Betts - a voice of moderation at the Met Office?

[marchesarosa]

Dangerous climate change?
Nov 9, 2011
by Richard Betts


Most climate scientists* do not subscribe to the 2 degrees "Dangerous Climate Change" meme (I know I don't). "Dangerous" is a value judgement, and the relationship between any particular level of global mean temperature rise and impacts on society are fraught with uncertainties, including the nature of regional climate responses and the vulnerability/resilience of society. The most solid evidence for something with serious global implications that might happen at 2 degrees is the possible passing of a key threshold for the Greenland ice sheet, but even then that's the lower limit and also would probably take centuries to take full effect. Other impacts like drought and crop failures are massively uncertain, and while severe negative impacts may occur in some regions, positive impacts may occur in others. While the major negative impacts can't be ruled out, their certainty is wildly over-stated.

While really bad things may happen at 2 degrees, they may very well not happen either - especially in the short term (there may be a committment to longer-term consequences such as ongoing sea level rise that future generations have to deal with, but imminent catastrophe affecting the current generation is far less certain than people make out. We just don't know.

The thing that worries me about the talking-up of doom at 2 degrees is that this could lead to some very bad and expensive decisions in terms of adaptation. It probably is correct that we have about 5 years to achieve a peak and decline of global emissions that give a reasonable probability of staying below 2 degrees, but what happens in 10 years' time when emissions are still rising and we are probably on course for 2 degrees? If the doom scenario is right then it would make sense to prepare to adapt to the massive impacts expected within a few decades, and hence we'd have to start spending billions on new flood defences, water infrastructure and storm shelters, and it would probably also make sense for conservationists to give up on areas of biodiversity that are apparently "committed to extinction" - however all these things do not make sense if the probability of the major impacts is actually quite small.

So while I do agree that climate change is a serious issue and it makes sense to try to avoid committing the planet to long-term changes, creating a sense of urgency by over-stating imminent catastrophe at 2 degrees could paint us into a corner when 2 degrees does become inevitable.


*I prefer to distinguish between "climate scientists" (who are mainly atmospheric physicists) and "climate change scientists" who seem to be just about anyone in science or social science that has decided to see what climate change means for their own particular field of expertise. While many of these folks do have a good grasp of climate science (atmospheric physics) and the uncertainties in attribution of past events and future projections, many sadly do not. "Climate change science" is unfortunately a rather disconnected set of disciplines with some not understanding the others - see the inconsistencies between WG1 and WG2 in IPCC AR4 for example. We are working hard to overcome these barriers but there is a long way to go.


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This is a slightly edited version of a comment Richard Betts left on the discussion forum at Bishop Hill.... Richard Betts is Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office. This includes impacts/risks arising from natural climate variability as well as anthropogenic climate change.


bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/9/dangerous-climate-change.html

[marchesarosa]

This expressed moderation from the Met Office, which is a big player within the IPCC, is heartening.

[marchesarosa]

Richard Betts adds

I don't think we can "control the temperature of this planet". We probably could make large changes less likely if we made very substantial cuts in global emissions - but the response of the climate system is complex and hard to predict, and other factors affect the climate too of course, so "control" is not an appropriate word.

[marchesarosa]

Statement from Richard Betts
in the New York Times 17 Nov 2011
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/scienc-and-the-dangerous-climate-question/



Asking a climate scientist to define a “safe” or “dangerous” level of global warming is like asking a weather forecaster to decide whether you should cancel your wedding, school sports day, or other event because he’s issued a severe weather warning.

The weather forecast is only one factor in the decision to cancel the event – other factors include how sensitive the event is to weather, how easy it is to make adjustments either in advance or on the day in order to cope, and the consequences of cancellation compared to battling on. Ultimately the decision to cancel or not will be a judgment call, which you will have to take yourself once you have carefully considered all the angles.

The same is true for defining “dangerous climate change.” The science suggests that, by and large, the risk of major negative impacts of climate change increases with higher levels of global warming. However, this in itself is not enough to define what level of warming is “dangerous,” especially since the projections of actual impacts for any level of warming are highly uncertain, and depend on further factors such as how quickly these levels are reached (so how long ecosystems and society have had to respond), and what other changes are associated with them (eg: carbon dioxide concentration, since this affects plant photosynthesis and water use efficiency, and ocean acidification). With such uncertainties, it’s all down to attitude to risk — “dangerous climate change” should be defined in the context of the level of risk that is considered acceptable. It’s a judgment call.

The current international policy judgment is that 2 degrees warming above preindustrial is defined as “dangerous.” It is perfectly fair enough for policymakers to make that their judgment having considered all the evidence and angles. The difficulty comes when scientists become expected to either support or denounce that judgment purely on the basis of science. If this happens, there is a risk that the science is retrofitted to support a political standpoint. This is extremely dangerous, because the same science also has to inform other policy areas, particular adaptation to climate change.

Some further climate change is already in the pipeline which means we are going to have to consider adapting to it. However, if our adaptation is informed by science cherry-picked to support a particular standpoint on “dangerous climate change” then this risks leading to wrong decisions on adaptation. For example, sea level rise poses very real risks, but talking-up the certainty of rapid and catastrophic rises could lead to investment in flood defenses unnecessarily early, while down-playing the risks could lead to inappropriate delays. The same is true for drought and other impacts.

Policy decisions on both mitigation and adaptation require the same scientific advice, but are influenced by other factors too. It is important to recognize that science is merely one aspect of the decision-making, and not try to make the science exceed its remit in support of one area as this may then misinform the other area. Science can help inform judgment calls on complex issues, but it can’t make them on behalf of society.

