In Process

A RATIONAL DISCUSSION OF CLIMATE CHANGE:
THE SCIENCE, THE EVIDENCE, THE RESPONSE
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND

ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
NOVEMBER 17, 2010
Serial No. 111–114
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chair
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Wisconsin
DAVID WU, Oregon LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
BEN R. LUJÁN, New Mexico RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL D. TONKO, New York BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
JIM MATHESON, Utah MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
BARON P. HILL, Indiana PETE OLSON, Texas
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio
KATHLEEN DAHLKEMPER, Pennsylvania
ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
SUZANNE M. KOSMAS, Florida
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
JOHN GARAMENDI, California
VACANCY
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

HON. BRIAN BAIRD, Washington, Chair
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
BEN R. LUJÁN, New Mexico RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL D. TONKO, New York MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
JIM MATHESON, Utah
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
JOHN GARAMENDI, California
BART GORDON, Tennessee RALPH M. HALL, Texas
CHRIS KING Democratic Staff Director
SHIMERE WILLIAMS Democratic Professional Staff Member
ADAM ROSENBERG Democratic Professional Staff Member
JETTA WONG Democratic Professional Staff Member
ANNE COOPER Democratic Professional Staff Member
ROBERT WALTHER Democratic Professional Staff Member
DAN BYERS Republican Professional Staff Member
TARA ROTHSCHILD Republican Professional Staff Member
JANE WISE Research Assistant
ALEX MATTHEWS Research Assistant
(II)
CONTENTS
November 17, 2010
Page
Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2
Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Brian Baird, Chairman, Subcommittee on En-

ergy and Environment, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives ................................................................................................ 8
Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10
Statement by Representative Ralph M. Hall, Ranking Minority Member,
Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ......... 11
Statement by Representative Bob Inglis, Ranking Minority Member, Sub-
committee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science and Tech-
nology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 13
Prepared Statement by Representative Jerry F. Costello, Subcommittee on
Energy and Environment, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives .................................................................................... 16
Panel I:
Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 17
Biography .......................................................................................................... 24
Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department
of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 25
Biography .......................................................................................................... 50
Dr. Gerald A. Meehl, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Re-
search
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 51
Biography .......................................................................................................... 58
Dr. Heidi M. Cullen, CEO and Director of Communications, Climate Central
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 58
Biography .......................................................................................................... 73
Discussion
The Impacts of CO2 Increases on Temperatures ............................................... 73
Humans Have Caused Increases in Atmospheric CO2 ...................................... 74
The Greater Proportion of Record High Temperatures .................................... 74
Quantifying Climate Sensitivity and Water Vapor ........................................... 76
The Common Cause for Clean Energy Development ........................................ 78
Climate Skepticism .............................................................................................. 80
(III)
IV
Page
Panel II:
Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Cato Insti-

tute
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 85
Biography .......................................................................................................... 99
Dr. Benjamin D. Santer, Atmospheric Scientist, Program for Climate Model
Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 99
Biography .......................................................................................................... 104
Dr. Richard B. Alley, Evan Pugh Professor, Department of Geosciences and
Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 115
Biography .......................................................................................................... 125
Dr. Richard A. Feely, Senior Scientist, Pacific Marine Environmental Labora-
tory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 126
Biography .......................................................................................................... 134
Discussion
Ocean Acidification and Coral Damage .............................................................. 134
Measuring Glacial Changes ................................................................................ 135
Evidence of Anthropogenic Change .................................................................... 135
Ocean Acidification and Economic Impacts ....................................................... 141
Science and the Federal Government ................................................................. 143
More on Glaciers and Evidence of Anthropogenic Change ............................... 144
Fossil Fuel Resources and Climate Change ....................................................... 148
The Impacts of Current CO2 Emissions ............................................................. 151
Panel III:
Rear Admiral David W. Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator of the U.S.

Navy
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 153
Biography .......................................................................................................... 157
Mr. James Lopez, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 158
Biography .......................................................................................................... 166
Mr. William Geer, Director of the Center for Western Lands, Theodore Roo-
sevelt Conservation Partnership
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 166
Biography .......................................................................................................... 172
Dr. Judith A. Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,
Georgia Institute of Technology
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 172
Biography .......................................................................................................... 179
Discussion
The U.S. Navy and Weather Conditions ............................................................ 179
Climate Monitoring Instrumentation ................................................................. 181
Adaptation Challenges and Poor Communities ................................................. 182
A National Climate Service ................................................................................. 184
The Impacts of Climate Change on Recreational Fishing ................................ 186
Adaptation of Animal Species to a Changing Climate ...................................... 187
Combined Factors Affecting Climate .................................................................. 188
Blogging, Scientific Integrity, and Public Information ..................................... 189
V
Page
An Anecdote on Risk Management ..................................................................... 190
Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences ....................... 194

Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department
of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology ............................................................................................................ 198
Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Cato Insti-
tute ........................................................................................................................ 200
Dr. Benjamin D. Santer, Atmospheric Scientist, Program for Climate Model
Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory .. 203
Dr. Judith A. Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,
Georgia Institute of Technology .......................................................................... 209
A RATIONAL DISCUSSION OF CLIMATE
CHANGE: THE SCIENCE, THE EVIDENCE,
THE RESPONSE
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2010
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:38 a.m. In Room
2325, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian Baird [Chairman
of the Subcommittee] presiding.
(1)
2
3
HEARING CHARTER

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
A Rational Discussion of Climate Change:

the Science, the Evidence, the Response
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH, 2010
10:30 AM
2325 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
Purpose
On Wednesday, November 17, 2010 the Subcommittee on Energy and Environ-
ment of the House Committee on Science and Technology will hold a hearing enti-
tled: ‘‘A Rational Discussion of Climate Change: the Science, the Evidence, the Re-
sponse’’. The Subcommittee will receive testimony on the basic science underlying
how climate change happens; the evidence and the current impacts of climate
change; and the actions that diverse sectors are taking today to respond to and pre-
pare for a changing climate.
Witnesses
Panel 1
• Dr. Ralph Cicerone is the President of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Cicerone will explain the basic science, including the fundamental phys-
ics, underlying how climate change happens. He will also discuss the role of
the National Academy of Sciences in advancing climate science and informing
the public on the issue.
• Dr. Heidi Cullen is the CEO and Director of Communications at Climate
Central. Dr. Cullen will discuss the basic science of climate change, including
the fundamental chemistry, the causes of production of greenhouse gases; and
the expected impacts on the climate.
• Dr. Gerald A. Meehl is a Senior Scientist in the Climate and Global Dynam-
ics Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Dr. Meehl will
discuss the basic physics underlying how climate change happens and how
the physics is incorporated into the development of the climate models.
• Dr. Richard Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in the
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Dr. Lindzen will discuss how greenhouse gas emis-
sions resulting from human activities will only minimally contribute to warm-
ing. He will also discuss the limitations in the global climate models and the
problems with the positive feedbacks built into the models.
Panel 2
• Dr. Benjamin Santer is an Atmospheric Scientist in the Program for Cli-
mate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison at the Lawrence Livermore Na-
tional Laboratory. Dr. Santer will discuss the evidence of climate change; how
well the science validates that climate change is happening; and the computa-
tional climate models, including how the various climate data sets are utilized
and analyzed.
• Dr. Richard Alley is the Evan Pugh Professor in the Department of Geo-
sciences and an Associate of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute
at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Alley will describe the effects of climate
change on ice dynamics and explain how changes in levels of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere have led to a rise in global temperatures.
• Dr. Richard Feely is a Senior Scientist at the Pacific Marine Environment
Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Dr. Feely will discuss the current science and understanding of ocean acidifi-
4
cation, the factors that contribute to the acidification process, and the result-
ing impacts.
• Dr. Patrick Michaels is a Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the
Cato Institute. Dr. Michaels will discuss the rate of greenhouse-related warm-
ing; the Endangerment Finding by the Environmental Protection Agency; and
scientific integrity.
Panel 3
• Rear Admiral David Titley is an Oceanographer and Navigator for the
United States Department of the Navy, Department of Defense. RADM Titley
will discuss the impacts of climate change on U.S. Navy missions and oper-
ations, the national security implications of climate change, and the role of
the U.S. Navy’s Task Force Climate Change.
• Mr. James Lopez is the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary at the De-
partment of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Lopez will discuss the im-
pacts of climate change on vulnerable populations and communities; HUD’s
proposed Sustainable Communities Initiative; and how the Department is
working to improve the coordination of transportation and housing invest-
ments to ensure more regional and local sustainable development patterns,
more transit-accessible housing choices, and reduced greenhouse gas emis-
sions.
• Mr. William Geer is the Director of the Center for Western Lands for the
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Mr. Geer will discuss the
threat of climate change to hunting and fishing; its impacts on fish and wild-
life; and how the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is responding
to the impacts of climate change.
• Dr. Judith Curry is the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric
Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Curry will discuss how uncer-
tainty in data and conclusions is evaluated and communicated. She will also
discuss how this uncertainty should be incorporated into decision-making ef-
forts.
Background
Human society is shaped by the climate in fundamental ways, and so for many
decades researchers around the world have been working to understand how hu-
mans are affecting the climate, the impacts of these changes, and how society can
mitigate and prepare for these effects. Since human settlement began, climate has
influenced what we wear, the food that we eat, where we live, and how we build
our houses. And despite our greatest technological advances, climate still affects
how and where we live our lives today, as well as our economy and national secu-
rity. Various sectors, from agriculture to transportation, rely on climate certainty.
Climate change has increased uncertainty in many sectors; therefore, many deci-
sions with significant economic impacts will have to be made with greater levels of
associated risk. Advancements in climate science may reduce uncertainty in climate
dependent sectors, thus better informing decisions that impact the quality of our
lives.
Climate and Weather

Climate can be defined as the product of several meteorological elements 1 in a
given region over a period of time. In addition, spatial elements such as latitude,
terrain, altitude, proximity to water and ocean currents affect the climate. We expe-
rience climate on a daily basis through the weather. The difference between weather
and climate is a measure of time—weather consists of the short-term (minutes to
months) changes in the atmosphere. Weather is often thought of in terms of tem-
perature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, brightness, visibility, wind, and atmos-
pheric pressure. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short pe-
riod of time, and climate is how the atmosphere ‘‘behaves’’ over relatively long peri-
ods of time. In most places, weather can change from minute-to-minute, hour-to-
hour, day-to-day, and season-to-season. Climate, however, is the average of weather
over a period of years to decades. Generally, climate is what you expect, like a very
1 Meteorological elements such as temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rain-

fall, and atmospheric particle count.
5
hot summer in the American Southwest, and weather is what you get, like a hot
day with pop-up thunderstorms.2
The Science
Climate can be influenced by a variety of factors, including: changes in solar activ-
ity, long-period changes in the Earth’s orbit, natural internal processes of the cli-
mate system, and anthropogenic (i.e. human-induced) increases in atmospheric con-
centrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs).3 As de-
scribed above, ‘‘climate’’ is the long-term average of a region’s weather patterns, and
‘‘climate change’’ is the term used to describe changes in those patterns. Climate
change will not have a uniform effect on all regions and these differing effects may
include changes to average temperatures (up or down), changes in season length
(e.g. shorter winters), changes in rain and snowfall patterns, and changes in the fre-
quency of intense storms. The scientific community has made tremendous advances
in understanding the basic physical processes as well as the primary causes of cli-
mate change. And researchers are developing a strong understanding of the current
and potential future impacts on people and industries.
Throughout Earth’s history, the climate has changed in dramatic ways. What
makes this point in time different from the past is the human influence on this
change and the rate at which this change is occurring. Volumes of peer-reviewed
scientific data show that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased sub-
stantially since industrialization began. Fossil fuel use has become an increasingly
important part of our lives, and as a result, CO2 concentrations have increased ap-
proximately 30% since pre-industrial times.4 And the current level of CO2 in the at-
mosphere is the highest in the past 650,000 years.5 According to the National Acad-
emies, there is strong scientific consensus that these increases in CO2 concentra-
tions intensify the greenhouse effect, and this effect plays a critical role in warming
our planet.6
Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouses work by trapping heat from the sun. The glass panels of the green-
house let in light but keep heat from escaping. This causes the greenhouse to heat
up, much like the inside of a car parked in sunlight. Greenhouse gases in the atmos-
phere behave much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. Sunlight enters the
Earth’s atmosphere, passing through the blanket of greenhouse gases. As it reaches
the surface, the Earth’s land, water, and biosphere absorb the sun’s energy. Once
absorbed, this energy is eventually transmitted back into the atmosphere through
physical processes such as heat conduction, convection, and evaporation. Some of the
energy passes back into space, but much of it remains trapped in the atmosphere
by the greenhouse gases, causing the Earth to heat up.
As a basis for discussion about GHGs and their influence on the climate, it should
be noted that there is a natural, non-anthropogenic greenhouse effect, which Joseph
Fourier discovered more than 150 years ago. Fourier argued that ‘‘the atmosphere
acts like the glass of a hothouse because it lets through the light rays of the sun
but retains the dark rays from the ground’’.7 This is a major simplification in de-
scribing the greenhouse effect, but it does provide insight into why the Earth’s sur-
face is considerably warmer than it would be without an atmosphere.
Several scientists built on Fourier’s greenhouse theory by recognizing the impor-
tance of the selective absorption of some of the minor constituents of the atmos-
phere, such as CO2 and water vapor. Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius conducted
2 See <http://www.nasa.gov/mission¥pages/noaa-n/climate/climate¥weather.html>.
3 In addition to long-term climate change, there are shorter term climate variations. This so-
called climate variability can be represented by periodic or intermittent changes related to El
Niño, La Niña, volcanic eruptions, or other changes in the Earth system.
4 See <http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/rdonlyres/33FA546E-7813-4E51-BA89-48759FF45360/
0/climate¥factsheet.pdf>.
5 Michael Hopkin, Greenhouse-Gas Levels Highest for 650,000 Years: Climate Record High-
lights Extent of Man-Made Change, NATURE NEWS. Published Online. (24 Nov 2005).
doi:10.1038/news051121-14.
6 National Research Council, AMERICA’S CLIMATE CHOICES: ADVANCING THE SCIENCE OF CLI-
MATE CHANGE (2010).
7 Joseph Fourier, Remarques Générales Sur Les Températures Du Globe Terrestre Et Des
Espaces Planétaires, 27 ANNALES DE CHIMIE ET DE PHYSIQUE p.136–67 (1824). and Joseph Fou-
rier, Mémoire Sur Les Températures Du Globe Terrestre Et Des Espaces Planétaires, 7 MÉMOIRES
DE L’ACADÉMIE ROYALE DES SCIENCES p.569–604 (1827).
6
an extensive analysis of the greenhouse effect.8 Arrhenius calculated the tempera-
ture increase caused by the greenhouse effect as a function of the atmospheric con-
centration of ‘‘carbonic acid’’ 9, latitude, and season. The values Arrhenius obtained
for the warming of the atmosphere are very much in agreement with what are now
being obtained using complex climate models. Further research in the 1930s showed
that, due to the more extensive use of fossil fuels, the atmospheric concentration of
carbon dioxide was increasing, and the first projection of the atmospheric CO2 con-
centration was made in the late 1950s.10 As these scientific findings were coming
to light, operational data collection programs were initiated for measuring atmos-
pheric CO2 in Scandinavia, Mauna Loa, Hawaii and at the South Pole.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas (GHG) that traps the sun’s radiation
within the troposphere, i.e. the lower atmosphere. It has accumulated along with
other man-made greenhouse gases, such as methane (CH4), chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs),
and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). GHGs are an important part of our atmosphere be-
cause they keep Earth from having an inhospitably cold surface temperature.11 That
said, if the greenhouse effect becomes stronger, through increased concentrations of
GHGs and water vapor, it could make the Earth warmer than human civilization
and its surrounding ecosystem has currently adapted to. Even a small additional
warming is predicted to cause significant issues for humans, plants, and animals.
The Scientific Process: Uncertainty, Consensus, and Peer Review

Climate science, like all science, is an iterative process of collective learning: data
are collected; hypotheses are formulated, tested, and refined; theories are con-
structed and models are built in order to synthesize understanding and to generate
predictions; and experiments are conducted to test these hypotheses, theories, and
models. New observations and refined theories are incorporated throughout this
process, and predictions and theories will be further supported or refuted. Con-
fidence in a theory grows if it is able to survive this rigorous testing process, if mul-
tiple lines of evidence converge in agreement, and if competing explanations can be
ruled out.
The scientific community uses a highly formalized version of peer review to vali-
date research results and improve our understanding of the relevance of these re-
sults. Through this process, only those concepts that have been described through
well-documented research and subjected to the scrutiny of other experts in the field
become published papers in science journals and accepted as current scientific
knowledge. Although peer review does not guarantee that any particular published
result is valid, it does provide a high assurance that the work has been carefully
vetted for accuracy by informed experts prior to publication. The overwhelming ma-
jority of peer-reviewed papers about global climate change acknowledge that human
activities are substantial contributing factors.
Science is based on observations and therefore uncertainty is inherent to the sci-
entific process. Uncertainties about climate change will never be completely elimi-
nated by scientific research, but science can enable decision makers to make in-
formed choices in the face of risks.12
The Evidence
There are numerous effects that can result from climate change. Some effects are
already being felt today, and some are projected by scientists to occur in the future.
Scientifically documented evidence of climate change includes:
Sea Level Rise. The global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in
the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the
last century.13
Global Temperature Rise. The major comprehensive global surface temperature
reconstructions, which use a wide variety of data sources from satellites to weather
8 Svante Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the
Ground 41 PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE p.237–276 (1896). and Elisabeth T. Crawford, ARRHENIUS:
FROM IONIC THEORY TO THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT (Science History Publications) (1996).
9 Carbonic acid is a byproduct of carbon dioxide when dissolved in water.
10 Roger Revelle and Hans E. Suess, Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmospheric and
Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 during the Past Decades, 9 TELLUS
p.18–27 (1957).
11 See <http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/glossary.html>.
12 National Research Council, AMERICA’S CLIMATE CHOICES: ADVANCING THE SCIENCE OF CLI-
MATE CHANGE p.15 (2010).
13 J.A. Church and N.J. White, A 20th Century Acceleration in Global Sea Level Rise, 33 GEO-
PHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS (2006).
7
stations, show that Earth has warmed since 1880.14 Most recorded warming has oc-
curred since the 1970s, with the twenty warmest years having occurred since 1981
and with all ten of the warmest years occurring in the past twelve years.15 Even
though the 2000s witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep
solar minimum in 2007–2009, surface temperatures continue to increase.16
Warming Oceans. The oceans have absorbed much of the increased heat, with
the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees
Fahrenheit since 1969.17
Shrinking Ice Sheets. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased
in mass. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Green-
land lost 150 to 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of ice per year between
2002 and 2006, while Antarctica lost about 152 cubic kilometers (36 cubic miles) of
ice between 2002 and 2005.18
Declining Arctic Sea Ice. Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has
declined rapidly over the last several decades.19
Glacial Retreat. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world—
including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa.20
Extreme Weather Events. The number of record high temperature events in the
United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature
events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing
numbers of intense rainfall events.21
Ocean Acidification. The carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s oceans has been
increasing since 1750, and is now increasing at a rate of approximately 2 billion
tons per year. This has increased ocean acidity by about 30 percent.22
The Response
Scientific research is also invested in developing ways to respond and adapt to cli-
mate change, in addition to developing technologies and policies that can be used
to limit the magnitude of future changes to the climate. The issues of mitigating,
adapting, and responding to the impacts of climate change are currently being ex-
plored through global collaborative input from a wide range of experts, including
physical scientists, engineers, social scientists, public health officials, business lead-
ers, economists, and governmental officials. Demand for information to support cli-
mate-related decisions has grown as people, organizations, and governments have
moved ahead with plans and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to
adapt to the impacts of climate change. Today, however, the nation lacks com-
prehensive, robust, and credible information systems to inform climate choices and
evaluate their effectiveness.
Scientific research plays a role in guiding the nation’s response to climate change
by:
• projecting the beneficial and adverse effects of climate changes;
• identifying and evaluating the likely or possible consequences, including unin-
tended consequences, of different policy options to address climate change;
• improving the effectiveness of existing options and expanding the portfolio of
options available for responding to climate change; and
• developing improved decision-making processes.
14 See <http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.html>.
15 T.C. Peterson et. al., State of the Climate in 2008, 90 SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE BUL-
LETIN OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY p.S17–S18 (2009).
16 I. Allison et. al., THE COPENHAGEN DIAGNOSIS: UPDATING THE WORLD ON THE LATEST CLI-
MATE SCIENCE, (UNSW Climate Change Research Center, Sydney, Australia) (2009).
17 Levitus et. al., Global Ocean Heat Content 1955–2008 In Light of Recently Revealed Instru-
mentation Problems, 36 GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS (2009).

