Ben Santer, Charles Manski & Ray Weymann: Scientific American: Speaking Science to Power

A statement released by 317 [now at least 634] National Academy of Sciences members challenges the widespread dismissal of science and scientific understanding by the Trump administration

Credit: Jeff Greenberg Getty Images

by Ben Santer, Charles Manski, and Ray Weymann, Scientific American, April 23, 2018

Today, on April 23, 2018, a statement was released by 317 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. It calls for “the Federal Government to maintain scientific content on publicly accessible websites, to appoint qualified personnel to positions requiring scientific expertise, to cease censorship and intimidation of Government scientists, and to reverse the decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Accord.”

We are the three writers and organizers of this statement. Although our expertise is in very different areas—economics, astrophysics and climate science—we share a common concern. It relates to the dismissal of science and scientific understanding by the current administration. This piece explains why we decided to write the statement, what we hope to accomplish with its release, and how interested readers can help to achieve the goals quoted above.  

Today’s statement had its genesis in an open letter by members of the National Academy of Sciences published in September 2016. The open letter warned of the potentially serious negative consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, an action called for by then-candidate Donald J. Trump.

In the aftermath of the last U.S. presidential election, many of the negative consequences mentioned in the September 2016 open letter are now unfolding. The Trump administration has initiated the process of U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and continues to cast doubt on the reality and seriousness of human-caused climate change. Negative consequences are now affecting many areas of science—not just climate science. The administration has shown a systematic disregard for using sound scientific information in public policy making. Science inconsistent with the administration’s ideological goals is ignored, suppressed, portrayed as too uncertain, and dismissed as politically and financially motivated.

This systematic disregard for science prompted our efforts to develop today’s new statement. We strongly believe that there is no future in ignorance. The United States does not benefit if it kicks the problem of human-caused climate change down the road, if it ignores sensible energy policies or if it regards access to clean air and clean water as a privilege of the few.

The ability to perform research and advance scientific understanding is not an inalienable right, given to us in perpetuity by virtue of the accident of our birthplace. Powerful forces in the current administration seek to constrain our understanding of the world, and how and why it is changing. Such forces of unreason are emboldened if they encounter inaction and silence; they thrive if scientific myths, misconceptions and disinformation are repeated without being challenged.

The statement we and our NAS colleagues issued today is an attempt to move beyond inaction and silence. Its message is clear: “Ignore science at your peril.” Perhaps the administration will pay no heed to this message; perhaps the message will be lost in the daily background noise of political events. Even if the administration is not listening, there is still value in warning publicly about the consequences of living in a country that pursues an anti-science agenda. We believe that millions of U.S. citizens are listening to this warning, and share our concern about the kind of country we are passing on to future generations.

Scientists have special responsibilities to inform the public on key societal issues that are relevant to their specific expertise. We are doing that today. But scientists are only a small part of the overall effort to rebut ignorance. Each of us has the ability to change our society for the better.

There are many creative ways of catalyzing change. We can seek reliable information on complex scientific issues, drawing on sources like the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Climate Assessment, Scientific American and government agencies. We can share that information with our colleagues, friends, family and neighbors, through conversation, letters to newspapers, and social media. We can encourage quality science education in our public schools, and ensure that science is taught accurately. We can support organizations advocating for the importance of science in society. We can become involved in the political process, and elect representatives who understand the value of science.

We live in a complex world. We face many existential problems: climate change, pandemics, terrorism, the threat of nuclear war, and diminishing food and water security. How we deal with these issues will shape the well-being of many future generations. The statement issued today is a reminder that ignorance is a poor strategy for solving complex challenges. We all lose if science is excluded from government. We hope you help us to share this message widely.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Ben Santer, Charles Manski and Ray Weymann

Ben Santer is an atmospheric scientist and member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Charles Manski is Board of Trustees Professor of Economics at Northwestern University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His most recent book is Public Policy in an Uncertain World (Harvard, 2013). Ray Weymann is director emeritus of the Carnegie Observatories and has done research in cosmology and on the intergalactic gas. Since retirement he has concentrated on public education regarding climate change.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/speaking-science-to-power/

Ray Weymann: Climate Change Basics

Climate Change Basics by Dr. Ray Weymann from Walter Reil on Vimeo.

50-minute presentation on the basics of climate change given by Dr. Ray Weymann at the Atascadero Association of Retired People (AARP), Atascadero, California, in March 2011. For more detailed and expanded information into climate science and global warming by Dr. Weymann, see his Central Coast Climate Science Education website centralcoastclimatescience.org/ .

http://vimeo.com/34692993

Scott Mandia: AGU 2011 Presentation PA33C-06: The Climate Science Rapid Response Team -- A Model for Science Communication. Scott A. Mandia, John A. Abraham, Ray Weymann & Michael Ashley. Location: Room 302 (Moscone South) Time: 3:10–3:25 PST

AGU 2011 Presentation: The Climate Science Rapid Response Team

by Scott Mandia, "Climate Change - Man or Myth?" blog, November 29, 2011

Want to learn more about the Climate Science Rapid Response Team (CSRRT)?  Come hear my presentation at the AGU Fall Meeting 2011 in San Francisco on Wednesday December 7.  During this 15 minute presentation, I will describe CSRRT’s history and process along with a few example success stories. The various other science communication outreach activities that the CSRRT scientists and its matchmakers are engaged in will also be presented.

