heidi Cullen, CEO and Director of Communications, Climate Central;
Dr. Gerald A. Meehl, Senior Scientist in the Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research; and
Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Panel 2
Dr. Benjamin Santer, Atmospheric Scientist, Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory;
Dr. Richard Alley, The Evan Pugh Professor in the Department of Geosciences and an Associate of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Pennsylvania State University;
Dr. Richard Feely, Senior Scientist, Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and
Dr. Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow, Environmental Studies, Cato Institute.
Panel 3
Rear Admiral David Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator, United States Department of the Navy, Department of Defense;
Mr. James Lopez, Senior Advisor, Deputy Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development;
Mr. William Geer, Director, Center for Western Lands, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership; and
Dr. Judith Curry, Chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology.
For more information on today’s hearing, or to read witness testimony, please visit the GOP Science and Technology Committee website.
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