18 See <http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/>, <http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/
20100121/> and <http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr¥deepsolarminimum.htm>.
19 L. Polyak et. al., HISTORY OF SEA ICE IN THE ARCTIC In PAST CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND
CHANGE IN THE ARCTIC AND AT HIGH LATITUDES, U.S. Geological Survey, Climate Change
Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.2. chapter 7 (2009). and R. Kwok and
D.A. Rothrock, Decline in Arctic sea ice thickness from submarine and ICESAT records: 1958–
2008, 36 GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS (2009).
20 See <http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier balance.html> and <http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/
¥
mbb/sum08.html>.
21 See <http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/cei.html>.
22 C.L. Sabine et. al., The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO , 305 SCIENCE p.367–371 (2004),;
2
Copenhagen. Also see <http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/OA/>.
8
Chairman BAIRD. The hearing will now come to order. Our hear-
ing today is titled: ‘‘A Rational Discussion of Climate Change: The
Science, the Evidence, the Response.’’ The purpose of today’s hear-
ing is to conduct an objective review of the science behind the
greenhouse effect, climate change, and acidification.
My impression has been for some time that many members of
the public and perhaps some in Congress have never had the op-
portunity to consider the basic science and, for that matter, the
long history of investigation and data that underlies scientific un-
derstanding of the greenhouse effect, and more recently, of ocean
acidification.
Therefore, today we have three panels of experts with us. The
first will begin today’s hearing by setting the foundation of basic
science. They will explain to us the fundamental physics and chem-
istry underlying the role of CO2 and other atmospheric gases in
regulating or altering our planet’s temperature and the acidity of
the oceans. A bit of a scientific history lesson will be included as
we learn that the science behind this issue goes back more than
100 years. The panel will also address questions about how much
CO2 has been entering the atmosphere, from what sources, and
with what predicted effects.
From basic scientific findings and methodologies described by the
first panel, we will then consider whether or not the predicted im-
pacts of CO2 on temperature and ocean acidity are, in fact, occur-
ring. In other words, we will ask the question if basic science
makes certain predictions about what should happen if CO2 levels
increase in the air and oceans, what is actually happening in the
real world? How do we know if it is happening or not, and what
can we predict for the future?
The third and final panel will then discuss the impacts that are
being observed and that can be anticipated from climate change
and ocean acidification. Our witnesses will discuss how we are al-
ready responding today and actions we need to take to prepare for
the future. The analysis includes such matters as national security,
social impacts, economic effects, and health concerns, among oth-
ers.
I have had the opportunity in preparation for this hearing to
read all of the written testimony. I want to thank the witnesses for
taking time from their busy schedules to prepare this material and
submit it beforehand for the Committee’s analysis. We are also
going to post that on the Science Committee website for those of
you who are interested. And I hope you will be. It is wonderful tes-
timony and very illuminating.
Before we hear from the witnesses, I want to make just a few
key points. Having taught scientific methodology and basic statis-
tics and having published, myself, in peer-reviewed journals, I per-
sonally place a paramount importance on scientific integrity. That
is why in the America COMPETES Act, I authored the provision
that insists that institutions seeking to receive NSF funding have
specific course training in scientific ethics. My understanding is
that from academia and from NSF that this is having a salutary
impact, and I am proud of that impact.
I mention it today because, after all, this is the Science and
Technology Committee. We must, if we are to have any credibility
9
at all, insist that our witnesses adhere to the highest standards of

integrity, and simultaneously we, Members of Congress, must hold
ourselves and this Committee as an institution to that standard in
our study of the issues and in our conduct today and in the future.
In the context of climate change and ocean acidification, I also
believe that because our Nation is the biggest historical producer
and second largest current producer of greenhouse gases, we have
a profound moral responsibility to be sure we get this right. Scrip-
ture teaches us to love thy neighbor as thyself. If our dispropor-
tionate impacts on the rest of the world are harming billions of
other people and countless other species, we are not living up to
that scriptural guidance.
Finally, even if one completely rejects the evidence that will be
presented today in reports from the National Academies of Science
and countless other respected bodies, I believe it still makes good
sense to strive for our Nation to be a leader in clean-energy tech-
nology for economic self-interest alone.
Is not the reality of sending hundreds of billions of dollars
abroad, often to countries with values antithetical to our own, at
least a bit troubling for all of us? Is not the national security risk
this creates disconcerting? Are the known impacts of events such
as Exxon Valdez, the Gulf oil spill, and numerous other events not
of sufficient concern to argue for change, and are not the facts of
red-alert days in our Nation’s cities, in which it is unsafe for our
children to breathe, sufficient cause for some degree of consterna-
tion and change?
I personally believe the evidence of climate change and ocean
acidification is compelling and troubling. But even without that
conclusion, I am convinced we must change our energy policies for
reasons of economics, national security, and environmental and
human health. Our Nation has long been a leader in renewable-en-
ergy technology and I believe we must remain a leader.
This Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Gordon, and
before him Chairman Boehlert, have taken positive steps to ensure
that continues. So too we have been at the forefront of climate re-
search and should remain a leader there as well. We must continue
this endeavor if we intend to leave our children and our grand-
children a strong economy and truly an independent and secure
Nation and an environment in which to live, work, and play.
Finally, as the parent of 5–1/2-year-old twin boys, the whole ef-
fort of my service in Congress and on this committee has been to
ensure that they have a brighter and better future. If we don’t ad-
dress this issue well and responsibly, I fear we will fail in that mis-
sion and leave them a much less pleasant future than we have
been able to enjoy.
I am excited about today’s hearing and these three panels of wit-
nesses. I thank them for their time. They will help us better under-
stand the concepts and impacts of climate change. And I personally
thank each of you for being here. And I thank our outstanding
Committee staff for their work in bringing such superb witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Baird follows:]
10
PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN BRIAN BAIRD
Good morning and welcome to today’s hearing—A Rational Discussion of Climate
Change: the Science, the Evidence, the Response. Several months ago I suggested to
our Science Committee staff that it was time this Committee held a comprehensive
and in depth hearing to really discuss the science behind climate change and ocean
acidification.
I wanted the hearing to fully present the information as objectively and clearly
as possible so that we could all have a sense of the basic science behind the green-
house effect and ocean acidification, and the likely impacts. I also believed it would
be important for our understanding to ensure that scientists with differing views be
invited to testify.
Therefore, today we have three panels of experts with us. The first panel will
begin today’s hearing by setting the foundation of basic science. They will explain
to us the basic physics and chemistry underlying the role of CO2 and other atmos-
pheric gases in regulating or altering our planet’s temperature and the acidity of
the oceans. A bit of scientific history lesson will be included as we learn that the
fundamental science behind this issue goes back more than one hundred years. This
panel will also address questions about how much CO2 has been entering the atmos-
phere, from what sources, and with what predicted effects.
From the basic scientific findings and methodologies described by the first panel,
we will then consider whether or not the predicted impacts of CO2 on temperature
and ocean acidity are, in fact, occurring. In other words, we will ask the question,
‘‘If basic science makes certain predictions about what should happen if CO2 levels
increase in the air and the oceans, what is actually happening in the ‘real world,’
how do we know if it is happening or not, and what can we predict for the future?’’
The third and final panel will then discuss the impacts that are being observed
and that can be anticipated from climate change and ocean acidification. Our wit-
nesses will discuss how we are already responding today and actions we need to
take to prepare for the future. This analysis includes such matters as national secu-
rity, social impacts, economic effects, and health concerns, among others.
I have had the opportunity in preparation for this hearing to read all of the writ-
ten testimony. I want to thank the witnesses for taking time from their busy sched-
ules to prepare this material and submit it beforehand for the Committee analysis.
I hope and trust many of my colleagues have taken the time as I have to read the
testimony from all the witnesses.
In addition to the written testimony provided by our panelists, I should note that
I have personally gone well beyond to review published articles by many of those
will testify before us today. I have also had the privilege to participate in various
scientific forums domestically and globally that have examined this issue. Further,
I have followed the matter very closely in the pages of Science magazine, which I
subscribe to personally as a long time member of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
Before we hear from the witnesses, I want to make just a few key points. First,
as someone who has taught scientific methodology and basic statistics, and having
published in peer review journals myself, I place a great importance, paramount im-
portance, on scientific integrity. That is why I authored the language in the America
COMPETES Act which makes it mandatory for those institutions seeking National
Science Foundation funding to include explicit training in scientific ethics as a re-
quired part of their curriculum. I am proud to say that initial reports from NSF and
the academic community indicate that this policy is having a substantial and posi-
tive effect, as institutions that formally provided no such explicit training have in-
deed incorporated it into their training regimes.
I mention this here because this is, after all, the Science and Technology Com-
mittee. We simply must, if we are to have any credibility at all, insist that our wit-
nesses adhere to the highest standards of scientific integrity. Simultaneously, we
must hold ourselves and this Committee as an institution to that standard in our
study of the issues and in our conduct today and in the future.
Recently, some of our colleagues and friends in Congress have suggested that we
needn’t worry about this issue of climate change because God has promised not to
let anything happen to us. Speaking personally, I would be the last to presume that
I know God’s intentions. I would, however, suggest that we were given brains for
a reason and the role of this Committee on Science and Technology is to use those
brains to evaluate the information before us as thoroughly and objectively as pos-
sible and take responsible action on that basis. Perhaps, just perhaps, that is what
God might want us to do and that is how we are supposed to prevent cataclysmic
events from occurring.
11
For those who are convinced, in spite of the evidence, that the threat of climate
change and ocean acidification is not real, we must ask if the United States, as the
biggest historical producer and second largest current producer of greenhouse gases,
does not bear a great and indeed a moral responsibility to the rest of the world to
be sure we get this right and do not impose adverse consequences on others as the
result of disproportionate impacts from our own actions. Referring to scripture my-
self, the Golden Rule, ‘‘love thy neighbor as thyself,’’ and other pearls of wisdom
seem especially relevant here.
Moreover, even if one completely rejects the evidence that will be presented today
and in reports from the National Academies of Science and countless other re-
spected bodies, does it not make sense to strive for our nation to be a leader in clean
energy technology for economic self-interest alone? Is not the reality of sending hun-
dreds of billions of dollars abroad, often to countries with values antithetical to our
own, at least a bit troubling? Is not the national security risk this creates dis-
concerting? Are the known impacts, such as Exxon Valdez, the recent Gulf Oil spill,
and numerous other events not of sufficient concern to argue for change? Are not
the facts of ‘‘red alert’’ days in our nation’s cities, days in which it is ‘‘unsafe to
breathe’’ for our children, cause for some degree of consternation?
The United States has been a leader in renewable energy technology and I believe
we must remain a leader. Likewise, we have been at the forefront of climate re-
search and should remain a leader there as well. Many of the satellite monitoring
capabilities, ground observations, and other tools that enable us to know our local
weather and climate patterns, the health of our ecosystems and oceans, and the
quality of the air we breathe, and that track the many changes occurring on Earth
are available only because of our investments in science programs at our many fed-
eral agencies and academic institutions. We must continue our investments if we
intend to leave our children and grandchildren an environment in which they too
can live, work, and play.
I am excited about this hearing and these three panels of star witnesses that will
help us to better understand these concepts of climate change and ocean acidifica-
tion. I want to personally and sincerely thank you for being here today and I look
forward to each of your testimonies.
Chairman BAIRD. And with that, I recognize my friend and col-
league, Mr. Inglis, for opening remarks. Sorry. Mr. Hall has to
leave. Are you ready, Mr. Hall? I am told you have to leave at some
point.
Mr. HALL. I am not ready, but I will go.
Chairman BAIRD. All right. Then, we will recognize you out of re-
spect for the likely-soon-to-be Chairman of this committee and a
dear friend and a respected member. I recognize Mr. Hall for as
much time as——
Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I do thank
you for holding this hearing and I welcome all of the witnesses tes-
tifying on today’s three panels. I think we have one witness for
each panel, which is kind of an improvement. Usually we have one
witness for each hearing. But one out of three is about a fair
match, I think. It depends on the quality. But we are going to have
a lot of different approaches to this and disagreements on it. And
I appreciate everybody being here.
Today our country finds itself at a crossroads and we face a stag-
gering national debt of more than 13 trillion. Almost one in ten
people are out of work, and a bloated Federal Government. These
are serious problems that require solutions that are defined by re-
straint and discipline. No longer should the economy be strained by
writing checks we can’t afford and a burdensome regulatory regime
brought about by policies that serve to hamper industry and pro-
ductivity across our country.
Despite this economic reality, the Administration is proceeding
with regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a policy to
supplant the cap and trade proposal that failed to win Congres-
12
sional approval. The Secretary of Energy testified before this Com-

mittee that such a policy would raise energy prices for every Amer-
ican. The Energy Information Administration conducted an anal-
ysis of the cap and trade bill that passed the House in June. It was
projected that this legislation would increase energy prices for con-
sumers anywhere between 20 percent and 77 percent.
The Administration claims that we must cut our emissions of
carbon dioxide despite the cost, so that we stave off global climate
disruption. They had been calling it global climate warming. First
of all, this new terminology pronounced by the White House Office
of Science and Technology Policy is just another example of this
Administration attempting to rebrand events to suit their policy ob-
jectives. There is no more war. We don’t have war now according
to them. Now we have what they say is overseas contingency oper-
ations. There are no more terrorist acts, despite that guy that mur-
dered those people at Fort Hood. There is no more terrorist acts.
We now have man-caused disasters, according to the Administra-
tion. Let me tell you something. Changing the name doesn’t change
what it is. It is high time the Administration learns how to call a
bluebird blue.
Secondly, this Administration argues—if cutting greenhouse gas
emissions is the policy direction that is justified by the science, I
think this hearing today will demonstrate and could demonstrate
that reasonable people have serious questions about our knowledge
of the state of the science, the evidence, and what constitutes a pro-
portional response. Furthermore, there has been an escalating
sense of public betrayal by those who would claim the science justi-
fies these policy choices.
The e-mails posted last November from the Climate Research
Unit at the University of East Anglia in England expose a dis-
honest undercurrent within the scientific ethics community. This
incident ignited a renewed public interest in the level of uncer-
tainty of the scientific pronouncements and an increased concern
that the policy of cap and trade may not achieve its objective of re-
ducing the impacts of climate change.
While there are only a few scientists involved in this unethical
behavior, it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch.
It has created a general atmosphere of doubt with regards to all
scientific endeavors involving the government. We need only look
at how the Administration responded to the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill and see how scientific information was distorted to promote a
specific policy agenda or to change people’s perception of the gov-
ernment’s competence.
To add insult to injury, this Administration has neglected to fol-
low through on promises to issue basic guidelines for scientific in-
tegrity, a failure that has only served to further erode the public
trust.
Given these persistent problems, Mr. Chairman, the public has
even more questions and concerns about how Federal officials use
science to inform policy debates. Sorting scientific fact from rhet-
oric is essential and we have a long way to go on this topic. We
must insist on information derived from objective and transparent
scientific practices and we must hold this Administration account-
able for meeting a level of scientific integrity that the public ex-
13
pects from their government. Above all, we cannot afford to enact