PA33C-06. The Climate Science Rapid Response Team – A Model for Science Communication
Scott A. Mandia; John A. Abraham; Ray Weymann; Michael Ashley
Location: Room 302 (Moscone South)
Time: 3:10–3:25 PST

Climate Science Rapid Response Team asks Monckton for help with with inquiry from Abu Ali Al-Hussain of the Doric Foundation, Doha, Qatar

Climate Science Rapid Response Team Asks Monckton for Help

by Scott Mandia, "Climate Change: Man or Myth?" blog, May 1, 2011

The Climate Science Rapid Response Team is a match-making service to connect climate scientists with lawmakers and the media. The group is committed to providing rapid, high-quality information to media and government officials.  To use the service, requesters use the inquiry form to identify themselves, pose their question and provide a deadline for the response.  That information is then immediately sent to Dr. John Abraham, Dr. Ray Weymann, and me.  One of these three “matchmakers” then immediately forwards the inquiry to those scientists with the most appropriate expertise.  An authoritative response from one of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team scientists will be returned to the inquirer either directly or via one of the three matchmakers.  For more information about the Team and to read about a typical day when I am “on call” seeLisa Palmer’s story over at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media.

John, Ray, and I occasionally receive “crank inquiries” from the Climate Science Rapid Response Team web site.  These emails are normally deleted.  On Friday April 29, 2011 we received an inquiry from Dr. Abu Ali-Hussain of the Doric Foundation, an organization claiming to be academic advisors to a group of Gulf States’ sovereign wealth funds.  A quick search revealed no such organization and the inquiry came from the UK.  The inquiry is strikingly like something that would have originated from the 3rd Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.  Instead of deleting the request, John, Ray, and I replied with the message below.  (The initial inquiry from Dr. Abu Ali-Hussain appears below our response.)

Esteemed Abu Ali Al-Hussain,

First of all, our heartiest congratulations on having reached your 1031st birthday.

Regarding your several inquiries about climate issues, these inquiries suggest a level of such profound mis-apprehension of fundamental statistical analysis and climate science, that, rather than send them to some of our qualified experts, we think it more appropriate to refer you to someone with an equally profound mis-apprehension of these same issues. Specifically, we suggest you contact 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.

Should you wish further material we refer you to the document “Climate Scientists Respond” where issues bearing a remarkable resemblance to the ones raised in your inquiry are dealt with at length.

Finally, if we may be so bold, would you be so kind as to intercede with your patrons at the Gulf States Sovereign Wealth funds to see if they would be willing to make a modest contribution of  1 billion $US to defray the cost of administering the CSRRT.

Your humble and obedient servants,

John Patrick Abraham
Scott A. Mandia
Ray J. Weymann

p.s. Please do not take offense, but in your next inquiry would you endeavor to be less prolix. The demands on our time are exceedingly great.

---

Name: Dr. Abu Ali Al-Hussain

Email: (censored)

Organization: Doric Foundation

Organization Description: Academic advisors to a group of Gulf States’ sovereign wealth funds

Response Needed By: Soonest

Enquiry: This inquiry is confidential and we must ask you not to use our name in any of your publicity. We are currently reviewing the state of climate science as presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On pages 37, 104, and 253 of the Fourth Assessment Report (2007), the IPCC reproduces a graph of annual mean global surface temperature anomalies from the Hadley Center/Climatic Research Unit, overlaid by four linear-regression trend-lines starting respectively in approximately 1855, 1905, 1955 and 1980 and all ending in 2005. Our previous enquiries have established that the scientists’ final draft of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report contained the same graph, but with only a single trend-line, from 1855-2005. Our principals are concerned that between the submission of the scientists’ final draft and publication of the official IPCC document the three additional – and, if our understanding is correct, gratuitous – trend-lines were added, without any statement to the effect that an alteration had been made, and that on each of the three pages where the graph thus altered was reproduced a conclusion was unjustifiably inserted to the effect that the rate of global warming is itself accelerating. Our enquiries have also established that the chairman of the IPCC has had this improper methodology and the consequently improper conclusion drawn to his attention, in person as well as in writing, but that he has failed to make any correction or to restore the graph as originally submitted by the scientists, or to explain why no such correction should be made. It appears to us that the IPCC’s conclusion that the rate of warming is accelerating, and that we are to blame, is central to the case being made in the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. However, our principals are concerned that this conclusion is on three occasions stated on the basis of a graph which has been altered in a manner that constitutes an inappropriate statistical technique, raising questions about the reliability of the conclusion. As a heuristic, we have determined that careful selection of start-points for multiple trend-lines on a sufficiently short segment of the graph of a sine-wave, which we chose because its long-run trend is by definition zero, can suggest, falsely, either that the trend is rising at an accelerating rate or that it is falling at an accelerating rate. Our questions to you are as follows:

1. Are we correct in understanding that the graph as it appears on the three pages in question has indeed been altered from the form in which it was originally submitted?