[marchesarosa]

Widening the climate conversation

18 Jan 2012
blogs.nature.com/soapboxscience/2012/01/18/climate-science-–-moving-beyond-a-single-issue#wpn-more-272



Richard Betts is Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre and a visiting Professor at the Universityof Exeter. He was a lead author on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report with Working Group 1 (Physical Science Basis) responsible for the assessment of radiative forcing due to land cover change. For the Fifth Assessment Report he is a lead author, assessing impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. Richard was also a lead author on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He is a regular contributor to climate blogs such as bishophill.squarespace.com/ and judithcurry.com/ and can be found on Twitter as @richardabetts




Richard Feynman used to bemoan the fact that much of the communication of science was focussed on whether a particular discovery provided a cure for cancer. An analogous situation seems to apply to communication of climate science – the message often seems to be about whether a new piece of work has shown anthropogenic climate change to be either a greater or lesser problem than previously thought, and hence whether cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are even more urgent or completely unnecessary.

But climate science is not a single-issue subject. It is not carried out solely to see whether cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are needed or not. A further and increasingly important issue is to understand the changes and variability we are seeing in order to help us live with the ever-changing weather and climate. Also, of course, it is important simply to increase the sum total of human understanding simply as an end in itself. Like art and music, gaining deeper insights into how the world around us actually works can enrich our lives and bring enjoyment.

Unfortunately, these other aspects of climate science are rarely seen outside of the scientific community, giving a skewed impression of the science. Public discussion of the science mostly focuses on the implications for policy, and also increasingly on attacking or defending the integrity of the science rather than on its intellectual content. A very large proportion of the commentary on climate science is not actually from working scientists, it is from others who have a political rather than scientific interest. When scientists are involved, they are often discussing it within the usual policy context. It seems that in an increasingly polarised debate on climate policy, science can get sucked in and used as a political football.

In any policy debate, opponents of a policy will naturally seek to question and challenge the evidence base underpinning the need for the policy. They may perceive or claim the evidence to be unreliable or even biased. Promoters of the policy will naturally be defensive of the evidence base. This is all expected behaviour in the policy world.

The difficulty comes when those responsible for gathering the evidence feel under attack and respond in a defensive manner themselves. If they perceive themselves as opponents of those challenging the evidence whilst being allies of those defending the evidence, and start behaving accordingly, this only reinforces the perception of bias from the opponents, and positive feedback sets in. This appears to have happened with climate science in the context of mitigation policy. The scientific aspects of the wider climate debate have become increasingly focussed on one end of the policy debate or the other. It is much less common to see discussion of the implications of the science for other questions such as adaptation planning, and even rarer to see public discussion of climate science merely for intellectual interest. Climate scientists have consequently become perceived as being part of the debate on a single policy issue, rather than as just scientists seeking to advance knowledge.

This leads to the risk of loss of trust in scientists as objective advisors. If climate science communication remains focussed on a single policy issue then of course the science can be perceived or presented as being part of the policy and not merely informing it. Despite repeated protestations that the science is objective, the constant framing of it within a narrow policy discussion does nothing to back this up.

What to do about this? I think the only solution is to talk about the science as science, in the context of all its implications and also for its own academic interest – and talk about it to everyone irrespective of their position in the policy debate. This includes talking with sceptics, and not in defensive mode but as scientists willing to talk around the issue. It used to be the received wisdom that climate scientists should not engage with “sceptics” beause, it was said, it only wasted time and gave credibility to arguments that had already been countered many times before. In my view this is no longer a helpful strategy, if it ever was. Counter-arguments to criticism are given from a distance, but without direct engagement they may be ignored, and without a proper conversation it is often hard to get the real heart of the issue and address the real nature of the disagreement. Also, while arguing from a distance may address some of the scientific issues, it is hard to clarify misconceptions of motivation. If “sceptics” believe scientists to be motivated by political agendas or simply protecting their jobs, and scientists believe sceptics to be “anti-science” or promoted or even funded by vested interests, each side merely claiming otherwise is unlikely to make a difference. Proper discussion is required if true motivations are to be understood.

Of course this needs to happen in a wide variety of communications arenas, but social media offers great opportunities for such engagement. A large number of blogs cover climate change issues, but with one or two exceptions these cover scientific discussions with little direct engagement from critics, or feature discussions amongst groups of largely like-minded individuals who merely reinforce each others views. There are signs that this is starting to change, for example with some scientists engaging with sceptic blogs, and while discussions can often be robust they can be constructive if participants take care to remain civil. Twitter, with its completely open and unmoderated format and easy facilities for tracking and searching topics, increasingly features discussions from across the traditional divide. However, there is still room for much greater engagement outside of traditional interest groups.

Importantly, such discussions need to move on from being anchored in the usual one-dimensional policy debate. Scientists need to be willing to discuss uncertainties, controversies and technical challenges (ie: the interesting bits!) rather than just feeling they need to defend themselves against attack. Only by scientists being clearly seen to operate as scientists will trust be maintained – and this means being seen to explore the issues, challenge each other and not worry about how this will be seen or presented in the mitigation policy debate.

As Feyman said, ““Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.” Focussing only on the nearly sure may suit the policy debate but it doesn’t help advance the science or engage others in it. Let’s talk about it all, with everybody.

[rsmith7]

Another government - another scientific "truth".

Whatever happened to professional integrity?