policies that destroy jobs, hinder economic growth and whittle
away our competitiveness.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and I yield
back my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RALPH M. HALL
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing and I welcome all of the wit-
nesses testifying on today’s three panels.
Today, our country finds itself at a crossroads. We face a staggering national debt
of more than $13.7 trillion, almost one in ten people are out of work, and a bloated
federal government. These are serious problems that require solutions that are de-
fined by restraint and discipline. No longer should the economy be strained by writ-
ing checks we cannot afford and a burdensome regulatory regime brought about by
policies that serve to hamper industry and productivity across America.
Despite this economic reality, the Administration is proceeding with regulations
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a policy to supplant the ‘‘cap and trade’’ pro-
posal that failed to win Congressional approval. The Secretary of Energy testified
before this committee that such a policy would raise energy prices for every Amer-
ican. The Energy Information Administration conducted an analysis of the ‘‘cap and
trade’’ bill that passed the House in June. It was projected that this legislation
would increase energy prices for consumers anywhere between 20% and 77%.
The Administration claims that we must cut our emissions of carbon dioxide, de-
spite the costs, so that we stave off ‘‘global climate disruption’’. First of all, this new
terminology pronounced by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
is just another example of this Administration attempting to rebrand events to suit
their policy objectives. There is no more war, now we have overseas contingency op-
erations. There are no more terrorist acts; we now have man-caused disasters.
Changing the name does not change what it is. It’s high time the Administration
learn, as we say, to call a bluebird blue.
Secondly, this Administration argues that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is a
policy direction that is justified by the science. I think this hearing today will dem-
onstrate that reasonable people have serious questions about our knowledge of the
state of the science, the evidence and what constitutes a proportional response.
Furthermore, there has been an escalating sense of public betrayal by those who
would claim the science justifies these policy choices. The emails posted last Novem-
ber from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England
exposed a dishonest undercurrent within the scientific community. This incident ig-
nited a renewed public interest in the level of uncertainty of the scientific pro-
nouncements and an increased concern that the policy of ‘‘cap and trade’’ may not
achieve its objective of reducing the impacts of climate change.
While there were only a few scientists involved in this unethical behavior, it only
takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch. It has created a general atmos-
phere of doubt with regards to all scientific endeavors involving the government. We
need only to look at how the Administration responded to the Deepwater Horizon
oil spill to see how scientific information was distorted to promote a specific policy
agenda or to change people’s perception of the government’s competence. To add in-
sult to injury, this Administration has neglected to follow through on promises to
issue basic guidelines for scientific integrity, a failure that has only served to fur-
ther erode the public trust.
Given these persistent problems, the public has even more questions and concerns
about how federal officials use science to inform policy debates. Sorting scientific
fact from rhetoric is essential, and we have a long way to go on this topic. We must
insist on information derived from objective and transparent scientific practices.
And, we must hold this Administration accountable for meeting a level of scientific
integrity the public expects from their government.
Above all, we cannot afford to enact policies that destroy jobs, hinder economic
growth and whittle away our competitiveness. I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses today, and I yield back the remainder of my time.
Chairman BAIRD. I thank the gentleman. And I am pleased to
recognize my friend and colleague, the Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee, Mr. Inglis.
14
Mr. INGLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And this is the last time
that you will be chairing a subcommittee, so I want to thank you
for your service. And I hope everybody will join me in recognizing
Mr. Baird for his excellent service here on this Committee.
Chairman BAIRD. If I may, I am going to interrupt my friend be-
cause this is the last time he will be in the Ranking chair, and he
has been an outstanding partner to work with and a real model of
a distinguished Member of Congress. Please join me in—yeah.
Mr. INGLIS. There is a cautionary tale there about what happens
when you get friendly with a Democrat. But actually he is a dear
friend and a great guy. Anyhow, I am very excited to be here, Mr.
Chairman, because this is on the record. And, you know, it is a
wonderful thing about Congressional hearings, they are on the
record.
Kim Beazley, who is Australia’s Ambassador to the United
States, tells me that when he runs into climate skeptics, he says
to them to make sure to say that very publicly, because I want our
grandchildren to read what you said and what I said. And so we
are on the record and our grandchildren or great-grandchildren are
going to read it.
And so some are here suggesting to those children that here is
the deal. Your child is sick—this is what Tom Friedman gave me
as a great analogy yesterday. Your child is sick. Ninety-eight doc-
tors say treat him this way. Two say no, this other is the way to
go. I will go with the two. You are taking a big risk with those
kids. Ninety-eight of the doctors say do this thing. Two say do the
other.
So on the record, we are here with important decisions to be
made. And I would also suggest to my free-enterprise colleagues,
especially conservatives here, whether you think it is all a bunch
of hooey that we have talked about in this Committee, the Chinese
don’t. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century. They
plan on innovating around these problems and selling to us and the
rest of the world the technologies to lead the 21st century. So we
may just press the pause button here for several years, but China
is pressing the fast forward button. And as a result, if we wake up
in several years and we say, gee, this didn’t work very well for us,
the two doctors turned out not to be so right. Ninety-eight might
have been the ones to listen to. Then what we will find, is we are
way behind those Chinese folks. Because, you know, if you have got
a certain number of geniuses in the population, if you are one in
a million in China, there are 1,300 of you. And you know what?
They plan on leading the future. So whether you—if you are a free-
enterprise conservative here, just think, if it is a bunch of hooey,
this science is a bunch of hooey, if you miss the commercial oppor-
tunity, you have really missed something.
And so I think it is great to be here on the record. I think it is
great to see the opportunity that we have got ahead of us. And
since this is sort of a swan song for me and Mr. Baird, I would en-
courage scientists that are listening out there to get ready for the
hearings that are coming up in the next Congress. Those are going
to be difficult hearings for climate scientists, but I would encourage
you to welcome those as fabulous opportunities to teach. Don’t
come here defensively. Don’t come to this committee defensively.
15
Say I am glad you called me here today, I am glad you are going
to give me an opportunity to explain the science of climate change.
Because I am here to show you what you spent, say $340 million
a year on the U.S. polar programs. So you spent the money.
Now I am here to tell you what you got out of it. I am happy
to educate you on what the data is. And hopefully we will have ex-
perts like some who are here today, but also—you know, on a trip
from this committee to Antarctica to visit with the money, the $340
million a year we spent on the polar programs—that Donald
Manahan, who is a professor at USC—the other one. We claim the
real one is in Columbia, South Carolina. But the other one, you
know, the one out on the west coast. That one. Dr. Manahan is a
master teacher. I hope he is one of the witnesses here, because he
is the kind of guy that would welcome the inquiry and would lead
a tutorial for folks that are skeptics so they could see the science.
Meanwhile, we have got people that make a living and a lot of
money on talk radio and talk TV pronouncing all kinds of things.
They slept at Holiday Inn Express last night and they are now ex-
perts on climate. And those folks substitute their judgment for the
people who have Ph.D.s and who are working tirelessly to discover
the data.
So we have some real choices ahead of us. But I hope in the fu-
ture, as we have these hearings, that we realize it is all on the
record and our grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to
get to see. And it could turn out the science is all wrong. You know,
we have had that before. We used to blood-let people, and I think
John Quincy Adams, the Speaker, made the very helpful sugges-
tion that we move him to the window, and the poor guy froze to
death. Right? He had the stroke over there in the Lindy Boggs
room. So sometimes science turns out to be wrong.
But other times it turns out to be very right and the key to sci-
entific endeavor is what we are here to discuss today, is openness,
access to the data, and full challenging of the data. That is how we
advance science.
And I look forward to the hearing, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
the opportunity.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Mr. Inglis, for your opening re-
marks and for your many years of service in the Congress and on
this committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Inglis follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE BOB INGLIS
Good morning, and thank you, Dr. Baird for this hearing and for your great lead-
ership as Chairman of this Subcommittee.
I’m not a scientist; I just play one in Committee. That’s why I’m so excited about
this hearing. After years of intense conversations about climate policy, energy mar-
kets, and technology innovation, we’re closing with a frank discussion about the
science of climate change. This is our chance to ask lingering questions about
whether the climate is changing, what the causes are, and what impacts we can ex-
pect to see. It’s a great opportunity to get answers from some of the people that
know best, and to engage people on all sides of the debate in an endeavor to under-
stand the science.
Right now, I think the most important questions about climate change are what
impacts we can expect to see, and where. Changing rainfall, temperature patterns,
and ocean acidity will have huge impacts on agriculture, energy infrastructure, eco-
systems, and the marine-based economy. These changes will be very different in the
upstate of South Carolina and in southwest Washington. Those differences mean big
16
things for farmers, insurance agents, energy companies, government planners, and
anyone else making long term investments on the ground. I hope to hear from our
witnesses how scientists are working to fill the gaps in our knowledge and give us
the tools we need to cope with a changing climate.
I also hope that the panelists will touch on the Climategate scandal. While the
hacked and leaked emails did not shake the foundations of scientific agreement on
climate change, they exposed a breach of the public trust. We count on our scientists
to live up to the highest standards of scientific integrity, collaborative science, and
peer review. I’d like to hear about the status of scientific discourse in the climate
community and what improvements need to be made.
Finally, climate science is so important on capitol hill because of how climate pol-
icy will impact our energy markets. There is an irrefutable connection between the
ways we use energy and the quantity of greenhouse gases that we emit. There is
also an irrefutable connection between the ways that we use energy and the amount
of risk we expose ourselves to in terms of our public health and our national secu-
rity. It’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.
I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panelists about all these issues.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, it has been a pleasure serving with you on this
Subcommittee. I would yield to Mr. Hall for his opening remarks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JERRY F. COSTELLO
Good Morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today’s hearing to receive
testimony and engage in a discussion of the science, evidence, and actions different
sectors are using to respond to climate change.
This Committee has met several times in the 111th Congress to discuss the impli-
cations of the changing climate and what solutions are available to mitigate these
impacts. I agree that we must have complete information from both sides of the de-
bate about how and why our climate is changing based on science and what steps
we can take to address these changes now and in the future.
First, the majority of scientists now agree the planet is warming, based on dra-
matic increases in ocean acidification, rising temperatures and rainfall, the retreat-
ing of glaciers, and the shrinking of ice sheets. Based on this scientific evidence,
these changes will impact our society and will require responses from public health
officials, economists, scientists, and government officials worldwide. Along with our
international partners, we are taking a variety of approaches to reduce emissions
and improve energy efficiency, but to date no global response to climate change has
been adopted. I would like to hear from our witnesses how the United States in col-
laboration with our international partners can respond to impacts of climate change.
I welcome our panels of witnesses, and I look forward to their testimony. Thank
you again, Mr. Chairman.
Panel I
Chairman BAIRD. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce our
distinguished first panel of witnesses. And I think Mr. Inglis’ de-
sire to have people who are thoughtful and critical analysts of the
data will be realized with this outstanding panel. The panel in-
cludes Dr. Ralph Cicerone, the President of the National Academy
of Sciences; Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of
meteorology for the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Plan-
etary Science, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. Gerald
Meehl, Senior Scientist for the Climate and Global Dynamics Divi-
sion at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); and
Dr. Heidi M. Cullen, the Chief Executive Officer and Director of
Communications for Climate Central.
Now, those introductions took me about five seconds to read
each. If you read the distinguished biographies of these extraor-
dinary individuals, it would take you almost five years, almost, to
read. So forgive me for not going into such detail, but I hope you
17
will check them out on their website. You will see this is indeed
a very competent and capable group of individuals.
As our witnesses know, we are asking you to summarize an en-
tire career of research in five brief minutes, after which we will ask
a series of questions. And this is the first panel. We have two other
panels after this. And we will do our level best to make sure that
each panel gets a proportionate amount of time at our hearing
today.
And with that, Dr. Cicerone, please begin.
STATEMENT OF RALPH J. CICERONE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL

ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Dr. CICERONE. Thank you, Chairman Baird and Members of the
Subcommittee, for the opportunity to participate in your hearing
today. With your permission, I will present only a summary of my
written testimony.
Scientists have records from geological history of many past cli-
mate changes. For example, there is physical evidence of past ice
ages with warmer intervals in between and of a 100,000-year cycle
of ice ages in the past. Volcanoes have also caused climate changes.
For example, a worldwide cooling followed the June 1991 explosive
eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. Our ability to cal-
culate the amount of that cooling is very high if the volcanic cloud
material amounts and types are measured well. Natural climate
changes are likely to occur in the future.
However, the main reason that we are here today in this hearing
is that humans are also capable of causing Earth’s climate to
change. The underlying mechanism is the greenhouse effect, where-
in certain gases and clouds in the atmosphere surrounding the
planet can absorb outgoing planetary infrared radiation. Each
greenhouse gas selectively absorbs infrared radiation at specific
wavelengths, and this signature can be seen by Earth-orbiting sat-
ellites, and was indeed seen as long ago as 1972.
The natural greenhouse effect has been enhanced by the in-
creased amounts of greenhouse gases in the air due to human ac-
tivity. These increases have occurred in a period of only a few dec-
ades, a very rapid change. The climatic impact of these greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere is influenced also by changes in atmos-
pheric water vapor and clouds that are initiated in turn by the
warming. As water warms, it evaporates faster—in fact, dispropor-
tionately faster—than the warming. The evaporation injects water
vapor into the air.
While some scientists propose that water vapor increases due to
greenhouse warming might not amplify the original warming, they
are fighting against a fundamental fact of physics, the steep de-
pendence of vapor pressure of water, which is the Clausius-
Clapeyron equation. The human-caused greenhouse effect exerts
additional leverage on Earth’s surface energy budget. The changes
that have been observed in the last three decades, greenhouse gas
concentration increases, temperature rises on the surface of the
Earth, and decreased ice amounts, can all be seen from space. In
fact, that is how many of the data have been obtained, by looking
at the Earth from space.
18
The specific molecular properties of greenhouse gases have been

measured through laboratory experiments so that the calculations
of the enhanced greenhouse effect due to these increases in con-
centrations are very quantitative today. The equations are the
same that we use in designing nuclear weapons and neutron trans-
port. The impacts of materials which are less uniformly distributed
of various kinds is more difficult to estimate.
A change in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth would
also be very important for the planetary energy balance, and sci-
entists have proposed that changes from the sun are causing con-
temporary climate change. But recent evidence from monitoring the
sun itself shows that the amount of solar energy reaching the
Earth has not increased during the last 30 years, this time of clear-
ly observed climate changes.
Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases have been observed
worldwide for carbon dioxide. The data are of extremely high qual-
ity. Measurements are taken frequently from many locations on the
surface from aircraft satellites and from dated ice cores that extend
back hundreds and thousands of years; carbon dioxide amounts
have increased from approximately 280 parts per million in the
late 19th century to around 390 parts per million now, and that the
increases are due to human activities is clear from several lines of
evidence.
Fossil fuel burning is causing approximately 85 percent of the
rise, while the release of carbon dioxide from deforestation, perhaps
15 percent of the total. Methane has also risen rapidly in the last
century, as evidenced from surface measurements of all kinds and
from dated ice cores. Methane sources for the atmosphere include
rice agriculture, emissions from cattle, the use and transmission of
natural gas, the decay of organic matter placed in landfills, and
many human activities.
Nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gas also has an array of
processes that injects it into the air, mostly traceable to the in-
creased human usage of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer for agri-
culture.
Several classes of chemicals containing fluorine are also contrib-
uting to the enhanced greenhouse effect. And these increases ob-
served in the concentration in all of these gases are clearly attrib-
uted to human activities.
Now, some observed changes: Surface temperatures, both of air
and of water, show a warming of the Earth in all regions. The glob-
ally averaged warming since 1980 is approximately 1 degree Fahr-
enheit. Stronger warmings have been measured in the Arctic re-
gion, along with differences season by season and locality by local-
ity.
Just as one example, the calendar year 2009 was significantly
warmer than the long-term average in the Northern Hemisphere,
but it was cooler than several of the previous years, while the tem-
peratures in the Southern Hemisphere in 2009 were at a 130-year
record high. Further temperature rises are usually larger over land
areas than over oceans.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Cicerone, I am sorry. I will ask you to sum-
marize briefly if you can. It is always hard to keep it in the five
minutes.
19
Dr. CICERONE. The heat content of the oceans have increased

roughly in accord with the calculated greenhouse effect and sea
level rise has been increasing more rapidly since the early nineties
than had been observed earlier. And now we are in a position for
measured ice losses over Greenland and Antarctica, to sum up
what is causing the sea level rise. And we got an answer which is
in accord with the measured sea level rise.
This is enormous progress over the last few years. A lot of contin-
ued research is underway. It is needed, for example, for quan-
titative calculations and where we go in the future.
I will just close by saying that the National Academy of Sciences
has been active in our national efforts to understand these issues
for over 30 years, and that in all of our reports we have always
said that there is a lot more to learn about future climate change,
but the potential for future changes, including sudden, abrupt, and
large changes is large. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Cicerone follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RALPH J. CICERONE
Chairman Baird and members of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment,
thank you for the opportunity to participate in your hearing today. I will address
the basic science and physics of climate change and how climate change happens.
In addition, I will describe the role of the National Academy of Sciences in advanc-
ing the science and informing the public on this topic.
Climate Change in the Past

Earth’s climate shapes the conditions for life and it has done so over geological
history as it does now. The kinds of plant and animal species that can survive are
determined or are strongly influenced by climate as are the locations and kinds of
human installations and settlements such as agricultural areas and routes of trans-
portation on rivers and oceans.
We have records of many past climate changes from sea-level changes, from de-
posits of soils and rocks, and from fossils and other debris from plant and animal
life, big and small, and from chemical traces such as abundances of elements and
their isotopes. There is such evidence of periodic Ice Ages when glaciers extended
over the northern half of North America, for example, and of intervening warm peri-
ods. The mapping of many of these historical climate changes is imprecise, that is,
we do not know exactly how big were the geographical regions that experience the
changes. Yet, some patterns are clear. For example, there is a 100,000-year cycle
of Ice Ages in the past. These repeated events were probably triggered by changes
in the non-circularity (eccentricity) of the earth’s orbit around the sun. Earth’s orbit
is not circular but more like an elipse and just how non-circular the orbit is, changes
slowly. Also, Earth’s tilt angle of the access of its rotation changes periodically and
its access of rotation wobbles a bit over tens of thousands of years. These astronom-
ical changes lead to small changes in the amount of sunlight received by earth and
to the geographical distribution of sunlight. While no one has yet been able to pre-
dict exactly how Ice Ages are brought on or how earth exits them, and how quickly,
the principles of our understanding are sound. Volcanoes of certain types have also
caused climate changes in the past. Regions of the earth or even the entire earth
can experience cooling due to volcano injection of reflective matter that floats in the
upper atmosphere (stratosphere). For a year or a few years, such coolings have been
observed, for example, following the June 1991 explosive eruption of Mt. Pinatubo
(in the Philippines). Our ability to calculate the amount of cooling is very high if
the volcanic cloud material amounts and types are measured well.
Earth’s Energy Balance and Climate Change Today