2. If the graph was altered, by whom was it altered, and on whose order or authority?

3. If the graph was altered, what steps did the IPCC take to ensure that the alterations were peer-reviewed, and who, if anyone, peer-reviewed the graph in its altered form?

4. Are we justified in our understanding that the IPCC is incorrect in reaching its central conclusion on the basis of the relative slopes of the inserted trend-lines, and that the statistical technique upon which it seeks to rely in reaching that central conclusion is defective?

5. Irrespective of whether the IPCC used a correct statistical technique to reach its central conclusion, is that conclusion in fact correct? We have determined that the Central England Temperature Record, which our analysis of the data suggests is a respectable proxy for global temperature anomalies, inferentially because the stations are at a temperate latitude, showed a warming of approximately 2.2 K from 1695-1730, equivalent to a centennial rate of 6.5 K, an order of magnitude greater than the warming observed in the 20th century, and four times greater than the maximum supra-decadal rate of warming observed in the entire 161 years of the global instrumental record, which occurred from 1860-1880, 1910-1940, and 1976-2001, since when there has been no warming. On the face of things, it does not seem to us that a discernible human influence on the global temperature record is yet discernible. Are we right?

6. We have discovered that the scientists’ final draft of the 1995 Second Assessment Report of the IPCC contained five statements – which our own analysis of the data supports – to the effect that no discernible human influence on global temperature had yet been detected, and that it was not possible to say when such an influence would be detected. However, by the time of publication all five of these statements had been deleted and replaced with a single statement to the opposite effect. Which of the two positions is right, and why?

7. We have discovered that the scientists’ final draft of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report was altered upon receipt by the IPCC with the insertion of a table of contributions to sea-level rise that did not sum to within a factor 2 of the correct total, and that the reason for the error was an order-of-magnitude overstatement by the IPCC of the contributions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise both since the 1960s and again since 1993. Our enquiries have established that the error was reported to the IPCC on the day of publication. On looking at the revised version of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report we have verified that the table now sums correctly and that the four order-of-magnitude overstatements have been corrected, but we cannot find any acknowledgement or statement that the originally-published report has been thus altered. Are you able to point us to the relevant statement? Our principals are naturally concerned that alterations can be made n ot only to the scientists’ final drafts of the IPCC’s assessment reports but also to the published reports themselves without any explicit statement being placed on the record to the effect that the alterations have been made.

8. We note that all four of the IPCC’s assessment reports – 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2007 – are heavily based on and biased in favor of modeling as opposed to theory and observation. The IPCC has been making long-term predictions of future climate states on the basis of modeling: yet its 2001 Third Assessment Report says that the climate is a complex, non-linear, chaotic object, so that the prediction of future climate states is not possible. Our principals are concerned at this apparently serious contradiction. On reading Sir James Lighthill’s paper of 1998 on the chaoticity of a pendulum’s oscillation, and Edward Lorenz’s paper of 1963 on deterministic non-periodic flow, we conclude that there are indeed fundamental constraints on the modeling of a chaotic object such as the climate. Does the IPCC’s approach take these constraints sufficiently into account?

9. The First Assessment Report appears to predict – again on the basis of modeling – that global temperature would rise by 0.8 K in the 40 years 1990-2030, based on the assumption that a doubling of CO2 concentration would cause 2.5 K warming. Are we right in understanding that, so far, the warming rate has been <0.2 K in the 20 years since 1990, Implying that the IPCC’s original medium-term projection of future global temperature change may prove to have been excessive by a factor 2, even though the IPCC’s current central estimate is that the warming at CO2 doubling will be 3.3 K? 10. Please supply estimates of the radiative forcings from all anthropogenic influences in the 61 years since 1950, the first year in which, according to the IPCC’s 2001 report, reliable measurements of the climate-relevant species of greenhouse gases were available, and draw our attention to any clear statement in the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the appropriate interval for the 21st-century transient-climate-sensitivity parameter.

Thank you.

