Public Perception and Science of Climate Change

1. NASA image of the atmosphere

2. Public PerceptionandScienceofClimate Change Senior Statesmen of Virginia Robert McGrath

3. Points to this talk • State of the politics and public attitude. • Facts about what humans are doing to the atmosphere. • Primer on Climate Science • Silliness and Hyperbole • Conclusion • Brief summary on science and overview of costs of policy actions • Thoughts on what needs to happen…

4. Politics and Public Attitude • G20 leaders on record as accepting IPCC climate projections and the need to reduce GHG levels to hold ΔT to 2 oC (compared to pre- industrial era) • U.S. political situation: President and House have declared GHG reduction goals of 20% by 2020 and 83% by 2050 (compared to 2005). • House passed resolution (HR2454) last summer; very heavy slogging ahead in Senate. [Vote on “resolution of disapproval of EPA findings” tomorrow!] • Copenhagen (December 2009): confirmed proposals give ∆T ≈ 4 oC Politics/Public Attitude

5. What does the U.S. public think? • Is there solid evidence the earth is warming? (percent who said YES) 71% (4/08) 57% (10/09) • because of human activity? • Entire sample: 47% 36% • Republicans: 27% 18% • Democrats:58% 50% • Independents:50% 33% • Pew Research Center (10/09) • Policy options for addressing climate change?(percent strongly supporting) • Increased Fossil Fuel Taxes18% • Increased Gasoline Taxes10% • Miller Center Survey (9/08)

6. How does the public know what it thinks? • Media…loves sound bites, controversy, catastrophe, potential catastrophes • Internet…Google “climate change” get 22 million hits! Many of them for partisan cheerleading and mudslinging… the climate wars! • Alarmists Skeptics • Fundamentalists Deniers • Hysterics Traitors • Movies… e.g. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth • Reports… e.g. from IPCC, and U.S. Climate Change Research Program • U.S. political leadership… ? Bottom line…lots of talk such as: “what’s the big deal…it’s been hotter or colder before, it’s nature”, or “so what does Al Gore have to say about all this snow?” Politics/Public Attitude

7. Politics and views on climate science tend to be correlated • Some striking quotes from politicians: • The theory of global warming… is a very dangerous theory (Vaclav Klaus, Czech Rep. 2007) • They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. (Lord Christopher Monckton 2009) • I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations. (James Inhofe Senate floor speech 2005) • The evidence that humans are causing global warming is overwhelming and undeniable (Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, 2006) Politics/Public Attitude 7

8. Climate scientists: As advocates/activists… • The extent of unfounded skepticism… is dangerous…those who still think this is all a mistake or a hoax need to think again. (John Holdren 2008) • There’s enough carbon in the ground to really cook us. (Steven Chu) • If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late…this is the defining moment. (RajendraPachauri 2007) • Chairmen of fossil-fuel companies should be “tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.” Freight trains carrying coal are “death trains.” (James Hansen) Politics/Public Attitude 8

9. As (somewhat) inept advocates… “The IPCC reports have underestimated the pace of climate changewhile overestimating societies' abilities to curb greenhousegas emissions.” ( from Science Magazine editorial and accompanying photo (5/7/2010)) Politics/Public Attitude

10. “Instantly” substituted illustration (no Photoshop, from National Geographic) Politics/Public Attitude

11. CO2: How much do we emit? Millions of Metric Tons of CO2 from U.S. EPA Humans and Atmosphere

12. CO2: what happens to it? Baseline for most of Industrial Age is 280 ppmv) (from Keeling, Scripps Inst. Of Oceanography) Humans and Atmosphere

13. CO2: how much of what we emit stays in the atmosphere? • Earth diameter = 8,000 miles, and Atmosphere pressure = 14.7 lbs/sqin • So… atmosphere weighs about 5.9 million billion tons • The weight of the “Human” CO2 adds up to about 2.0 thousand billion tons • If all this CO2 stayed in the atmosphere, CO2 concentrations would increase by 220 parts per million (volume) Conclusion: oceans plus biosphere have absorbed only about ½ of “human” CO2 up until now. Humans and Atmosphere