These kinds of natural climate changes are likely to occur in the future although
their timing and sizes are not predictable. The main reason that we are here in this
hearing today is that humans are capable of causing earth’s climate change. The
underlying mechanism is the greenhouse effect and the leverage that it exerts is
20
worth understanding. In fact, many people are not yet aware of how large this lever-
age is, or how it arises.
The key scientific principles can be seen by considering the energy balance of the
Earth. The Earth receives energy from the sun and it sends energy back to space.
Every physical body that is warmer than its surroundings loses energy to its sur-
roundings. Because of the temperature of the sun, the form of energy that escapes
it is mostly visible light while the temperature of the Earth causes most of the en-
ergy sent away from the Earth to be in the form of infrared wavelengths. For exam-
ple, if you have ever done any infrared photography such as looking at an inhabited
house from outside on a cold winter night, you can see where the hot spots are. Also,
some infrared detector devices for military purposes also operate in infrared wave-
lengths. The Earth’s energy balance is such that we receive approximately 237
watts per square meter from the sun as visible light, averaged over day and night,
over the entire surface of the Earth. A watt is a rate of energy flow of one Joule
per second. Approximately, the same amount of energy leaves the Earth, 237 watts
per square meter, but as infrared waves. One of the earliest scientific instruments
ever orbited around Earth saw the wavelength matter and distribution of Earth’s
planetary radiation to space (IRIS instrument), thus demonstrating the greenhouse
effect. Many more recent instruments and measurements have led to the numbers
that I just quoted.
The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that has been active over the his-
tory of the Earth. This fact can be demonstrated by calculating the temperatures
of various planets using the energy-balance framework and the principles that I just
outlined. When we calculate the temperature of Mars from the amount of sunlight
that reaches it and its reflectivity, we obtain very close to the right answer as com-
pared to actual measurements. When we calculate the temperatures of Earth or of
Venus using the same framework with appropriate numbers, we arrive at too low
a temperature. We calculate that the average temperature of Earth is approxi-
mately 15 degrees below zero centigrade which is perhaps 30 degrees centigrade too
low and we calculate a temperature of Venus which is far below what is actually
measured. These errors indicate that something is missing from the calculation and
it is easily demonstrated that inclusion of the natural greenhouse effect enables one
to get much closer to the actual observed temperature in a revised calculation.
Greenhouse Gases
The key ingredients in the greenhouse effect are greenhouse gases and clouds
which when in the atmosphere surrounding the planet can absorb outgoing plan-
etary infrared radiation. Mars has a very thin atmosphere with not much gas at
all. Venus has a very thick high-pressure carbon dioxide atmosphere with many
clouds and Earth has the atmosphere which we have measured and experienced
with significance amounts of natural greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, water vapor,
methane, and several others. The signature of a greenhouse gas is the selectivity
in how it absorbs infrared radiation at different wavelengths. This signature is
measured in laboratory experiments using each gas and the signature of individual
greenhouse gases can be seen by Earth-orbiting instruments or even from some
other vantage point in space.
The natural greenhouse effect on Earth has been enhanced or amplified by the
increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the air due to human activities. The
human-enhanced greenhouse effect due to such increased atmospheric concentra-
tions is now calculated to be 2.7 watts per square meter, or more than one percent
of the incoming solar energy. And this increase has occurred in a period of a few
decades, a very rapid change. The components of this increase listed in order start-
ing with the largest is carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, a number of fluorine-
containing chemicals, and ozone in the lower atmosphere, etc. When one attempts
to calculate the impact on the climate of the earth, the way that wind motions are
forced, and how temperatures and precipitation amounts change, one must include
the additional forcing due to water-vapor changes caused by the original green-
house-gas forcings. The climatic impact of these atmospheric greenhouse-gas in-
creases is influenced by changes in atmospheric water vapor and clouds which are
initiated by warming. As water warms, it evaporates faster, disproportionately fast-
er than the amount of warming. Thus, water vapor is injected into the air. While
some scientists continue to propose that water-vapor changes due to greenhouse
forcing might not amplify the original warming, they are fighting against this fun-
damental fact of physics, the dependence of vapor pressure on temperature
(Clausius-Clapeyron Effect).
As I said earlier, it is important to realize that this enhanced greenhouse effect
represents leverage over Earth’s energy balance and Earth’s climate. If we look only
at humans direct influence on Earth’s energy budget, we find a smaller influence.
21
In particular if we take all energy, all human energy usage today, all nuclear power,
the burning of all fossil fuels, coal, petroleum, gasoline, natural gas, the burning of
wood, the use of hydroelectric power, of geothermal power, tidal and solar and wind
power, and we average it over the surface of the Earth, we find a number of 0.025
watts per square meter or barely 1/100th of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Thus,
we see that the greenhouse effect is exerting leverage of more than a factor of 100
over the impact on Earth’s energy budget due only to human energy usage. This
notion and these numbers are very important to understand. From the viewpoint
of atmospheric chemistry, this leverage is not very surprising considering that
chemical catalysis causes minute amounts of chemicals to be far more important
than their small numbers might suggest. The chemical impact of catalysts can be
enhanced by 100,000 to a million times through the mechanism of catalysis.
Less technically, one can appreciate this leverage by realizing that these changes
on Earth that have been observed in the last three decades—the greenhouse-gas
concentrations, the temperature rises on the surface of the Earth, the ice amounts
on Earth—can all be seen from space looking back at Earth. In fact, that is how
many of the data have been obtained, by looking at the Earth from space. So these
changes are not small. One of the easiest tasks in foreseeing how climate change
due to human activities will happen, is indeed evaluating the enhanced greenhouse
effect. We know the properties of greenhouse gases that make them either more or
less effective. For example, because the outgoing planetary radiation occurs mostly
in a well-defined range of wavelengths, an ideal greenhouse gas is one that absorbs
radiation in that same range and does so effectively. An ideal greenhouse gas is also
one which can survive in the atmosphere without being broken apart and which can
be distributed more or less uniformly on a global scale without being removed.
Those properties are largely chemical and they can be measured through laboratory
experiments, and they have been so measured, so that the calculations of the en-
hanced greenhouse effect due to a measured increase in the gas’s concentration are
very quantitative and reasonably precise today.
The concept of radiative forcing was first created and employed by scientists who
created the first fluid dynamical models of the atmosphere. Bob Dickinson and I
used the concept to permit a comparison of the effectiveness of greenhouse gases
and their amounts in 1986. In the early and mid-1980s scientists had become aware
that not only are the increased carbon dioxide amounts capable of influencing
Earth’s climate but a number of other chemicals also have this capability although
in lesser amounts. Radiative forcing is a measure of how strongly substances in the
atmosphere affect Earth’s energy budget. The concept has been extended to mate-
rials which are less uniformly distributed such as aerosol particles from biomass
burning, from sulfur pollution, from fossil-fuel burning, smoke particles, and the
like. The impact of those less uniformly distributed substances is more difficult to
estimate because the substance’s geographical distributions are not as well known,
so the estimates of such substances on Earth’s energy budget are not as well de-
fined.
Now, obviously, if our concern is over changes to the net energy balance of the
Earth, then a change in the amount of sunlight reaching the earth is also very im-
portant. In fact, any number of scientists have tried to focus on whether changes
from the sun are causing contemporary climate change. But it is only in the last
few years that we have had enough evidence to be able to say that the changes in
climate that have been observed over the last several decades, are not due to
changes in the output of the sun. It has been known in principle for a long time
that the sun, like other stars, can change its luminosity over geological timescales
but there is no evidence from other stars or any theory of stellar evolution that sug-
gests that the sun’s output could change by as much of the enhanced greenhouse
effect has changed, that is, over one percent in say 50 years. A more solid kind of
evidence has come from monitoring the sun itself. By stringing together the records
of a series of satellites that have orbited the earth while observing the incoming
sunlight, several scientists have shown that the amount of sunlight energy reaching
the Earth has oscillated with an approximate 11-year cycle over the last 30 years,
that is, the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth has not increased during the
time of the observed climate changes. So we are left with the realization that the
enhanced greenhouse effect is 15 or 20 times larger than the difference between
solar maximum and solar minimum in the output of the sun. Moreover, the en-
hanced greenhouse effect is not oscillating, it is simply continuing to rise, so the evi-
dence today rules out any significant role for solar changes in causing the observed
climate changes of the last several decades.
I have alluded to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases that have been ob-
served worldwide that demonstrate human impact. In the case of carbon dioxide,
our data are of extremely high quality; measurements are taken frequently from
22
many locations on the surface of the Earth, from aircraft, satellites, and from dated
ice cores extending back over hundreds and thousands of years. The evidence that
the increase in carbon dioxide worldwide amounts from approximately 280 parts per
million in the late 19th century to approximately 390 parts per million this year
is very strong and that the increases due to human activities is also clear. The lines
of evidence that one uses in attributing the carbon dioxide increase to human activi-
ties includes the rate of the concentration increase compared to the rate of release
of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel usage, the isotopic content of the carbon dioxide,
the carbon dioxide patterns geographically compared to the places where carbon di-
oxide is being released by human activity, by oceanic amounts, and by known pat-
terns of movement of atmospheric chemicals. There is a contribution to this increase
from human-caused deforestation. This contribution is approximately 15 percent of
the total while fossil-fuel usage is approximately 85 percent of the total. The release
of carbon dioxide from deforestation is due both to the direct burning of wood and
the decay of exposed soil organic matter.
Methane as a greenhouse gas has also risen rapidly since the late 19th century
as evidenced by surface measurements made at many sites around the world, by
satellite measurements and by the amounts of methane extracted from dated ice
cores. The list and sizes of methane sources for the atmosphere is complicated and
it includes rice agriculture, the domestication of cattle, the use and transmission of
natural gas, the decay of organic matter placed in landfills, and many other sources.
Nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas, also has an array of processes that injected
it into the atmosphere, mostly traceable to the increased human usage of synthetic
nitrogen fertilizer for agriculture. Several classes of chemical gases containing fluo-
rine also contribute to the enhanced greenhouse effect. The chlorofluorocarbons
whose usage was regulated and banned due to the Montreal Protocol and later
amendments to it, still reside in the atmosphere. Several kinds of replacement
chemicals for the chlorofluorocarbons, namely, hydrochlorofluorocarbons and
hydrofluorocarbons are observed to be increasing in concentration worldwide along
with measured increases of perfluorinated chemicals such as carbon tetrafluoride
and perfluoroethane along with sulfur hexafluoride. The increases observed in the
concentrations of all of these gases are clearly attributed to human activities. While
the enhanced greenhouse effect due to all of these greenhouse gases has been an
inadvertent consequence of human activities, this force, led by carbon dioxide emis-
sions, continues to grow with larger consequences for future climate.
Observed Climate Changes
A number of meaningful changes to Earth’s climate have been measured since
1980 or the late 1970s. These include globally averaged surface temperatures, both
of air and of water. Large data sets covering almost all of the world are available
from at least three climate centers around the world, one from NASA, one from
NOAA, and one from the University of East Anglia. These data sets are generally
similar although they consist of somewhat different entries with more or less
weighting from individual continents and the Arctic and they employ somewhat dif-
ferent methods to adjust for potential biases such as the encroachment of urban
areas and the urban heat-island effect on thermometer stations which were at one
time far from urban areas. As an example, the data sets use slightly different time
periods of comparison but they all show a warming of the earth in all regions. The
globally averaged warming since 1980 is approximately one degree F. Stronger
warmings have been measured in the Arctic region with, of course, differences sea-
son-by-season and locality-by-locality. Just as one example, the calendar year 2009
was significantly warmer than the long-term average of the Northern Hemisphere
but it was cooler than several of the previous years while the temperatures in the
Southern Hemisphere in 2009 were at an all-time record high. Further, temperature
rises are higher over land areas than over oceans.
The data on the temperatures and heat content of the upper layers of the ocean
are very important as a measure of global climate change yet these data are more
difficult to obtain with the density of stations that we would desire because the
oceans are not as well monitored as the atmosphere. Nonetheless, in the last several
years, new data sets have materialized which show an upward trend with time over
the last 40 or 50 years with the amount of heat stored in the upper layers of the
ocean rising, roughly in accord with calculations of the enhanced greenhouse effect.
A climate variable of great importance especially in the longer term is sea level.
Since 1992, sea level has been measured by Earth-orbiting instruments on satellites
which are capable of measuring sea level nearly worldwide and frequently so that
the trend of rising sea levels has now been measured more accurately and more pre-
cisely in more places than had been possible before 1992. There is now evidence of
a rate of sea-level rise since 1992 which is approximately twice as fast as the sea-
23
level rise observed from the late 19th century to 1992 with far more primitive and
fewer instruments in coastal environments.
The amounts of ice residing on land formations in Greenland and Antarctica are
now being measured by independent instruments, vertical ranging devices on Earth-
orbiting satellites, as well as instruments which measure the deviations of the
Earth’s gravitational field from that of a perfect sphere and the rate at which those
deviations are changing. In other words, the data from this instrument can be used
to infer the rate of change of ice mass over those continents. Both kinds of data now
show that over the last perhaps seven or eight years, that is the entire record of
the measurements, that the masses of ice lodged on Greenland and Antarctica are
both decreasing with time with a possibly accelerating rate. When combined with
the inferred amount of ice lost from continental glaciers and the rate at which sea
level is rising due to thermal expansion, due to the increased temperatures, one can
now calculate how fast sea level is rising and find agreement with the sea-level rise
that is actually measured independently. So this kind of evidence is new and rather
compelling.
Many other important measures of climate change are being gathered, measures
of variables which are directly important to human, animal and plant life, but which
are inherently more variable spatially, that is, geographically and with time such
as the rate of flows of various streams and rivers, the amounts and kinds of cloudi-
ness, the frequency and duration of droughts and of storms in many locations, and
the length of growing season and the frequency of new high-temperature settings
and of new low-temperature settings. Continued research on these variables and
many others is essential for us to gauge and predict climate changes that are under-
way and how effective human responses might be.
Efforts to predict more detailed evolution of future climate change begin with
mathematical expressions of the laws that govern the motion of fluids and their
temperatures and of ice amounts. These equations are of the type which cannot be
solved with paper and pencil and with neat mathematical expressions. Instead, they
can only be solved by numerical computations, computations that are becoming
more rigorous and more understood. Other witnesses will describe more of the actu-
ality and the details of these efforts, but I do want to emphasize several kinds of
inputs to these mathematical models which require continued scientific effort. One
is the specification of the role of aerosol particles and of clouds in the atmosphere
and another is the need to specify the rate at which fossil-fuel burning will be used
discharging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which rate depends on growing
human population, human activities and energy technology.
The National Academy of Sciences has been active in our national efforts to de-
tect, understand and predict climatic change. Most of our analyses are conducted
through our operating arm, the National Research Council, which is co-administered
by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
And we often obtain help from our own Institute of Medicine. There are, of course,
many other nations that are active in climate research and are attempting to miti-
gate climate change and/or to adapt to it. And some of these nations not only con-
duct research but perform their own nationally based assessments. In addition,
there are international bodies performing analyses of climate change such as the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which is a creature of the World Mete-
orological Organization and of the United Nations Environmental Program.
Our NAS/NRC reports have been issued more frequently and they have grown in
size over the last 30 years with one of the first major reports being released in the
last 1970s followed by another in 1983, another series in 1991–92, and then a large
number in the early part of this decade. In the past year, we have written and re-
leased a series of reports entitled, America’s Climate Choices, in response to a Con-
gressional request from the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and
Related Agencies under Chairman Mollohan. This series of reports examined the
state of climate science, what we know, and what we believe we still must learn
along with the state of strategies for climate mitigation and climate adaptation as
well as an analysis of how to communicate with decision makers and the general
public. Another recent report on climate from the National Research Council is on
how to estimate the emissions of greenhouse gases with regard to any international
agreement that might be adopted and on how well we could determine compliance
with any international agreement. On a completely separate topic, the National Re-
search Council issued a report recently on what impacts could be expected by stabi-
lizing the atmosphere at various target levels of greenhouse gas concentrations. We
have also been asked in the last several years, both by Congress and by Federal
agencies, to examine the effectiveness of the United States Climate Change Science
Program under President Bush, both its plans and its achievements. All of our re-
24
ports have been clear that there is much to learn about future climate change and
that the potential of future disruptions is large.
The Congressional Charter under President Lincoln that created the National
Academy of Sciences in 1863, charges us to be responsive to requests from the Fed-
eral Government for analyses of topics involving science. Our analyses are con-
ducted by leading American experts occasionally augmented by talent from other
countries. Each of our reports is peer reviewed by participants who did not engage
in the study itself but whose evaluations and analyses are used so as to suggest
revisions or corrections to the early draft versions of our reports. This method and
the high standards which we attempt to employ assure that our reports will be of
value as our government, our businesses, and our citizens continue to gauge how
to respond to the challenges which we face today and in the future concerning
human-caused climate change.
BIOGRAPHY FOR RALPH J. CICERONE

Ralph J. Cicerone is President of the National Academy of Sciences and Chair of
the National Research Council. His research in atmospheric chemistry, climate
change and energy has involved him in shaping science and environmental policy
at the highest levels nationally and internationally.
Dr. Cicerone’s research has focused on atmospheric chemistry, the radiative forc-
ing of climate change due to trace gases, and the sources of atmospheric methane,
nitrous oxide and methyl halide gases. He has received a number of honorary de-
grees and awards for his scientific work. Among the latter, the Franklin Institute
recognized his fundamental contributions to the understanding of greenhouse gases
and ozone depletion with its 1999 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in
Science. One of the most prestigious American awards in science, the Bower Award
also recognized his public policy leadership in protecting the global environment. In
2001, he led a National Academy of Sciences study of the current state of climate
change and its impact on the environment and human health, requested by Presi-
dent Bush. The American Geophysical Union awarded Dr. Cicerone its James B.
Macelwane Award in 1979 for outstanding contributions to geophysics by a young
scientist and its 2002 Roger Revelle Medal for outstanding research contributions
to the understanding of Earth’s atmospheric processes, biogeochemical cycles, and
other key elements of the climate system. In 2004, the World Cultural Council hon-
ored him with the Albert Einstein World Award in Science. Dr. Cicerone is a mem-
ber of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei,
the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Korean Academy of Science and Technology,
and Academia Sinica. He has served as president of the American Geophysical
Union, the world’s largest society of earth scientists.
Dr. Cicerone was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In his early career, he was a research
scientist and held faculty positions in electrical and computer engineering at the
University of Michigan. The Ralph J. Cicerone Distinguished University Professor-
ship of Atmospheric Science was established there in 2007. In 1978 he joined the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego as
a research chemist. From 1980 to 1989, he was a senior scientist and director of
the Atmospheric Chemistry Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Re-
search in Boulder, Colorado. In 1989 he joined the University of California, Irvine,
where he was founding chair of the Department of Earth System Science and the
Daniel G. Aldrich Professor of Earth System Science. As Dean of the School of Phys-
ical Sciences from 1994 to 1998, he recruited outstanding faculty and strengthened
the school’s curriculum and outreach programs. Immediately prior to his election as
Academy president, Dr. Cicerone served as Chancellor of UC Irvine from 1998 to
2005, a period marked by a rapid rise in the academic capabilities of the campus.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Lindzen.
Dr. LINDZEN. Thank you, Mr. Baird.
Chairman BAIRD. Make sure the mic is on.
25
STATEMENT OF RICHARD S. LINDZEN, ALFRED P. SLOAN PRO-
FESSOR OF METEOROLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF EARTH AT-
MOSPHERIC AND PLANETARY SCIENCE, MASSACHUSETTS
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Dr. LINDZEN. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Baird. Thank you, Committee,
for the opportunity to speak here.
As a student, I was told something rather important; that the
primary thing in solving the problem is to have the right question.
And here I am, a little bit concerned about the guidelines for this
meeting.
I think if we are to properly consider our concern over green-
house gases, we must separate the basic science upon which there
is great agreement from the specific bases for our concern. For in-
stance, there is general agreement that climate is always changing.
There is agreement that over the last two centuries there has been
on the order of 3/4 of a degree Centigrade increase in something
called globally averaged temperature anomaly.
There is no such thing as average temperature for the Earth.
There is a greenhouse effect. Nobody is arguing that. That CO2 is
a greenhouse gas is not argued by anyone I know. And that CO2
is increasing due to man’s activities is also widely accepted. To be
sure, general agreement hardly guarantees truth, but I am not
questioning it at this stage. But what is commonly forgotten—and
that is crucial to this hearing—is that these facts do not lead to
major climate concern per se. So, for example, if doubling carbon
dioxide alone leads to only about a degree of warming and if all the
increase in globally averaged temperature anomaly were due to the
added greenhouse gases that Dr. Cicerone described, it would sug-
gest a sensitivity that is even lower than that.
The only—the case for alarm rests on three rather doubtful prop-
ositions. One is that climate sensitivity to increasing greenhouse
gases is much greater than the above, due to the alleged domi-
nance of positive feedbacks. The second is the association of phe-
nomena, such as sea level rise, arctic sea ice and so on, which de-
pend on many, many factors, of which globally averaged tempera-
ture anomaly is not even the most important factor. And to use
these changes as evidence for dangerous warming is illogical. This
is especially true with arctic sea ice. The oversimplification—this
is the third item—of climate to a single number globally averaged
temperature anomaly and a single forcing number—let us say a ra-
diative forcing from CO2—is a gross distortion of what is really
going on.
Now, with respect to climate sensitivity, greenhouse physics tells
us that temperature changes at the surface should reduce certain
change in outward flux of heat, which at the top of the atmosphere
is in the form of radiation. It will in the absence of feedbacks cor-
respond to a sensitivity of about 1 degree for a doubling of CO2.
Now, if you have positive feedbacks and you go to space and meas-
ure the outgoing flux associated with the temperature perturba-
tion, you should see less than you would expect without feedbacks.
And if you have negative feedbacks, you should see more.
Now, it turns out that the models, when you ask what they cal-
culate, calculate what is consistent with positive feedbacks. If you
go to the data, you find the opposite. Most recently, there has been
26
an attempt to measure these fluxes from the surface. Now, you

have to understand, the flux might be reasonably constant through
the atmosphere, but its process is different. So at the top of the at-
mosphere it is radiation. At the surface it is mostly evaporation.
And there is a problem that has been noted for some years. Mod-
els predict very little change in evaporation as you warm, com-
pared to observations. And this can be directly translated into sen-
sitivity. The model’s behavior is consistent with 1–1/2 to 4–1/2 de-
grees for a doubling of CO2. The data suggests it is closer to half
the lowest limit. So there too, I mean, one has the problem that
the observations, when specifically turned to feedbacks rather than
specific mechanisms, show the opposite. And this isn’t surprising.
One speaks of clouds as a kind of peripheral uncertainty. But
they are capable—they involve changes in the radiative balance
that are, you know, more than a factor of 20, larger than what you
get from a doubling of CO2.
Now, parenthetically, we might wonder why models that have
such high sensitivity can simulate past behavior if the past behav-
ior is consistent with low sensitivity. And the answer is I think, as
Jerry would point out, is aerosols. Now, you might say there are
really aerosols, so they cancel some of the greenhouse. But if you
check, each model uses a different value. And the aero—because
they want to adjust their model to look right, so it is an adjustable
parameter.
And the aerosol community, Schwartz, Roda, Charlson and so on
have published a paper in the last year pointing out the uncertain-
ties, meaning that if you include arbitrary aerosols you can get any
sensitivity you want. That is hardly reassuring.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Lindzen, I will ask, if I may——
Dr. LINDZEN. Okay.
Chairman BAIRD. We are about a minute and a half over. I know
it is hard to summarize. But if you can——
Dr. LINDZEN. Okay. Let me just put it—let me just point out that
in my full testimony there are examples, further examples of each
of these things. The climate is certainly worth understanding bet-
ter, but the basis for grave worries is poor; certainly poorer than
the changes of suggested policies, though perhaps not so poor as
the prospects for suggested policies to significantly impact climate
or even CO2 levels. Thank you.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Dr. Lindzen.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lindzen follows:]
27
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD S. LINDZEN
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BIOGRAPHY FOR RICHARD S. LINDZEN

Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics
of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hy-
drodynamic instability. His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in
mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in
global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport,
stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He
51
has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Had-
ley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum
from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role
of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gra-
dients at the mesopause, and provided accepted explanations for atmospheric tides
and the quasi-biennial oscillation of the tropical stratosphere. He pioneered the
study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with
each other. He is currently studying what determines the pole to equator tempera-
ture difference, the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribu-
tion of such instabilities to global heat transport. He has also been developing a new
approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in
parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere
and in generating upper level cirrus clouds. He has developed models for the Earth’s
climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to in-
creases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the mainte-
nance of regional variations in climate. Prof Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS’s
Meisinger, and Charney Awards, the AGU’s Macelwane Medal, and the Leo Huss
Walin Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Nor-
wegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the
American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. He is a cor-
responding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, and has been a mem-
ber of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Council of the
AMS. He has also been a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group
at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at
California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., ’64, S.M., ’61,
A.B., ’60, Harvard University)
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Meehl.
STATEMENT OF GERALD A. MEEHL, SENIOR SCIENTIST,
NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
Dr. MEEHL. Thank you, Chairman Baird, Members of the Com-
mittee, for the opportunity to communicate information regarding
processes involved with climate change, climate models, extreme
weather, and climate events. But first I want to begin with a per-
sonal perspective that I think is worth stressing. I think that one
of the most interesting, exciting, and challenging science prob-
lems—I emphasize the word ‘‘science’’ problems—facing the re-
search community today is the following: If you add greenhouse
gases to the atmosphere, what is the response of the climate sys-
tem? It is because of this compelling science problem that I find re-
search in this area fascinating and a tremendous intellectual chal-
lenge, and it is why I am here today.
So anyway, the idea that additional CO2 and other greenhouse
gases would cause a warming of the climate is not a new one. The
so-called greenhouse effect has been studied since the late 1800s,
and a number of simple calculations performed over the early 20th
century indicated that the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere
would likely warm the planet by at least several degrees.
However, a major development in this field of study was the
emergence of numerical models that could be run on computers.
Equations from fluid dynamics, physics, and thermodynamics can
be used to simulate weather, and this had already been addressed
early in the 20th century in a series of arduous calculations, per-
formed at that time by hand. It was not until electronic computers
came into use in the 1950s that the equations could be solved in
a rapid enough manner to be used for actual weather forecasts.
This new science of numerical weather prediction became feasible
for operational forecasts in the 1960s and is still in use today.
52
Using the same principles and many of the same equations, early
climate models in the 1960s were devised that could be mathemati-
cally integrated forward in time, much like numerical weather fore-
casts but for much longer into the future. It was well known that
after about a week, due to the chaotic nature of the atmosphere,
the time evolution of individual storms could not be resolved by cli-
mate models. Instead, the climate simulations attempted to capture
the statistics of weather over months, seasons, years and decades.
Since the climate models look to weather and climate in this new
way, other factors that could change slowly and thus affect the sta-
tistics of weather had to be included. Therefore, unlike weather
predictions where there was only an atmospheric numerical model,
climate models had an atmosphere as well as confluence of oceans,
land surface, sea ice and equations that accounted for heating and
greenhouse gases or cooling from visible air pollution.
All of these components were linked together in one large com-
puter program, run on the fastest supercomputers available, so
that as much detail as possible could be included in the equations.
These models account for physical processes and feedbacks such as
those alluded to by Dr. Lindzen. And these feedbacks involve water
vapor, changes in snow and sea ice and clouds. And, of course, all
of these affect how the climate system responds to changes in
greenhouse gases.
Some of the uncertainty to the range of model responses seen in
increasing CO2 arises from uncertainties in these feedbacks, par-
ticularly clouds. However, climate models with a cooling contribu-
tion from negative cloud feedback still warms significantly on aver-
age over the 20th and 21st century due to the contributions to in-
creased temperatures, not only from increasing greenhouse gases
but also from warming feedbacks involving increased water vapor,
decreased snow, and sea ice.
Since the end of the 19th century, global average temperatures
have warmed nearly 3–1/2 degrees Fahrenheit. Many wonder why
we should worry about such seemingly small increases of tempera-
ture. However, even small changes in average temperature pro-
duces very large and more noticeable changes in weather and cli-
mate extremes. It stands to reason that in a warmer climate, there
will be more very hot days and fewer very cold days.
For precipitation, there is also a temperature-related connection.
As more moisture evaporates from the warming oceans, the warm-
er atmosphere can hold that increased moisture. And when that
moisture gets caught up in a storm, there is a greater moisture
source for precipitation. Therefore, we typically see a greater inten-
sity of precipitation in a warmer climate. That is, we see greater
daily rainfall totals, or when it rains it pours. Exactly these kind
of changes have been documented in the observations; namely,
more heat extremes and pure cold extremes and increases in pre-
cipitation and intensity.
Additionally, the shift to warmer temperatures has also produced
an increase in daily record-high temperatures compared to daily
record-low temperatures over the United States, with this ratio
currently being about 2-to-1.
For example, since January 1, 2000, there have been over
300,000 daily record-high maximum temperatures set and only
53
about 150,000 daily record-low minimum temperatures set, a ratio

of about 2-to-1. Just this year since January 1, 2010, there have
been over 17,000 daily record highs and about 6,000 daily record
lows, a ratio of more than 2-to-1. Thus, as the average tempera-
tures warm, the probabilities have shifted towards more unprece-
dented heat and less unprecedented cold.
To a first order, climate models are able to reproduce these
changes of temperature and precipitation extremes, thus building
credibility for their future projections. Those projections of future
climate change show ever-increasing heat extremes and reductions
in cold extremes, ongoing increases of precipitation intensity, and
a growing ratio of record-setting heat compared to record-setting
cold.
For example, in one model for one future climate change sce-
nario, the current ratio of about 2-to-1 record highs to record lows
increases to about 20-to-1 by mid-century and about 50-to-1 by late
century. However, even in the late 21st century, when warming av-
erage over the United States was about 4 degrees C, or roughly 70
degrees Farenheit in that model, there are still record-setting daily
low temperatures occurring. Thus, even in a climate that has
warmed significantly in the model, winter still occurs and it does
occasionally get extremely cold in some locations, cold enough to
set a few daily record-low temperatures every year in that model.
However, those few daily record lows occur in the context of many
more daily record-high maximum temperatures. And this is yet an-
other aspect of a future warmer climate. Thank you.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Dr. Meehl.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Meehl follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF GERALD A. MEEHL
Introduction
I thank the Chairman and other Members of the Committee for the opportunity
to communicate to you today information regarding processes involved with climate
change, climate models, and extreme weather and climate events. My name is Ger-
ald Meehl, Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. My research interests include tropical climate involv-
ing the monsoons and El Nino Southern Oscillation, climate variability and climate
change. I have authored or co-authored more than 185 peer-reviewed scientific jour-
nal articles and book chapters. I was a lead author on the U.S. Climate Change
Science Program (CCSP) Report 1.1 on temperature trends in the atmosphere, and
was co-coordinator of the CCSP Report 3.3 on weather and climate extremes in a
changing climate. I have been involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
mate Change (IPCC) assessments since the first one that was published in 1990.
I was a Contributing Author on that first assessment and its update in 1992, a Lead
Author for the 1995 Assessment, a Coordinating Lead Author for the 2001 and the
2007 assessments, and I am currently a lead author for the recently initiated IPCC
Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) due to be completed in 2013. I am chair of the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Climate Research Committee
(CRC). I have been involved with committees of the World Climate Research Pro-
gram (WCRP) on Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR), and am currently
co-chair of the WCRP/CLIVAR Working Group on Coupled Models (WGCM). This
committee organized and coordinated the international modeling groups in per-
forming climate model experiments for assessment in the AR4, and in the collection
and analysis of data from those model experiments that was made openly available
to the international climate research community. Our committee is currently in-
volved in performing similar coordination activities for climate change experiments
now being run by about 20 international climate modeling groups to increase our
understanding of climate model performance and to provide insight into the climate
system response to future climate change mitigation scenarios. As before, these ex-
54
periments will be made openly available for analysis by the international climate
science community, and will also be assessed as part of the IPCC AR5.
The greenhouse effect and how increasing greenhouse gases warm the cli-
mate
Since roughly the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the second part of the
19th century, human societies have come to rely on fossil fuels for an energy source.
These fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—produce greenhouse gases when they
are burned. Thus, as humans have excavated fossil fuels from beneath the surface
of the earth where they have been sequestered for millions of years, those fuels have
been burned for energy and have released forms of carbon into the air—greenhouse
gases such as CO2 and methane. These greenhouse gases in trace amounts occur
naturally in the atmosphere and effectively trap some heat in the climate system
that would otherwise escape to space. This occurs because molecules with more than
two atoms (e.g. CO2, CH4, H2O) have the well-known property of being able to ab-
sorb and re-emit infrared or heat energy.
Most molecules are transparent to incoming sunlight, and almost all sunlight that
is not reflected by clouds reaches the earth’s surface. That sunlight heats the sur-
face. and heat (infrared radiation) is emitted upwards. If greenhouse gases were not
in the atmosphere, most of this heat energy would make it out of the system to
space, leaving the earth a much colder and inhospitable place. However, greenhouse
gases intercept some of this heat or infrared energy, absorb it, and re-radiate some
of it upwards where it continues on out to space, and some of it is re-radiated down-
wards, thus staying in the system to warm the planet. Thus, this heat-trapping ef-
fect of greenhouse gases makes the planet habitable for human, plant and animal
life.
Greenhouse gases have been present in our atmosphere for millennia. It has been
shown, from air bubbles trapped in ice sheets, that greenhouse gases such as CO2
have fluctuated naturally over at least the past 800,000 years with the ice ages. Of
course humans were not present to cause these fluctuations, but, due to well-under-
stood orbital variations that change the intensity of solar input, the planet cools and
warms naturally over thousands of years producing the ice ages and inter-glacial
periods. We also know that warmer oceans tend to emit more CO2 to the atmos-
phere, while cooler oceans absorb CO2. Thus, as the orbital variations produce dif-
ferences in the intensity of solar input to the climate system that contribute to the
ice ages, the oceans warm and cool as the ice ages come and go naturally, and there
is an amplifying effect from CO2 to enhance the warmth between ice ages (i.e. the
warmer oceans emit more CO2 that warms the climate more), while the opposite
occurs during ice ages to contribute to even colder conditions.
The concept that CO2 and other greenhouse gases, released when fossil fuels are
burned, would cause a warming of the climate is not a new idea. In 1895 Svante
Arrhenius postulated that increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the air would
warm the climate such that a doubling of CO2 would warm the planet on average
by about 5 to 6C (he later revised this number downward to 1.6C). These numbers,
calculated very simply from early radiative theory, are not that far off from modem
estimates of 2C to 4.5C derived from global climate models and inferred from obser-
vational data. In the late 1930s Guy Callendar suggested that the burning of fossil
fuels should increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and that these increases
should warm the climate. It wasn’t until the late-1950s, when Charles Keeling start-
ed to directly measure the time evolution of CO2 in the atmosphere to show that
there was, indeed, an increasing trend, that the earlier theoretical estimates of CO2
increase from the burning of fossil fuels had a basis in a definitive time series meas-
urement.
The concept that equations from fluid dynamics, physics and thermodynamics
could be used to simulate weather was addressed early in the 20th century when
L.F. Richardson attempted to use a set of those equations to calculate, by hand, a
simple weather forecast for a single location. However, due to the complexity of the
equations and considerable numerical calculations required, it was not until elec-
tronic computers came into use in the 1950s that the equations could be solved to
produce simulations of the weather in a rapid enough manner to be used for actual
weather forecasts. This new science of numerical weather prediction became feasible
for operational forecasts in the 1960s. and is still in use today to produce weather
forecasts.
Using the same principles, and even many of the same equations, early climate
models were devised that could be integrated forward in time, much like numerical
weather forecasts, but for much longer into the future. It was well-known that after
about a week, due to the chaotic nature of the atmosphere, the time evolution of
individual storms cannot be resolved by climate models. Instead, the climate simula-
55
tions attempted to capture the statistics of weather over months, seasons, years and
decades. Since climate models looked at weather and climate in this new way, other
factors that could change slowly and thus affect the statistics of weather had to be
included. Therefore, equations that took into account the effects of greenhouse gases
were refined. The varying output of the sun could also be included, as well as the
effects of volcanic eruptions in equations that accounted for how visible air pollution
could cause cooling of the climate. Perhaps most importantly for longer term vari-
ations of the statistics of weather and climate, the slowly varying parts of the cli-
mate system had to be included, namely the oceans and sea ice, as well as land sur-
face processes. Unlike weather prediction where there was only an atmospheric nu-
merical model, climate models had an atmosphere (similar to a numerical weather
prediction model), as well as components of ocean, land surface, sea ice, and sophis-
ticated equations that accounted for the heating of greenhouse gases or the cooling
of visible air pollution. All of these components were linked together in one large
computer program that had be run on the fastest supercomputers available so that
as much detail in the equations could be included as possible, balanced by the need
to run the models for tens and even hundreds of years (as opposed to only about
a week for numerical weather prediction models). Thus, most of the physics, proc-
esses, and feedbacks known to be operating in the climate system were included in
even the earliest global climate models that began to be used in the 1960s.
The warming produced by increases of greenhouse gases, along with the first
order feedbacks, were shown to occur in these very early climate models. This led
to the ‘‘Charney Report’’ published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1979,
over 20 years ago. That report noted that the measured increases in CO2 in the at-
mosphere, when included in the basic climate models of that time, produced signifi-
cant warming on average over the planet, and that, with further increases in CO2,
the climate would continue to warm. Interestingly, this report was published after
over 30 years of the observed climate not warming (there was warming until the
1940s, and then little warming until the late 1970s). Thus, based on the physics of
climate already known in the 19th century, and the basic understanding of that
time of the processes that could be captured in equations and included in climate
models to study the statistics of climate, future warming was predicted as a result
of ongoing increases of greenhouse gases, even though the observed climate had not
been warming for decades. Since the time the Charney Report was published in the
late 1970s, there has been an overall average warming trend. It was not until over
20 years later, at the beginning of the 21st century, that a generation of improved
climate models, along with better observed datasets, was able to show how the com-
binations of natural and human factors that influence climate produced the time
evolution of observed temperature change over the 20th century.
Results from those studies showed that the warming in the early part of the 20th
century was mainly due to natural causes; a hiatus of warming from the 1940s to
the 1970s was mostly due to a balance between the warming that would have oc-
curred due to the increases of greenhouse gases, and the cooling from the visible
air pollution in part produced by the burning of fossil fuels; and finally in the 1970s
after air quality was improved, thereby reducing cooling from visible air pollution,
the ongoing increases of greenhouse gases produced a multi-decadal warming trend
over the past 35 years or so. This warming trend is not uniform in time (i.e. each
year is not warmer than the year before) due to internally generated natural varia-
bility of the climate system. Depending on the start and end points used to calculate
ten year trends, there are some decades when the warming trend is nearly flat
(e.g.1986–1995; 1998–2007) and times when the warming trend for a given decade
is greater than the longer term trend (e.g. 1975–1984; 1988–1997)
Measurements from the ice cores of air bubbles trapped over the last 800,000
years indicate the CO2 amount in the atmosphere only ever got about as high as
280 ppm. In just the last 100 years, that CO2 amount has increased to an unprece-
dented (over the last 800,000 years) amount of about 380 ppm currently. Since we
know CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere, the increase in CO2 alone would warm
the climate somewhat. But, just as CO2 acts as an amplifier to past ice ages and
inter-glacials, it also produces other amplifying effects in the atmosphere called
‘‘feedbacks’’. The main ones are water vapor feedback and ice albedo feedback.
As the oceans warm from the effects of increasing human-produced greenhouse
gases, more moisture evaporates and goes into the atmosphere as water vapor.
Water vapor itself is a greenhouse gas, and also contributes to trapping heat in the
atmosphere, thus amplifying the effects from increasing CO2 and other greenhouse
gases. Ice-albedo feedback involves ice that covers high latitude oceans (‘‘sea ice’’)
as well as snow cover over land. As the climate warms, there is less snow and sea
ice during winter. Because snow and sea ice are highly reflective (‘‘high albedo’’),
when there are decreases in snow and sea ice there are more areas with lower re-
56
flectivity. The land and ocean surfaces with lower reflectivity absorb more energy
from sunlight in the non-winter months. That increase in surface heat content then
inhibits snow and ice from forming in the following winter, thus leaving even more
open ocean and snow-free land to absorb even more heat the next summer, and so
on.
Another feedback that is less certain is cloud feedback. That is, if clouds increase
in a warming climate, there would be more sunlight reflected and that would be a
check on warming (a ‘‘negative feedback’’). However if clouds decrease in a warming
climate, the cloud feedback would be positive and would contribute to even more
warming. To first understand how cloud feedback works, and then incorporate those
processes in climate models, there have to be high quality observations of the three
dimensional structure of clouds. However, this three dimensional structure has tra-
ditionally been very difficult to observe, though a new generation of recent satellites
is, for the first time, providing observations of just that three dimensional structure.
It is hoped that these new data, coupled with improved representations of clouds
in climate models, will be better able to pin down the sign and magnitude of cloud
feedback. However, even in models that have a negative cloud feedback, the cli-
mates of those models still warm significantly over the 20th and 21st centuries due
to contributions to warming from increasing greenhouse gases and the other
feedbacks, such as those involved with water vapor, snow and sea ice. Those have
been observed to operate on various timescales that can be measured, such as the
seasonal cycle, and then validated in climate models.
Many climate change impacts will be experienced through changes in

weather and climate extremes
Droughts, floods, hurricanes, record heat and cold extremes affect human soci-
eties, economies and ecosystems in significant ways, from effects on human health
and mortality, to disruptions of agriculture and economic activity, to impacts on out-
door activities and tourism. Though there are many types and categories of ex-
tremes, I will focus here on changes in daily temperature and precipitation ex-
tremes.
Weather and climate extremes are a naturally occurring part of our climate sys-
tem, and thus have always had a disruptive effect on humans and the natural sys-
tem. As such there has been a certain degree of adaptation to such extreme events.
These adjustments range from such mundane things as air conditioning, to insur-
ance programs that cover losses from extreme events. However, if the naturally oc-
curring aspects of weather and climate extremes change significantly, so will the im-
pacts, and thus weather and climate extremes in a changing climate become of in-
terest for a variety of applications.
A small change in average climate produces a disproportionately large

change in extremes
Since the end of the 19th century, globally averaged temperatures have warmed
about 0.8C or about 1.4F. Projections for the end of the 21st century made with cli-
mate models using a variety of scenarios of future climate change show temperature
increases that range from a couple of degrees Centigrade (about 3.5F) for a low
emissions scenario to over 8C (about 14F) for a high emission scenario by the end
of this century. However, these are seemingly small increases when the day-night
temperature differences at certain locations are often tens of degrees. Many wonder
why we should worry about such seemingly small increases in temperature.
Of course these small changes in globally averaged temperature do not reflect the
geographic pattern of change where some regions so far have seen very little warm-
ing (e.g. the southeastern part of the U.S.) to other areas that have already experi-
enced substantial warming of nearly 10C in some high latitude areas of the Arctic.
And these average changes are reflected by a host of impacts that happen over the
long term that have already affected human societies.
However, even such small changes in average temperature produce disproportion-
ately large changes in extremes. A good example is temperature. A weather station
with a record long enough to capture most of the eventualities of weather at that
location usually has a probability of a certain temperature occurring at that location
in the form of the familiar ‘‘bell-shaped curve’’. There is the highest probability of
a temperature occurring that is near the long term average (near the center of the
curve), with a much smaller probability of an extremely hot or cold temperature oc-
curring (out near the right and left ‘‘tails’’ of the curve, respectively). Thus, if there
is even a small warming in the average temperature, all else being equal, the curve
shifts to the right a bit. But this small shift is reflected in a much higher probability
of an extremely hot temperature occurring, and a much lower probability of an ex-
57
tremely cold temperature happening. Therefore, seemingly small warming can
produce very large and more noticeable changes in extremes.
The physical processes involved in changes in daily temperature and pre-