Abu Ali Al-Hussain Doric Foundation, Doha, Qatar

http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/climate-science-rapid-response-team-asks-monckton-for-help/#more-1534

Climate Scientists Strike Back: John Abraham, Scott Mandia and Ray Weymann form a Climate Science Rapid Response Team, 40 scientists already on board

Climate Scientists Strike Back

A year after the CRU e-mails were stolen and used to create a non-existent scandal, can a trio of scientists clear the air of global warming misinformation?

by Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones, November 17, 2010

A year ago this week, the already-heated global warming debate exploded into allegations of a massive scientific fraud when a trove of emails between climate scientists was stolen and posted online. Portions of the emails were cherry-picked and taken out of context to create the impression that researchers were engaged in a sinister plot to mislead the public and silence detractors. Dubbed "ClimateGate" by global warming deniers, the ensuing hype succeeded in further clouding the public's understanding of climate science.

Never mind that it was a non-controversy—that myriad models and reams of data have concluded that the planet is warming due to human activity, or that five separate investigations have confirmed that the ClimateGate scientists did nothing improper. In the combustible world of climate denial, the email release added fuel to the fire, reigniting old attacks on science in the blogosphere and among right-wing members of Congress—including a few who are in line to lead powerful House committees next year.

While the episode inflamed climate skeptics, it also forced some climate scientists to rethink their role in the debate. Many scientists have been wary of being pulled into policy debates and of appearing as advocates rather than dispassionate researchers. Some just assumed that the science spoke for itself. But the email release and the subsequent attacks raised the question of whether they can afford to remain on the sidelines any longer as their work is distorted, largely by people with political agendas.

The confusion sowed about climate science recently inspired a trio of scientists to create a "rapid response" team to dispel misinformation. While organizers say the new project is not direcly tied to the anniversary of the email release, it's clearly the result of a good deal of frustration on the part of scientists about the direction discussion of the subject has gone in the past year. "There's a huge disconnect between what is known in the science community and what is understood in the general public," says John Abraham, a professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas and one of the leaders of what he and his colleagues are calling the Climate Science Rapid Response Team. "There's a real strong consensus among scientists and a lack of consensus in the general public."

The gulf between scientists and the American public, says Abraham, has "obviously gotten wider over the last couple years." He attributes this to the phony email scandal, as well as "to a concerted effort by a number of organizations who have interests, generally ideological interests, in blocking climate action." Media coverage of the issue has also been lacking, he says, and many scientists have shied away from discussing their work in the press.

Launching later this week, the Climate Science Rapid Response Team has signed up more than 40 scientists to take part in the initiative, and organizers are hoping to grow the total to at least 100. The idea is that the coordinators will serve as matchmakers between scientists and the news media. Reporters can contact the team with specific questions about science or requests for a television and radio appearances by participating researchers. Their focus is on the science—not on wading into policy debates—but their intention is to help the public discourse move beyond the "is-it-happening" question, says Abraham.

It's clear there's a long way to go to improve public understanding of the issue. A poll conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication showed a significant decline in the belief that the planet is warming due to human activity—from 57 percent in 2008 to 47 percent in early 2010—immediately following the disclosure of the emails. The numbers did bounce back up a bit in polls conducted later in 2010; another Yale studyreleased this fall found that 63 percent of Americans understand that the planet is heating up, and about half of those surveyed recognized that human activity is to blame. Yet a significant majority of the people surveyed had major misconceptions about why the planet's warming, attributing it to, among other things: the space program, toxic waste, the hole in the ozone layer, and volcanoes. The study concluded that if Americans were graded on their understanding of climate science, 52 percent of the population would get an "F." Yale's researchers also found that only 34 percent of the public agreed with the statement, "Most scientists think global warming is happening." The largest percentage—45 percent—thought there was "a lot of disagreement among scientists" on global warming.

"There's always been a level of frustration with the difference between what scientists know and what people think we know," says Scott Mandia, a professor of physical sciences at New York's Suffolk Community College and another leader of the rapid response team. "We have to accept much of the blame. It's not good enough to publish information in journals and expect it get out."

Ray Weymann, a retired astrophysicist who's also part of effort, says he and his colleagues have no interest in being "attack dogs." But, he adds, "I think it's absolutely in order for climate scientists to respond to something that is patently inaccurate."

Wading into the politically charged global warming war has long caused heartburn for many climate scientists. "The truth is, most scientific societies are reluctant to go beyond issuing formal statements about science-related issues, even in the face of withering attacks on the scientific fields they represent," Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out in a recent op-ed. This makes stepped-up efforts to defend the science of global warming all the more important, say the rapid response team's organizers.

"A lot of scientists believe the truth will set us free, but the truth has been locked up in journals, and it's not getting out to the public," says Mandia. Until it does, he says, "An alternate truth is getting out there."

Kate Sheppard covers energy and environmental politics in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. For more of her stories, click here. She Tweets here. Get Kate Sheppard's RSS feed.

Link:  http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/climategate-global-warming-rapid-response