Guest “lost another thing in the November coup” by David Middleton
USGS Director Jim Reilly recently wrote a statement in the Wall Street Journal …
USGS gets politics out of climate forecasts
My agency is making a significant advance in the government’s scientific approach.
By Jim Reilly
December 21, 2020
The world climate is changing as always. The challenge is to understand how and why. Because of this, the US Geological Survey has adopted the most comprehensive climate analysis requirements ever implemented by the federal government.
Predicting future reactions and effects for a system as complex as Earth is difficult and uncertain.
[…]
The US Geological Survey is at the forefront of climate science for the federal government. USGS Chief Scientist Geoffrey Plumlee and other professional researchers recently published a report entitled “Using Information From Global Climate Models to Inform Policy-Making – The Role of the US Geological Survey,” which takes a broad, consistent and empirical approach to analysis the conditions of climate change is described.
The approach involves assessing the full range of projected climate outcomes, providing the data for making forecasts, describing the level of uncertainty in the results, and regularly assessing past expectations against actual performance to provide guidance for future projections.
[…]
Going forward, this logical approach will be used by the USGS and the Department of the Interior for all climate-related analysis and research – a significant advance in the use and presentation of climate science by the government.
These requirements may seem reasonable, but there has been wide leeway in the use of climate ratings in the past. This new approach will improve scientific effectiveness and provide policymakers with a higher level of confidence when responding to potential future climate change conditions, as it takes into account a whole range of plausible results.
Science should never be political. We shouldn’t treat the most extreme predictions as the inevitable future apocalypse. The full range of climate model forecasts should be taken into account.
[…]
Mr. Reilly is a geologist, former astronaut, and director of the US Geological Survey.
Wall Street Journal
I worked with Jim Reilly at Enserch Exploration in the 1980s and early 1990s before he was selected for NASA’s astronaut program in December 1994. It is interesting to note that Jim was never called “Dr. Reilly, ”despite having a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Texas at Dallas. That is actually correct. Apart from MD, DVM, DDS and other medical specialists, PhD, EdD etc. doctors would only be addressed as “Dr.”. in formal settings like a classroom … But I digress.
Jim cites a recent USGS paper that states the case that policymakers need to be presented with the full range of model results and a reasonable assessment of the uncertainty. This science-based approach to climate policy might actually have gained in importance had it not been for the November coup … (I don’t give a rat @ $$ if anyone reads these objections to this sentence). The paper Terando et al., 2020, is worth reading. It shows a variation of one of my favorite air conditioning models.
Figure 1.Modeled human and natural climate forcing compared to three instrument records (see Terando for details) Figure 2.Modeled human climate forcing compared to three instrument records (see Terando for details)
If the models are fairly accurate, then the early 20th century warming can be explained by natural coercive mechanisms. While some or all of the warming since around 1975 cannot be explained by natural coercive mechanisms alone. However, the models contain only well-known, reasonably well-understood drive mechanisms. Judith Curry illustrated this concept quite well …
Figure 3. You’ll only find what you’re looking for. (JC at the National Press Club)
Aside from the unknown and / or poorly understood natural propulsion mechanisms that are not included in the model, there are two very similar warming episodes, one of which is explained by natural factors and one of which requires human input.
Figure 4. HadCRUT4 1904-Present.
Let’s assume that all of the warming since 1975 has been due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. What would that mean?
This would mean that the increase in atmospheric CO2 from ~ 280 to ~ 400 ppm caused a warming of 0.8 ° C. The latest estimates of climate sensitivity derived from instrumental observations show an equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of around 2.3 ° C per doubling of atmospheric CO2, which corresponds to a transient climate reaction (TCR) of around 1.6 ° C per doubling of atmospheric CO2. Oddly enough, with a TCR of 1.6 ° C, we would expect a 0.8 ° C warming at 400 ppm CO2.
Figure 5.Expected warming with a TCR of 1.6 ° C.
Even stranger (I’m very sarcastic), this is consistent with the climate, which is much closer to the lower end of the model uncertainty range than the upper end (which is often referred to as “business as usual”).
Figure 6. Models versus observations (Climate Lab Book).
It is also important to note that this is where the supposedly anthropogenic warming of 0.8 ° C began:
Figure 7. Context.
A science-based approach to tackling climate change would suggest that humans have some influence on the climate, that it is not a crisis, and that to the extent that it is a long-term problem, it is reasonable, economical Viable steps are possible Now taken (natural gas to atom, N2N) to ensure it never escalates beyond a potential long-term problem.
Unfortunately, the incoming Harris-Biden Dominion has expressed a desire to create a “clean house” at the Home Office, which they consider too friendly for the fossil fuel industry. If you thought 2020 was a total slate show, 2021-2024 promises to be way worse … Happy New Year!
reference
Terando, A., Reidmiller, D., Hostetler, SW, Littell, JS, Beard, TD, Jr., Weiskopf, SR, Belnap, J. and Plumlee, GS, 2020, Using information from global climate models to inform policy making —The Role of the US Geological Survey: US Geological Survey Open-File-Report 2020-1058, 25 pp.,
https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20201058.
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