cipitation extremes are relatively straightforward to understand
in the observed system, and can be captured by climate models
There are a couple of relatively simple physical principles that govern daily ex-
tremes of temperature and precipitation. For temperature, as noted above, a small
average warming produces a disproportionately large increase in hot extremes and
a greater decrease in cold extremes. It stands to reason that in a warmer climate,
there will be more very hot days, and fewer very cold days. For precipitation, there
is a temperature-related connection in that warmer air can hold more moisture.
Thus, as the climate warms, more moisture evaporates from the warming oceans,
the warmer atmosphere can hold that increased moisture, and when that more
moist air gets caught up in a storm, there is a greater moisture source for precipita-
tion. Therefore, we typically see a greater intensity of precipitation in a warmer cli-
mate (i.e. greater daily rainfall totals, or ‘‘when it rains it pours’’).
Have we already seen a change in daily temperature and precipitation ex-

tremes over the U.S.?
Since there are thousands of weather stations over the U.S. (and internationally)
that routinely collect daily temperature and rainfall data, there have been a number
of studies that have catalogued an increase in extreme heat over the past 50 years,
a decrease in extreme cold, and an increase in precipitation intensity. During this
time period, average temperatures have warmed, and, from the physical principles
noted above, we would expect to see just these kinds of changes in extremes in a
warming climate. Such changes have been documented not only in numerous publi-
cations in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, but also summarized in various as-
sessments of that literature (e.g. the IPCC AR4, CCSP3.3, and the recent National
Academy of Sciences America’s Climate Choices Science Panel Report).
For example, there has been a documented observed trend of decreases of ‘‘frost
days’’ (i.e. when the nighttime temperatures go below freezing), with greater de-
creases of frost days in the western U.S. compared to the eastern U.S., also reflect-
ing average warming patterns over the second half of the 20th century when there
has been a good coverage of stations reporting daily temperature data. The reduc-
tion of extreme cold has had numerous impacts, one being an increase of pine bark
beetles in the western U.S. Extreme cold is needed to kill the dormant insects dur-
ing the winter. Due to the average warming, there has been less extreme cold, and
more live to become active in summer, and they kill even more pine trees. Increases
in extreme warm days have also been documented in observations over the U.S.
The shift to warmer temperatures has also produced an increase in daily record
high temperatures compared to daily record low temperatures over the U.S., with
this ratio currently being about two to one. For example, Since January 1, 2000,
there have been 311,734 record daily high maximum temperatures set, and only
152,329 daily record low minimum temperatures, a ratio of about two to one. Since
January 1, 2010, this year, there have been 17,148 daily record highs, and 6,315
daily record lows, more than a ratio of two to one. Thus, as the average temperature
has warmed, the probabilities have shifted towards more unprecedented heat, and
less unprecedented cold.
For precipitation, the intensity of daily precipitation has also been observed to in-
crease since the second half of the 20th century, again when we have a good geo-
graphic coverage of daily temperature data.
Climate models are able to reproduce these observed changes of temperature and
precipitation extremes, and thus build credibility that we can believe what they tell
us about the future. Projections of future climate change in the models with sce-
narios of future greenhouse gas emissions show ever-increasing heat extremes and
reductions in cold extremes, ongoing increases of precipitation intensity, and a grow-
ing ratio of record-setting heat compared to record-setting cold, with, in one model
for one scenario, the current ratio of about two to one increasing to twenty to one
by mid-century, and about fifty to one by late century. However, even in the late
21st century when warming averaged over the U.S. is about 4C (or roughly 7F) in
the model, there are still record-setting daily low temperatures occurring. Thus,
even in a climate that has warmed significantly in the model, winter still occurs,
and it does occasionally get extremely cold in some locations, cold enough to set a
few daily record low temperatures every year. However, those few record daily lows
occur in the context of many more daily record high maximum temperatures that
would occur every year.
58
Summary
The concept that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere make the planet warm
enough to be habitable, and that increasing those greenhouse gases by the burning
of fossil fuels could make the planet even warmer, is not a new idea and has been
studied for over a century. Early attempts at numerical weather prediction, solving
the relevant equations that describe the physics and thermodynamics of the atmos-
phere by hand for a single location in the early 1900s, presaged modem numerical
weather predictions performed routinely by atmospheric models run on supercom-
puters. Those atmospheric models attempt to resolve the time evolution of indi-
vidual storm systems over the next few days. Subsequently developed global climate
models include atmospheric components similar to those used in numerical weather
prediction, but add components of the slowly varying parts of the climate system
(ocean, sea ice, and land surface processes). The dynamical coupling of those compo-
nents in the models, as in the real world, is relevant to the statistics of weather
over climate timescales of months to years to decades to centuries. Climate models
also have equations that capture the effects of greenhouse gases and relevant
feedbacks in the climate system that can influence climate. These climate models
can reproduce, to first order, the observed changes in temperature and precipitation
extremes observed over the past 50 years or so. These have included more heat ex-
tremes, fewer cold extremes, greater increases in daily record high temperatures
compared to daily record low temperatures, and increased precipitation intensity.
This lends credibility to the climate models such that there is likely to be useful
information in their climate projections about future changes of extremes. With con-
tinued increases of greenhouse gases and consequent warming, these model projec-
tions depict a world with ongoing increases in heat extremes and record heat, reduc-
tions in cold extremes and record cold, and greater precipitation intensity.
BIOGRAPHY FOR GERALD A. MEEHL

Gerald A. Meehl is a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Re-
search. His research interests include studying the interactions between El Niño/
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the monsoons of Asia; identifying possible effects
on global climate of changing anthropogenic forcings, such as carbon dioxide, as well
as natural forcings, such as solar variability; and quantifying possible future
changes of weather and climate extremes in a warmer climate. He was contributing
author (1990), lead author (1995), and coordinating lead author (2001, 2007) for the
first four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change as-
sessment reports, and is currently a lead author on the near-term climate change
chapter for the IPCC AR5. He received his Ph.D. in climate dynamics from the Uni-
versity of Colorado, and was a recipient of the Jule G. Charney Award of the Amer-
ican Meteorological Society in 2009. Dr. Meehl is an Associate Editor for the Journal
of Climate, a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and a Visiting Senior
Fellow at the University of Hawaii Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Re-
search. He serves as chair of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research
Council Climate Research Committee, and co-chair of the Community Climate Sys-
tem Model Climate Change Working Group. Additionally, he is co-chair of the World
Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Working Group on Coupled Models (WGCM),
the group that coordinates international global climate model experiments address-
ing anthropogenic climate change.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Cullen.
STATEMENT OF HEIDI M. CULLEN, CEO AND DIRECTOR OF
COMMUNICATIONS, CLIMATE CENTRAL
Dr. CULLEN. Thank you, Chairman Baird and Members of the
Subcommittee, for this opportunity to have a rational discussion on
the science of climate change. I have got a PowerPoint, which we
are going to bring up. And it will reinforce several of the points
that have already been made on the panel this morning. And I will
say that my background is a little bit different than some of my
panel members in the sense that I spent several years at The
Weather Channel as their on-camera climate expert, and it was a
great experience. And it was really interesting to me because when
I got there, most people just assumed I was a meteorologist. So I
59
got a lot of questions about what the five-day forecast would be.
And while I love the five-day forecast, it was a really important op-
portunity to just help people understand the difference between cli-
mate and weather, the difference between climatologists and mete-
orologists, and the difference between weather forecasts and cli-
mate forecasts.
You see the great quote by Mark Twain up there.
[The information follows:]
He basically said it all, which is, ‘‘Climate is what we expect,

weather is what we get.’’ And I will say basically it is a lot easier
to see the weather. It is a lot easier to see what we get. Climate
is a statistical construct and it is tough to see it. So our job today
is to help you see it and to help you understand why the forecasts
that we make for the end of this century are something that we
can trust.
To start out with, Mother Nature’s strongest fingerprint on our
climate system is the seasonal cycle. So here is a climate forecast
for you. Here in DC. It is going to be colder in January, but then
it is going to warm up in July. The climate forecast. My grand-
mother could give it to you. It doesn’t take a genius. But it shows
you that we have an understanding of our climate system that al-
lows us to look further into the future.
The other thing that I really hope that our discussion this morn-
ing can help you understand is why our long-term forecast for the
future is something that so many of us on this panel are deeply
concerned about. I made it here by training.
60
I worked on Wall Street for a little while and then decided I was
really fascinated by climate. It is a lot like Wall Street. In many
respects it looks kind of like stock market, ups and downs on var-
ious time scales. And I will say that the tremendous variability of
the climate system is fascinating to me. And this gets to ice core
records that you see.
Focus on the last 10,000 years. The top part, which is pretty flat,
that is the last 10,000 years of our climate. And what is really fas-
cinating is it is relatively stable. So what drew me into climate
science was this question of, to what extent does climate stability
link with human civilization? These complex human civilizations
started at about 10,000 years ago, right about the same time where
our climate began to become more stable.
So if any of you have read the book ‘‘Collapse’’ by Jared Dia-
mond, you will note that civilizations have failed over time due to
the inability to look out on long enough time scales and to be
adaptive to our environment.
Now, my next slide is more or less to just highlight the fact that,
gosh, we have been studying this problem for an incredibly long
time.
61
The gentleman in the oil painting is Svante Arrhenius. He got

the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1903 for doing the back-of-the-enve-
lope calculation that Dr. Meehl spoke about, which is that if we
doubled CO2 in our atmosphere, our planet would warm roughly
eight degrees Farenheit. Where Arrhenius made his mistake was
that he was around at the turn of the century in the 1800s, and
he basically assumed that we would continue to emit fossil fuels at
the 1895 rate, so it would take 3,000 years to double. And he was
wrong there.
But that is where Bert Bolin came in. Bert Bolin actually calls
for the creation of the IPCC. And he did his own back-of-the-enve-
lope calculation which suggested that CO2 would increase by about
30 percent by the year 2000. That turned out to be very true.
62
Charles David Keeling, another giant in the field of climate

science, basically figured out how to measure this invisible green-
house gas we call carbon dioxide. We wouldn’t need to have this
panel if we could see carbon dioxide, because it is everywhere. By
burning fossil fuels and through deforestation we emit it. But he
figured out a way to create and build a machine that was like an
atmospheric Breathalyzer that could measure CO2 in the atmos-
phere. And he showed, just as Bert Bolin calculated, that we have
increased our CO2 in the atmosphere by about 36 percent now. We
are at 390 parts per million. I know that that does not sound like
a lot. But because of the special chemical structure of carbon diox-
ide, unlike nitrogen and oxygen, which there is so much more of
in our atmosphere—they have just two atoms—CO2 has three. And
that allows it to absorb tremendous amounts of long-wave radiation
and be a great absorber of heat. And that is why our planet is es-
sentially warming up.
The other thing that Keeling was able to do was to chemically
fingerprint the CO2 so that we knew that it was coming from us.
Carbon comes in three different flavors. You call them isotopes.
63
Fossil fuels, when they give off CO2 from burning, they have es-
sentially no C14 because they are ancient. So what Keeling was
able to do is just say that roughly one out of every four carbon di-
oxide molecules in our atmosphere today was put there by us. It
is our human fingerprint on the climate system.
As Jerry said, we are increasing the overall temperature of our
climate about 1.4 degrees Farenheit over the past century. How
does that make its way into our weather? My experience at The
Weather Channel made it very clear that we can see our weather,
we experience our weather, we know what that means. But how is
climate change impacting our weather?
Essentially, Mark Twain’s quote can now be rewritten, which is

to say that climate is what we expect and weather is what it gets
us. So we can expect to see more extreme events. And if you talk
to, you know, Warren Buffet or anyone who deals with insurance,
64
they will tell you that if we don’t take climate change into account,
we are making very, very costly mistakes.
We insure very, very high amounts of weather-related disasters
each year. This is a picture from the national flood of 2010. It was
considered a 1 in 1,000 year event. That probability is expected to
increase more so with each passing year if we continue to emit
greenhouse gases. Business as usual.
And just to summarize. I am a scientist by training and I have
to say my time at The Weather Channel really—it just awed me
the way our country could rally around a weather forecast. Wheth-
er it was sand-bagging in advance of the Red River floods or evacu-
ating in advance of Hurricane Gustav, we know what to do with
the weather forecast. I mean, it is really impressive. And the thing
is how do we figure out how to respond similarly to a climate fore-
cast. Weather forecast is all defense. I mean, we get the informa-
tion, we have got to figure out what to do. With the climate fore-
cast, the one difference is that we have the opportunity to change
it because it is just one potential future. So essentially when we
think about the future, we are talking about an increase of 10 de-
grees Farenheit by the end of the century, three feet of sea level
rise, a radically different climate.
And the question is, if climate change is this ultimate procrasti-
nation problem, we are in a race essentially to understand our cli-
mate forecasts and just get to the point where we can act on them.
And I would just say that as a scientist, if we don’t do that, that
would just simply be irrational.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Dr. Cullen.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Cullen follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HEIDI M. CULLEN
Chairman Baird and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this oppor-
tunity to engage in a rational discussion of the science of climate change. My testi-
mony will focus on the basic science and physics of climate change, the causes and
production of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and the expected impacts on the cli-
mate.
Introduction
I am a climate scientist by training, but I have spent the last several years as
a climate science educator—producing reports for outlets like PBS NewsHour and
The Weather Channel. When I first started at The Weather Channel in 2003 people
assumed that if I worked at a 24/7 weather network, I must be a meteorologist. The
question I was asked most often was ‘‘What’s the forecast?’’ I was always happy to
provide the local weather forecast. But these experiences made me realize that
many people do not truly understand the difference between climate and weather,
between climatologists and meteorologists. Here’s a rough answer: climatologists
pick up where meteorologists leave off. We focus on timescales beyond the memory
of the atmosphere, which is only about one week. Climatologists look at patterns
that range from months to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years. The
single most important and obvious example of climate is the seasonal cycle, other-
wise known as the four seasons. Summer, the result of the Earth being tilted closer
to the sun, is warmer. And winter, the result of the Earth being tilted away from
the sun, is colder. The forecast follows the physics. Which is why, if in January, I
issued a forecast that said it would be significantly warmer in six months, you
might not think I was a genius, but you’d believe it.
There are countless others patterns on our planet that influence the weather.
Take El Niño, for example. El Niño can bring drought to northern Australia, Indo-
nesia, the Philippines, southeastern Africa and northern Brazil. Heavier rainfall is
often seen along coastal Ecuador, northwestern Peru, southern Brazil, central Ar-
gentina, and equatorial eastern Africa. There are many ways in which climate can
work itself into the weather.
65
Meteorologists focus on the atmosphere, whereas climatologists focus on every-
thing that influences the atmosphere. The atmosphere may be where the weather
lives, but it speaks to the ocean, the land, and sea ice on a regular basis. The hope
is that if scientists can untangle all the messy relationships at work within our cli-
mate system, we should be better able to keep people out of harm’s way. The further
we can extend our forecasts, the longer out in time a society can see, the better pre-
pared we’ll be for what’s in the pipeline.
And this is where global warming enters the equation. If the four seasons are
Mother Nature’s most powerful signature within the climate system, then global
warming, the term that refers to Earth’s increasing temperature due to a build-up
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is humanity’s most powerful signature.
The Basic Science and Physics of Climate Change

We tend to think of man-made global warming as a purely modern concept, some-
thing that has come into vogue in the last 20 or so years, but in reality this idea
is more than 100 years old. The notion that the global climate could be affected by
human activities was first put forth by Svante Arrhenius in 1895, who based his
proposal on his prediction that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil
fuels (i.e., coal, petroleum, and natural gas) and other combustion processes would
alter atmospheric composition in ways that would lead to global warming. Arrhenius
calculated the temperature increase to be expected from a doubling of CO2 in the
atmosphere—a rise of about 8°F.
More than a century later, the estimates from state-of-the-art climate models
doing the same calculations to determine the increase in temperature due to a dou-
bling of the CO2 concentration show that the calculation by Arrhenius was in the
right ballpark. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) synthesized the results from 18 different climate models
used by groups around the world to estimate the climate sensitivity and its uncer-
tainty. They estimated that a CO2 doubling would lead to an increase in global aver-
age temperature of about 5.4°F with an uncertainty spanning the range from about
3.6°F to 8.1°F. It’s pretty amazing that Arrhenius, doing his calculations by hand
and with very little data, came so close to the much more detailed calculations that
can be done today.
In the following section, I aim to provide a brief history of climate change that
will explain the basic physics and chemistry of global warming and important cli-
mate discoveries that serve as the groundwork of our current scientific under-
standing of this life-threatening issue.
- The discovery of the greenhouse effect

The French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier in 1824 helped discover
the greenhouse effect. Specifically, Fourier was looking to use the principles of phys-
ics to understand what sets the average temperature of Earth. Fourier was inter-
ested in understanding some basic principles about the flow of heat around the
planet. It made perfect sense that the sun’s rays warmed the surface of the Earth,
but this left a nagging question: when light from the sun reaches the surface of the
Earth and heats it up, why doesn’t the Earth keep warming up until it’s as hot as
the sun? Why is the Earth’s temperature set at roughly 59°F—the average tempera-
ture at the Earth’s surface?
Fourier reasoned that there must be some type of balance between what the sun
sends in and what the Earth sends back out, so he coined the term planetary energy
balance, which is simply a fancy way of saying that there is a balance between en-
ergy coming in from the sun and going back out to outer space. If the Earth contin-
ually receives heat from the sun yet always hovers around an average temperature
of 59°F, then the Earth must be sending an equal amount of heat back to space.
Fourier suggested that the Earth’s surface must emit invisible infrared radiation
that carries the extra heat back into space. Infrared radiation (IR), like sunlight,
is a form of light. But it’s a wavelength that our eyes can’t see.
It was a great idea, but when he actually tried to calculate the planet’s tempera-
ture using this effect, he got a temperature well below freezing. So, he knew he
must be missing something. To arrive at 59°F, the Earth’s average temperature,
Fourier realized that he needed the atmosphere to pick up the slack. And in the
process, he discovered a phenomenon he called the greenhouse effect. The green-
house effect is a process whereby the gases in the Earth’s atmosphere trap certain
wavelengths of sunlight, not allowing them to escape back out to space. Like the
glass in a greenhouse, these greenhouse gases let sunlight through on their way in
from space, but intercept infrared light on their way back out.
66
In 1849, an Irish scientist named John Tyndall was able to build on this idea
after he became obsessed with the glaciers he was climbing while visiting the Alps
on vacation. Like so many other scientists at the time, Tyndall wanted to under-
stand how these massive sheets of ice formed and grew. He brought his personal
observations of glaciers into the laboratory with him in 1859, when at the age of
39, he began a series of groundbreaking experiments.
Tyndall was intrigued by the concept of a thermostat. We know them today as de-
vices that regulate the temperature of a room by heating or cooling it. So Tyndall
devised an experiment that tested whether the Earth’s atmosphere might act like
a thermostat, helping to control the planet’s temperature. Tyndall reasoned that it
might help explain how ice ages had blanketed parts of the Earth in the past.
For his experiment, Tyndall built a device, called a spectrophotometer, which he
used to measure the amount of radiated heat (like the heat radiated from a stove)
that gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, or ozone could absorb. His experiment
showed that different gases in the atmosphere had different abilities to absorb and
transmit heat. While some of the gases in the atmosphere—oxygen, nitrogen and hy-
drogen—were essentially transparent to both sunlight and IR, other gases were in
fact opaque, in that they actually absorbed the IR, as if they were bricks in an oven.
Those gases include CO2, but also methane, nitrous oxide and even water vapor.
These ‘‘greenhouse gases’’ are very good at absorbing infrared light. They spread
heat back to the land and the oceans. They let sunlight through on its way in from
space, but intercept infrared light on its way back out. Tyndall knew he was on to
something. The fact that certain gases in the atmosphere could absorb infrared radi-
ation had the makings of a very clever natural thermostat, just as he suspected. His
top three thermostat picks were water vapor, without which he said the Earth’s sur-
face would be ‘‘held fast in the iron grip of frost’’, methane, ozone, and of course,
carbon dioxide. Bingo, a natural thermostat right inside our atmosphere.
Tyndall’s experiments proved that Fourier’s greenhouse effect was indeed real.
His experiment proved that nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%), the two main gases
in the atmosphere, are not greenhouse gases because these molecules only have two
atoms, so they cannot absorb or radiate energy at infrared wavelengths. However,
water vapor, methane and carbon dioxide, which each have three or more atoms,
are excellent at trapping infrared radiation. They absorb 95% of the long-wave or
infrared radiation emitted from the surface. So, even though there are only trace
amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, a little goes a long way to making it really tough
for all the heat to escape back into space. In other words, greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere act as a secondary source of heat in addition to the sun. And it’s the
greenhouse gases that provide the additional warming that Fourier needed to ex-
plain that average temperature of 59°F.
Thanks to Tyndall it is now accepted that visible light from the sun passes
through the Earth’s atmosphere without being blocked by CO2. Only about 50% of
67
incoming solar energy reaches the Earth’s surface, with about 30% being reflected
by clouds and the Earth’s surface (especially in icy regions), and about 15% ab-
sorbed by water vapor. The sunlight that makes it to the Earth’s surface is absorbed
and re-emitted at a longer wavelength known as infrared radiation that we cannot
see, like heat from an oven. Carbon dioxide (and other heat-trapping gases such as
methane and water vapor) absorbs the infrared radiation and warms the air, which
also warms the land and water below it. More carbon dioxide translates to more
warming. And this is where the concept of a natural thermostat becomes very pow-
erful—mess with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and you’re resetting the
thermostat of the planet.
- The discovery of global warming

Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927), a Swedish physicist and chemist, began his re-
search on global warming by trying to understand the cause of ice ages. He took
Tyndall’s thermostat mechanism and explored whether the amount of CO2 in the
atmosphere could raise or lower the Earth’s temperature.
We refer to events or processes that result in changes to the climate as forcings.
A volcano eruption is an example of a natural forcing. A forcing can often result
in an amplification (positive) or a reduction (negative) in the amount of change and
often comes hand in hand with something known as a feedback—a situation where
some effect causes more of itself. A negative feedback tends to reduce or stabilize
a process, while a positive feedback tends to grow or magnify it.
Arrhenius believed some type of positive feedback mechanism was responsible for
plunging the planet into an ice age. For example, a drop in carbon dioxide would
lead to a drop in temperature creating more snow and ice. When snow and ice cover
a region, such as the Arctic or Antarctica, their white, light-reflecting surface tends
to bounce sunlight back out to space, helping to further reduce temperature. If snow
and ice covered regions expanded over more of North America and Europe, the cli-
mate would further cool while also leading to growing ice sheets.
Arrhenius thought his theory was pretty solid, but he wanted to prove it mathe-
matically. So he set about doing a series of grueling calculations that attempted to
estimate the temperature response of changing levels of carbon dioxide in the at-
mosphere. It was a classic ‘back of the envelope’ calculation, but he was confident
enough that he published the work in 1896 for his colleagues to read. The end result
of all that work was one simple number: 8°F. That number represented roughly how
much Arrhenius thought the Earth’s average temperature would drop if the amount
of CO2 in the atmosphere fell by half.
But back in the time of Arrhenius, global warming impacts were mainly left to
future investigation—at the time, the majority of scientists still needed to be con-
vinced that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere could vary, even over very
long timescales, and that this could affect the climate. Scientists at the time were
focused more on trying to understand the gradual shifts that took place over periods
a thousand times longer than Arrhenius’ estimate, those that accounted for alter-
nating ice ages and warm periods, and in distant times (more than 65 million years
ago), the presence of dinosaurs. They couldn’t even begin to wrap their minds
around climate change on a human time scale, like decades or centuries. Nobody
thought there was any reason to worry about Arrhenius’s hypothetical future warm-
ing that he suggested would be caused by humans and their fossil fuel burning. It
was an idea that most experts at the time universally dismissed. Simply put, most
scientists of the era believed that humanity was too small and insignificant to influ-
ence the climate.
- the chemical fingerprint of human activity

Fast-forward to the mid-1950’s and enter Charles David Keeling, a brilliant and
passionate scientist who was just beginning his research career at Cal Tech. Keeling
had become obsessed with carbon dioxide and wanted to understand what processes
affected fluctuations in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Answering a question
like that literally required an instrument that didn’t exist, the equivalent of an
ultra-accurate ‘atmospheric breathalyzer’. So Keeling built his own instrument and
then spent months tinkering with it until it was as close to perfect as he could get
at measuring the concentration in canisters with a range of values of known con-
centration. Keeling tried his instrument out by measuring CO2 concentrations in
various locations around California and then comparing these samples in the lab
against calibration gases. He began to notice that the samples he took in very pris-
tine locations (i.e., spots where air came in off the Pacific Ocean) all yielded the
same number. He suspected that he had identified the baseline concentration of CO2
in the atmosphere; a clear signal that wasn’t being contaminated by emissions from
68
factories or farms or uptake by forests and crops. With this instrument, formally
called a gas chromatograph, Keeling headed to the Scripps Institution of Oceanog-
raphy to begin what is perhaps the single most important scientific contribution to
the discovery of global warming. Keeling was on a mission to find out, once and for
all, if CO2 levels in the atmosphere were increasing. He would spend the next 50
years carefully tracking CO2 and building, data point by data point, the finest in-
strumental record of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, generating a time
history that is now known to scientists simply as the Keeling Curve.
The Keeling Curve refers to a monthly record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
that begins in 1958 and continues to today. The instrument Keeling built, the gas
chromatograph, works by passing infrared light through a sample of air and meas-
uring the amount of infrared light absorbed by the air. Because carbon dioxide is
a greenhouse gas, Keeling knew that the more infrared light absorbed by the air,
the higher the concentration of CO2 in the air. Because CO2 is found in very small
concentrations, the gas chromatograph doesn’t measure in terms of per cent, which
means out of a hundred, but in terms of parts per million (ppm). What he found
was both disturbing and fascinating. Keeling, using his Mauna Loa measurements,
could see that with each passing year CO2 levels were steadily moving upward. In
2010, more than fifty years after Keeling began his observations, the concentration
at Mauna Loa is 390 ppm. Keeling’s measurements thus provided solid evidence
that the atmospheric CO2 concentration was increasing. If anything proved
Arrhenius was on to something, it was these data. Keeling’s record was the icing
on the cake and he rightly stands with Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius as one of
the giants of climate science. He helped prove the importance of the greenhouse ef-
fect and the reality of global warming. He provided the data upon which the
groundbreaking theories of Tyndall and Arrhenius firmly rest. As is the case in re-
search science, Keeling’s painstaking measurements have been verified and supple-
mented by many others. Measurements at about 100 other sites have confirmed the
long-term trend shown by the Keeling Curve.
Keeling established that carbon dioxide was rising in the atmosphere. The next
step was to find the smoking gun, and see what or who was causing the increase.
In order to put Arrhenius’s theory to rest once and for all, scientists were looking
to identify the source of all that additional carbon dioxide. And they came up with
some very clever ways to identify this smoking gun.
Just as we come into this world with our own unique set of fingerprints, so too
does carbon. Carbon enters the atmosphere from a lot of different places, places that
stamp each molecule of carbon dioxide and send it off into the atmosphere with a
unique fingerprint. Volcanoes emit CO2 into the atmosphere when they erupt, the
soil and oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere, and plants and trees give off car-
bon dioxide when they are cut or burned. Burning coal, oil and natural gas are all
sources that release carbon into the atmosphere to forms carbon dioxide. The aver-
69
age person, in fact, breathes out about two pounds of carbon dioxide every day.
When you have the right tools, distinguishing where an individual molecule of CO2
comes from is not that hard. As with many other important advances in the fields
of climate and weather, this fingerprint device was an outgrowth of military activ-
ity.
Carbon, like virtually all of the chemical elements, come in different varieties
known as isotopes, distinguished by the number of neutrons in their atomic cores.
Carbon dioxide can be made from all of the isotopes of carbon—but not all sources
of CO2 have the same types of carbon atoms in them. In addition to carbon–14,
there is carbon–12, which is the most common form of carbon, as well as carbon–
13, which makes up only about 1 in every 100 carbon atoms. Carbon–14, the radio-
active one, is even more rare, with only one carbon–14 isotope for every trillion car-
bon atoms in the atmosphere. Scientists can use these isotopes to fingerprint the
origin of the carbon. You can literally trace where the CO2 in the atmosphere origi-
nated by measuring the amount of different carbon isotopes. It’s like a tracing a bul-
let back to the gun from which it was shot.
All living organisms are built out of carbon atoms. Coal, oil and natural gas are
ancient. In fact, they are called ‘fossil fuels’ because coal, oil and natural gas come
from plants and marine organisms that lived roughly 200–300 million years ago.
Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, for example, have no carbon–14, and
neither does the CO2 that comes from burning them. A small fraction of the CO2
molecules that enter the atmosphere through natural means such as the decay of
plants, on the other hand, does contain carbon–14. Because they have extra neu-
trons, atoms of carbon–14 are more massive than atoms of carbon–12, and so are
the CO2 molecules they are made of. Instruments called mass spectrometers meas-
ure that difference. Based on how much of the heavier CO2 they measure in samples
of atmosphere, scientists calculate that about a quarter of the CO2 present today
must come from fossil fuels. From the perspective of a molecule of carbon dioxide,
that means roughly one out of every four CO2 molecules in the atmosphere today,
was put there by us. That conclusion is confirmed by the fact that this fraction
amounts to most of the growth in CO2 over the last 250 years, when fossil-fuel burn-
ing has really taken off. It is this increase in CO2 concentrations that is primarily
responsible for the increase in global average temperatures over the past century,
and especially in recent decades. So while it’s true that most of the carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere today comes from natural sources, most of the additional CO2
that’s been placed in the atmosphere over the last 250 years comes from us.
- the causes and production of anthropogenic greenhouse gases

From 1000 A.D. to about 1750 AD, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hov-
ered between 275 and 285 parts per million (ppm), and then began to increase. Ini-
tially, the increase was largely due to the burning of coal, which was the primary
energy source for the Industrial Revolution, and whose exhaust products when
burned include CO2. Since then, the other major fossil fuels, oil and natural gas,
have also become sources of growth in CO2 levels. The latest IPCC report presents
statistics over the years since 1970, which are indicative of the historical proportion
that fossil fuel burning occupies in the sources of CO2. The percentage of emissions
from solid, liquid and gas fuels represents about a 70% fraction of CO2 emissions
and has seen its share increasing during this period.
But other factors contribute as well. For example, the widespread cutting down
of forests can add CO2 to the atmosphere if the trees are burned; like fossil fuels,
they release this greenhouse gas as well. If the trees are left to rot, that too releases
CO2, albeit more slowly. And because living trees absorb CO2 in the process of pho-
tosynthesis, the cutting of forests eliminates a source of CO2 removal, so the gas
builds up more quickly than it otherwise might. The same estimates from the IPCC
quantify deforestation and land-use change emissions as about 22% of CO2 emis-
sions.
Some manufacturing processes add CO2 to the atmosphere as well. The manufac-
ture of cement is one; it does not just require energy, which often comes from fossil-
fuels, but the chemical reactions involved in its manufacture release large amounts
of the gas as well. All in all cement production has occupied a 3% share of CO2
emissions. All this said, fossil fuel burning remains the predominant source of the
historical increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations that added about 100 ppm
(36%) over the last 250 years to the CO2 levels of the pre-industrial era.
- the expected impacts on the climate

Data collected over the past 50 years point to the fact that our weather is getting
more extreme. But trying to isolate the fingerprint of global warming within the
70
weather is much harder than isolating the fingerprint of global warming within the
climate system. That doesn’t mean it’s not there; it just means seeing climate
change in the weather is a much noisier, more chaotic and more complicated proc-
ess. Statistical analyses can help us see the story buried beneath the noise. And cli-
mate scientists have come up with some very clever variations on using a slow mo-
tion instant replay of the weather to help them see how the statistics of extreme
events are changing.
It turns out that you can use climate models as an ‘‘instant replay’’ to recreate
a specific weather event. Think of it like doing an autopsy, except it’s being per-
formed on a specific extreme weather event. The European heat wave of 2003, an
extreme weather event that killed over 35,000 people, offers the best example of
how climate models can help us see the global warming embedded within our
weather.
When you step back and compare the summer of 2003 with summers past, it be-
comes even more obvious. As you can see in Figure 3, there are a series of vertical
lines that almost look like a bar code. Each vertical line represents the mean sum-
mer temperature for a single year from the average of four stations in Switzerland
over the period 1864 through 2003. Until the summer of 2003, the years 1909 and
1947 stood out at the edges as the most extreme temperatures in terms of hot and
cold summers. Climate scientists estimate the summer of 2003 was probably the
hottest in Europe since at least AD 1500.
If climate is what you expect and weather is what you get, then the summer of
2003 in Europe was way outside the envelope of what anyone would have expected.
Statistically speaking, in a natural climate system with no man-made CO2 emis-
sions, the chance of getting a summer as hot as 2003 would have been around once
every thousand years or one in a thousand.
The point of this weather autopsy isn’t so much whether the 2003 heat wave was
caused solely by global warming. Indeed, almost any weather event can occur on its
own by chance in an unmodified climate. But using climate models, it is possible
to work out how much human activities may have increased the risk of the occur-
rence of such a heat wave. It’s like smoking and lung cancer. People who don’t
smoke can still get the disease, but smoking one pack of cigarettes a day for 20
years increases your chances of developing lung cancer 20-fold. Thanks to some so-
phisticated climate models and well-honed statistical techniques, scientists can iden-
tify the push that global warming is giving the weather.
This weather autopsy showed that human influences had at least doubled the
very rare chance of summers as hot as the one Europe experienced in 2003. More
specifically, climate models showed that greenhouse gas emissions had contributed
to an increase in 2003-style summers—moving from a one in a thousand years to
at least once in every 500 years and possibly as high as once in every 250 years.
What is perhaps the most shocking is what happens when you run the models in
forecast mode instead of autopsy mode. If the summer of 2003 had been a freak
event of nature, we could just chalk it up to the luck of the draw. But according
to the model predictions, by the 2040’s, the 2003-type summers will be happening
every other year. And by the end of this century, people will look back wistfully
upon the summer of 2003 as a time when summers were much colder.
71
Scientists now believe that the Earth could warm up by more 7°F, on average,
by the end of the century, if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to grow at cur-
rent rates. That’s significant enough to trigger all sorts of big changes in the envi-
ronment. To start with, scientists expect sea level to rise by three feet or more—
partly because water expands as it warms, partly due to melting ice in Greenland
and other places. Low-lying areas—including significant parts of states like Florida,
and entire countries like Bangladesh and the Maldive Islands will be much more
prone to erosion and to catastrophic flooding from storm surges. The warming could
also make the most powerful of tropical storms even more powerful. And rainstorms
in general are likely to become more intense, with more of them causing damaging
floods.
As mountain glaciers melt, they’ll cause even more flooding—at first. But if they
shrink enough, the fresh water they provide will become scarce. Billions of people
in India and China, for example, depend on water that comes off glaciers in the
Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. In the U.S., warmer winters and spring will
induce earlier snowmelt in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains. That means
less meltwater for a thirsty California, especially during the summer when water
is really needed.
In already arid regions (Australia and the American West are just two examples)
droughts are likely to come more often and be more severe, and they could last
longer. That’s likely to lead to more wildfires. Heat waves will be more frequent too,
not just in deserts but in temperate zones, including most of the continental U.S.
All of these changes will have an impact on people, our physical safety and our
ability to grow food and get water. But climate change could have an even greater
impact on the survival of some species. Plants and animals thrive in certain specific
climate conditions. They cannot easily adapt to the changes that have already
begun. The trees that produce Vermont maple syrup, for example, may have trouble
surviving in Vermont as the New England climate changes, and Georgia may lose
its population of Brown Thrashers—the state bird. Not all of the changes will hap-
72
pen on land. The warming of the oceans has already contributed to a worldwide die-
off in coral reefs, which is expected to accelerate as temperatures continue to rise.
Corals are home to a wide variety of sea-dwelling creatures, so when they go, many
other species could be in big trouble.
Conclusion
When I worked at The Weather Channel, I was constantly awestruck by the ex-
tent to which people rallied around a weather forecast. Whether it was sandbagging
in advance of the Red River flood, or evacuating in advance of Hurricane Gustav.
There’s something so inspiring about the way communities can pull together under
these extremely challenging circumstances. We’re clearly pretty good at processing
the risks associated with extreme weather, which is why it’s so important for people
to understand that their weather is their climate. As such climate and global warm-
ing need to be built into our daily weather forecasts because by connecting climate
and weather we can begin to work on our long-term memory and relate it to what’s
outside our window today. If climate is cold statistics, weather is personal experi-
ence. We need to reconnect them.
The weather forecast is so engrained in our existence that we know very well how
to make it actionable. If we hear on the radio in the morning that it’s going to rain,
we bring an umbrella. If we hear that the temperature is going to be unseasonably
cool, then we pack a sweater. By definition, weather is a timescale we can’t stop.
With a weather forecast, we’re strictly working on our defense. However, with the
climate forecast, the necessary actions are not as straightforward, and this high-
lights some of the basic philosophical differences between weather and climate. I’ve
come to view long-range climate projections as an ‘‘anti-forecast’’ in the sense that
it’s a forecast you want to prevent from happening. Until now, we’ve been able to
view extreme weather like flooding as an act of God. But the science tells us that
due to climate change these floods will happen more often and we need to be pre-
pared for them. I say that a climate forecast is an ‘‘anti-forecast’’ because it is in
our power to prevent it from happening. It represents only a possible future, if we
continue to burn fossil fuels business as usual. The future is ultimately in our
hands. And the urgency is that the longer we wait, the further down the pipeline
climate travels and works its way into weather, and once it’s in the weather, it’s
there for good.
We are currently in a race against our own ability to intuitively trust what the
science is telling us, assess the risks of global warming, and predict future impacts.
So when we look at a climate forecast out to 2100 and see significantly warmer tem-
peratures (both average and extreme) and sea level three feet higher, we need to
assess the risk as well as the different solutions necessary to prevent it from hap-
pening. The challenge is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, replace our energy in-
frastructure and adapt to the warming already in the pipeline.
73
Thank you for affording me this opportunity to share with you this brief history
of climate change. I would be pleased to address any questions you might wish to
raise.
BIOGRAPHY FOR HEIDI M. CULLEN