14. Climate science: historical temperature records Climate Science Primer

15. Climate science: weather, climate and modeling • Earth’s temperature determined by balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing heat radiation. • GHG’s e.g., CO2, (or H2O) act as “leaky” blanket. Earth’s average temperature + 16 o C. (-18 oC without GHG’s.) • Movements of energy and masses of air make weather and climate: • equatorial regions get more sun than polar regions, • land, ice, and water reflect the sun’s energy differently, • oceans take longer to heat (or cool) than land. • AOGC Models try to treat the entire coupled system: atmosphere+ oceans+ land. • Complicated • Many approximations! Climate Science Primer

16. Model predictions for the next 100 years: how accurate are they likely to be? A2 scenario: temps go up somewhere between 2.0 and 5.4 oC IPCC 2007 report(central result) Even more fun! Equilibrium temperature increases somewhere between 4.2 and 9.4 oC with the full “dose” of CO2. Climate Science Primer

17. Model predictions for the next 100 years: how accurate are they likely to be? • IPCC averages model results to get the so-called most likely answers. • These models are darned complicated. • When CO2 goes up, water vapor (powerful GHG!) goes up. • BUT what does the water vapor do? • The models disagree considerably over the fate of the extra water vapor. • Also considerable uncertainty about influence of human-caused aerosols in the atmosphere. Climate Science Primer

18. Model predictions for the next 100 years: how accurate are they likely to be? Clouds vs. more water vapor… biggest feedback uncertainty Climate Science Primer

19. Is the recent past temperature record understood? Slope = 0.7 0C/century Climate Science Primer

20. Is the recent past temperature record understood? from Lean and Rind, Geophysical Res. Letters (2009) Climate Science Primer

21. Silliness and hyperbole • Perpetrators: • Gore movie, media in general, some scientists • Downplay uncertainties • Assume warming means human-caused warming. • Extreme events (e.g. hurricanes) “show” models are right. • Skeptics • “models aren’t evidence” • CO2 is “good” for us • CO2 lag as temperature increases during interglacials (Gore movie) shows CO2 doesn’t have anything to do with temperature increase “something else has caused it… the computer models don’t know what it is.” • Lack of warming in recent years means global warming is much ado about nothing or even a hoax. Silliness and Hyperbole

22. from An Inconvenient Truth (2006) Silliness and Hyperbole

23. shown in An Inconvenient Truth (data from NOAA/NCDC) Silliness and Hyberpole

24. Al Gore showed a version of this: Hurricane damages (in dollars) by year from Piekle, Landsea et al. (2007) Silliness and Hyperbole

25. Adjusted Hurricane damages by year from Piekle, Landsea et al. Silliness and Hyperbole

26. Hurricanes striking U.S. mainland from Landsea (NOAA) Silliness and hyperbole

27. Summary about the science… • We’re in a warming period, but so far not very dramatic. • Observations are consistent with warming being due to increasing GHG’s. • NAS’s America’s Climate Choices: "Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems“ (May 2010) • Model predictions have large uncertainties. • Uncertainties make public decision making and actions even harder. Conclusion

28. Policy questions/choices… • Do nothing. • Ask what’s the society cost of transitioning from fossil fuels to other energy sources compared to the cost of doing nothing? Escalate the modeling! • Combine models about economics with models about climate. • Get answers accompanied by more uncertainties. Conclusion

29. Example results from these combined economics-climate models 48 • Gas up 13 ¢ per gallon; electricity up 1.4 ¢ per kw-hr (coal produced) • Nation’s tax bill up 75 B$ [compare 188 B$ imported oil bill (2009)] Conclusion

30. Thoughts of what needs to happen… • Majority climate science community needs to be candid and innovative in helping the public understand the situation recognizing: • Evidence of human caused warming up until now is obscure. • There remain huge uncertainties in the modeling (e.g., fate of water vapor, contribution of human caused aerosols) Warming over last 100 years is only about 40% of what it would have been with standard climate “sensitivity” and NO aerosols. • Modeling is essential, improvements in modeling and in data gathering are making predictions more reliable. • Skeptics have burden to show why the AOGCM’s can safely be dismissed. • “Outlaw” hyperbole, distortions, silliness, ad hominem arguments • Intelligent public discussion has to be the basis for intelligent public policy! Is it possible? Conclusion

31. Circa early 1950’s: 2004: Conclusion 31