In addition to her responsibilities as interim CEO and Director of Communica-
tions, Dr. Heidi Cullen serves as a research scientist and correspondent for Climate
Central—a non-profit science journalism organization headquartered in Princeton,
NJ. Before joining Climate Central, where she reports on climate and energy issues
for programs like PBS NewsHour, Dr. Cullen served as The Weather Channel’s first
on-air climate expert and helped create Forecast Earth, a weekly television series
focused on issues related to climate change and the environment. Prior to that Dr.
Cullen worked as a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Re-
search (NCAR) in Boulder, CO. She received the NOAA Climate & Global Change
Fellowship and spent two years at Columbia University’s International Research In-
stitute for Climate and Society working to apply long-range climate forecasts to the
water resources sector in Brazil and Paraguay. She is a member of the American
Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society and is an Associate Editor
of the journal Weather, Climate, Society. Dr. Cullen also serves as a member of the
NOAA Science Advisory Board. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Indus-
trial Engineering from Columbia University and went on to receive a Ph.D. in cli-
matology and ocean-atmosphere dynamics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observ-
atory of Columbia University. Dr. Cullen is the author of The Weather of the Future
published in August of 2010 by Harper Collins.
DISCUSSION
Chairman BAIRD. Thanks to all of our witnesses.
At this point, I will recognize myself for five minutes, and we will
follow in alternating order as Members wish to have questions.
THE IMPACTS OF CO2 INCREASES ON TEMPERATURES
Just to start with a premise that I don’t think people often ap-
preciate, and I don’t think there is any disagreement on this
panel—though I think I have heard disagreement by some of my
colleagues occasionally—that CO2 is essential to maintain the cur-
rent temperature of the Earth. If it were not for CO2 and/or some
other greenhouse gas—Dr. Lindzen?
Dr. LINDZEN. Certainly understand if you double CO2——
Chairman BAIRD. No, that is not what I am saying. Let me finish
my question.
Dr. LINDZEN. The current climate is mostly water vapor and
clouds.
Chairman BAIRD. Okay. But let me finish the question. It is es-
tablished science that the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere has
an important role in maintaining the current surface temperature
of the Earth in the atmosphere. If you did not have CO2, would the
Earth be a cooler place or a warmer place?
Dr. LINDZEN. It would be approximately 2–1/2 degrees cooler.
Chairman BAIRD. Any others wish to comment on that?
Dr. CICERONE. I think it would be a much bigger effect than that.
Chairman BAIRD. Hit the mic.
Dr. CICERONE. In the mid-1980s, Bob Dickinson and I did some
of the earliest calculations of the radiative forcings. And Bob is one
of the few geniuses in this field. And when he tried to do the exper-
iment that you just referred to, to figure out what impact the cur-
rent amount of CO2 is having, the calculations broke apart because
the disruptions in the atmosphere were so large that he had to go
74
back and start over. I think it would be far more than 2–1/2 de-
grees.
Chairman BAIRD. Let me ask a second question. Is there any
doubt that CO2 absorbs more heat than oxygen?
Dr. CICERONE. No.
HUMANS HAVE CAUSED INCREASES IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2
Chairman BAIRD. No doubt about that. Is there any doubt that
human activity has increased the amount of CO2 in the air? No
doubt of that. That is a given.
Dr. LINDZEN. How shall I put it? I would advise you to stop with
the no doubt. But, you know, that is the prevailing view.
Chairman BAIRD. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. I am a Ph.D. sci-
entist. I understand that science is never 100 percent, Doctor. But
I would say the prevailing view and abundant evidence suggests
that humans have caused a substantial increase of CO2. Is that
fair?
Dr. LINDZEN. Yeah.
THE GREATER PROPORTION OF RECORD HIGH
TEMPERATURES
Chairman BAIRD. Okay. Now, here is the question. Is there dis-
agreement with Dr. Meehl’s analysis and Dr. Cullen’s analysis and
Dr. Cicerone’s of greater proportion of record highs in recent years
relative to record lows? Each person will need to use their mic
when they speak.
Dr. LINDZEN. Yeah. I don’t think they are meaningful state-
ments. I mean, during this whole period that he is referring to, if
you look at it, it still looks like a random process, one. And two,
the instrumentation has changed dramatically during that period
so that the response time of modern thermometers is almost infini-
tesimal compared to the ones used in the earlier part of the record.
Chairman BAIRD. Actually, I will rephrase my question because
I think it was pretty clear, but your answer didn’t address it. My
question is: Is there a doubt that in the recent years—and I will
state it as clearly as I can—there is a greater preponderance of
record highs than record lows? Unless you are suggesting in the
past that the measurement devices were erroneous in one direction
and not another.
Dr. LINDZEN. Absolutely, because you have high response time.
You will pick up perturbations——
Chairman BAIRD. I am not talking perturbations. Simply are we
suggesting Dr. Meehl, Dr. Cullen—if you are suggesting that the
thermometers today are more sensitive to increases than to cool-
ing——
Dr. LINDZEN. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Chairman BAIRD. That is right. That is your——
Dr. LINDZEN. I think that is pretty much true. But there is an-
other issue here which is a bit weird; namely, why do we have
record highs and record cold on any given day?
Chairman BAIRD. I don’t want to ask the why first. I just want
to get the facts.
75
Dr. Meehl, Dr. Cullen, Dr. Cicerone, is it generally accepted sci-

entific fact that there are more record highs today than record
lows? Dr. Meehl.
Dr. MEEHL. Yes.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Cullen?
Dr. CULLEN. Yes.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Cicerone?
Dr. CICERONE. Yes.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Lindzen may disagree with that. It seems
to me that that is a fairly objective piece of evidence that we could
look at, that there are more general record—you may disagree, but
part of what is happening here is that we have a preponderance
of folks. If I look at a temperature, a thermometer, and I say this
is pretty hot, other people could say it is pretty cold. But if we have
got a measurement device we have been using for a very long time
and it is showing a hotter temperature than what it showed a year
ago, either the measurement device has changed or the tempera-
ture has changed. Maybe the measurement device has changed, but
we are talking thousands of measurement devices changing and
only in one direction.
Dr. Meehl.
Dr. MEEHL. May I just add a little bit to that? This analysis we
did, we were looking at basically temperature records in the second
half of the 20th century from weather stations that had good daily
records. And this is actually, I think, a bigger problem than the
thermometer problem. You have to have stations recording their
daily high temperature and daily low temperature every day so you
can have a lot of daily records.
And this ratio, which is now 2-to-1, which we thought was kind
of odd, we thought initially—in fact, this came from a guy at The
Weather Channel, because he was noticing this. He was keeping
track of records on his own. He is a meteorologist. And Heidi in-
vited me down there. And he said, what is with this 2-to-1 ratio?
I said, I don’t know. He said, Well, is that some kind of unique
thing about climate change? I said, I have no idea. I said, Let’s look
at it.
So we started looking at it and it turns out this ratio—we just
happen to be at about 2-to-1 right now. A decade ago it was a little
less than 2-to-1, and a decade before that it was a little less than
that. If you had a climate that wasn’t changing, you would expect
that ratio to be about 1-to-1, because you would have an equal
chance of getting record highs and record lows.
So I think what was interesting about that study is it showed—
and I think this is a thing that we have trouble communicating to
the public, but climate change is a shift in statistics, it is a shift
in the odds of certain things happening. So as you warm the aver-
age temperature, you just have a greater chance of extreme warm
temperatures and less chance of extreme cold temperatures.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you.
Dr. CULLEN. And if I could just build on that very quickly. What
Jerry did was he carried that thought experiment forward, which
is part of the exercise that we all need to go through. And what
they found was if we continue to make greenhouse gas business as
76
usual, by the middle of the century that would then become 20-to-
1. So it gets worse as you move forward in time.
Chairman BAIRD. Because of the shifting and the probability.
Mr. Inglis.
QUANTIFYING CLIMATE SENSITIVITY AND WATER VAPOR
Mr. INGLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I notice the discrepancy
in some numbers here. Dr. Lindzen said that a doubling of CO2
would cause a one degree C increase in temperature. Doubling of
CO2 would cause a one degree increase in——
Dr. LINDZEN. I said by itself. In other words, absence of
feedbacks—and this the IPCC says also—you expect about one de-
gree from changing CO2 from 280 to 560. You again get the same
thing for a doubling from 560 to 10,120. It is nonlinear. It is loga-
rithmic. So every molecule of CO2 does a little less than its prede-
cessor. But one degree is what you expect from a doubling. Any-
thing more is due to the positive feedbacks, from water vapor and
clouds primarily. In the models.
Mr. INGLIS. I am going to ask the others to say whether they
agree with that. Dr. Cullen, I think I heard you say it is an eight
degree Farenheit rise, right? So it is——
Dr. CULLEN. No. The basic climate sensitivity doubling of CO2
experiments suggests an eight degree Farenheit rise. That was the
Svante Arrhenius calculation. IPCC estimates give a range, includ-
ing all the feedbacks.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I didn’t hear the answer. What did she say?
Mr. INGLIS. Somebody help me explain that. Maybe Dr. Cicerone
wants to try that.
Dr. CICERONE. Yes. What Dr. Lindzen is saying is if we could iso-
late the impacts one by one, the CO2 effect itself and the way it
interacts with the planetary radiation would cause about a one de-
gree warming under these circumstances Centigrade. It’s the addi-
tional forcing, which I mentioned in my testimony briefly, of adding
more water that causes part of the increased effect.
Part of it would be due to the way clouds are being treated in
the calculations, also. But if I focus on the water, that’s when I
mentioned the disproportionate amount of evaporation increase as
we warm a body of water. This is just a fact of physics. So that
people who propose that this enhancing effect, which Dr. Lindzen
denies, people who propose to deny that enhancing effect are fight-
ing against a very fundamental part of physics.
Dr. LINDZEN. May I respond?
Dr. CICERONE. The fact that the rate at which a liquid evapo-
rates is a grossly disproportionate function of the temperature.
Dr. LINDZEN. May I respond?
Mr. INGLIS. Please.
Dr. LINDZEN. What Dr. Cicerone is referring to is the Clausius-
Clapeyron relation. That is a relation that tells you what the satu-
ration vapor pressure is for water as a function of temperature.
The atmosphere, first of all, is almost never saturated. So the basic
physics that Cicerone is referring to is stating if you have a big bot-
tle and somebody has this cup, no matter what I have done to pour
water into each, this will always have more. That doesn’t make
much sense.
77
But the other thing is the data are——

Mr. INGLIS. Let me stop you right there. What does that mean?
Dr. Cicerone, what is your response to that?
Dr. CICERONE. I didn’t follow him. I know the Clausius-
Clapeyron equation.
Chairman BAIRD. You need to turn your mic on.
Dr. CICERONE. I know the relationship he is speaking of. I know
the relationship with the entropy and thermodynamic quantities,
and I don’t understand what he is saying.
Dr. LINDZEN. I am saying it’s the saturation vapor pressure,
right?
Dr. CICERONE. Yeah, sure.
Dr. LINDZEN. Okay. Is the atmosphere saturated?
Dr. CICERONE. No, we have a more or less relative humidity, on
average, of 70 percent.
Dr. LINDZEN. Yeah, fluctuating all over the place.
Dr. CICERONE. Yeah.
Dr. LINDZEN. Clausius-Clapeyron tells you nothing about that.
Dr. CICERONE. It gives you an approximation to the slope.
Chairman BAIRD. I will ask both gentlemen to use your mics.
Dr. LINDZEN. Okay.
Dr. CICERONE. We can get an approximation to the slope. That
is the way——
Chairman BAIRD. You need to turn your mic on. Go ahead and
leave it on.
Dr. CICERONE. All right.
The way the evaporation takes place can be also approximated
by the thermodynamic quantities that give the slope of the rela-
tionship. And it’s just a rapid increase. It’s very hard to hold back
the vapor pressure of a liquid against this relationship, whether it’s
evaporating into gas above it that’s saturated or not.
Mr. INGLIS. Yes, Dr. Meehl.
Dr. MEEHL. Yeah, I was just going to add that this quantity we
are talking about, which is an equilibrium response of the climate
system to a doubling of CO2, actually has a history to it that goes
back to the early days of climate modeling, which that’s about all
you could do, would be to double the CO2 and see what happens.
So it has ended up being this kind of equilibrium climate sensi-
tivity. And that actually goes back even earlier than that. We will
never actually see the equilibrium value because it takes so long
for the oceans to catch up. So this is a kind of metric we use to
gauge, give us a rough calibration of how the climate system may
respond. So these are kind of relative numbers.
But I think maybe the point is that there is a range of what we
think this number may be. The current range we think is any-
where between two degrees Centigrade and 4–1/2 degrees Centi-
grade. This number was derived a lot of times from models, but
now we have multiple lines of evidence. People have actually
looked at observations, they have looked at the response of the cli-
mate system to big volcanic eruptions, they have looked at
paleoclimate data. So now we have multiple lines of evidence that
seem to suggest that that’s probably about the right range and that
the most likely value is actually around three. And I think Dr.
Alley is going to say a lot more about this in Panel II.
78
Mr. INGLIS. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am out of time.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Bartlett.
THE COMMON CAUSE FOR CLEAN ENERGY DEVELOPMENT
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
This hearing today I think is one of the more important things
that the Science Committee needs to do. There should be no dis-
pute as to what the facts are relative to climate change, and there
is a lot of dispute as to what the facts are. There can be a great
deal of dispute as to how you interpret those facts. But before you
can have an honest discussion, you need to agree on the facts, and
we don’t now agree on the facts. So I really appreciate the Chair-
man holding this hearing and thank the witnesses for their con-
tribution to this.
The Chairman’s question, if there was no CO2, would the Earth
be colder? Not if there was just a little bit more water vapor. Be-
cause water vapor is a hugely more important greenhouse gas than
CO2. I know the Chairman meant that if all other things remained
equal would the Earth be colder if there was no CO2? And, of
course, it would. But CO2 is a pretty small greenhouse gas com-
pared to water vapor. That doesn’t mean that it’s not important,
because it can be the tipping point.
There are three groups that have common cause in wanting to
reduce the consumption of fossil fuels; and, regretfully, they are at
each other’s throat rather than joining hands and marching for-
ward.
One group is a group that is represented today, those who are
concerned about climate change and the effect that the CO2 pro-
duced from burning fossil fuels would have on that.
A second group is a group that is really concerned that the
United States has only two percent of the known reserves of oil in
the world, and we use 25 percent of the world’s oil, and we import
just about two-thirds of what we use. And the solution to that, ob-
viously, is to stop burning so much fossil fuel and use alternatives,
which is exactly the same solution that we have today in looking
at the effect of CO2 on climate. We would like to produce less of
it by moving to alternatives which do not produce CO2 if you have
a short cycle rather than a million-year cycle like we have in fossil
fuels.
And the third group that has common cause in this—and I just
happen to have a paper this morning that just came out, the
World’s Energy Outlook for 2010 now out. And I will try to have
this thrown on the screen later today, because it is really a star-
tling picture. It shows that we have now peaked in conventional oil
production at about 65 million barrels a day. The total world pro-
duction is about 84. The rest of that is made up of natural gas liq-
uids and unconventional oil. This chart has that plummeting to
about 15—only about 15 million barrels a day by 2035. That’s just
25 years from now. And it has the difference made up—because
they have plateaued essentially with production of oil. And the dif-
ference is made up, and it’s I think about 42 million barrels per
day, they say that we are going to get from fields yet to be devel-
79
oped or found. You know, that’s the impossible dream. That’s not
going to happen.
Now, the solution to this problem, the fact that the fossil fuels
just aren’t going to be there to burn, is to move to alternatives. And
so whether or not you are right that the increase in CO2 is pro-
ducing climate change, there are two other very good reasons for
doing exactly what you want to do, and that is to move away from
fossil fuel use to alternatives.
Why aren’t these three groups locking arms and marching to-
gether? Because they have exactly the same solution to very dif-
ferent problems. What keeps you from doing that?
Dr. CULLEN. I think the three groups have locked arms and have
moved together. But I think there is a lot of opposition. I think it’s
a very difficult thing to change one’s invested infrastructure. And
I think much of the discussion about climate change and alter-
native energy is making that leap and moving forward and embrac-
ing new technologies. So, you know, can we do a better job? Abso-
lutely. But I do think that our three communities have aligned and,
you know, it’s clear that there are multiple reasons to shift away
from fossil fuel.
Mr. BARTLETT. You know, even if your premise is not correct,
that is, that human production of CO2 is not changing the climate,
what you want to do about it is exactly the right thing to do for
two other very good reasons.
Again, I ask why do not these three groups, instead of sniping
at each other’s premise and ridiculing each other, why don’t you
just lock arms and march forward? Because the solution to these
three very different problems is exactly the same solution: less fos-
sil fuels and more alternatives.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing.
Dr. LINDZEN. Would you like an answer?
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes, sir.
Dr. LINDZEN. It’s profoundly dishonest. And I think integrity is
important. I think Mr. Baird emphasized that. If somebody is ask-
ing you how climate changed and you influence your answer be-
cause you have some ideas on energy policy, you are short-changing
your interlocutor. And I don’t think that’s appropriate. If somebody
has an energy policy they wish to propose, it should be defended
on its own grounds and sold on its own grounds.
The notion that a climate scientist who disagrees that CO2 is im-
portant there should join the bandwagon—or even if they did
agree, to say to push my view of greenhouse gases I will also sup-
port your view of energy, it’s confusing the issue for the public. It’s
not helping it for everyone to march in lockstep.
Mr. BARTLETT. Sir, in a former life I was a scientist. I have a
Ph.D. I have about a hundred papers in the literature. I under-
stand science. And I am a rare Republican. I tell audiences that I
am a conservative Republican, but on these kind of issues I am not
an idiot.
Dr. LINDZEN. I am not accusing you of that. But I am saying that
when you ask a scientist to lock arms with a politician because
they both have aims that have the same policy, that’s probably
dangerous.
80
Mr. BARTLETT. If the goal you want to accomplish is a national

security goal—and, ultimately, it is—then I don’t see a compromise
of science because you happen to have a common goal with a polit-
ical or a military person.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Bartlett, if I may, as well as I know Dr.
Bartlett, I would never expect Dr. Bartlett to suggest that a sci-
entist should modify his or her findings to fit a political agenda.
This, by the way, goes to both sides. But I do believe what he is
suggesting, and he suggested it many times—and not only does he
suggest it in hearings, he embodies it in his life—that there are na-
tional interests that are meritorious beyond single aims. I mean,
the debate today is about the scientific findings. I think what he
is saying and what he has literally embodied in his own life—he
is more off the grid than anybody I know, and I mean that as a
compliment. He is off the electricity grid because he is so on the
grid of the data. He is saying, I think, that this is not a matter
of distorting the scientific findings, but let’s make our policy con-
sistent with the common interests.
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes, sir. We have three common interests, and
there is no reason that we should be limiting our ability to reach
those common goals because we simply disagree with each other’s
premise. That’s all I am saying.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Cicerone, I know you want to comment, but
I am going to invite Mr. Rohrabacher, who has rejoined us. If we
have time, I will get back to you on this matter because I know
it’s important. Mr. Rohrabacher.
CLIMATE SKEPTICISM
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And, again, we will miss Chairman Baird. I appreciated his lead-
ership, although we have strongly disagreed on several issues, this
being one of them. And I actually would thank him very much for
including one witness out of four to present the other point of view.
The fact is, in the past, as Ranking Member Hall mentioned, we
have had one witness in a whole hearing, as compared to any type
of balanced presentation. This has been—this tactic of not permit-
ting the other side to be heard or trying to muzzle people in aca-
deme and elsewhere from expressing opposition views to the man-
made global warming theory is a travesty, and it’s about time that
people in the scientific world admit that that’s what’s been going
on. Because what we have had is, yeah, one witness out of four;
in the past, we had one witness out of 16.
And how many of us have heard over and over again ‘‘case
closed’’, where there are presentations with nobody on the other
side being able to express their opinion. They have made a mockery
out of science. And I am very happy that at least today we have
one witness out of four in the panels who are going to present the
other side.
Because there is a fundamental disagreement on whether or not
the climate cycle that we are in today is basically being caused by
mankind or whether or not this is a natural cycle. And if it is cre-
ated by some sort of human activity, is it something that we should
be concerned about because it is not a major factor but a minor fac-
tor in what’s going on?
81
Mr. Chairman, I noted that you used your case to say why CO2
should be of more concern in terms of—because it adjusts the oxy-
gen in the atmosphere because CO2 does absorb more heat. Well,
let us just note that oxygen is, I believe, 21 percent of the atmos-
phere. CO2 is 390 parts per million. That’s one-half of one-tenth—
less than one-half of one-tenth of one percent of the atmosphere as
compared to 21 percent. Of this, 58 parts per million are manmade
as compared to what’s in there naturally.
So this idea that CO2—most people who are discussing this issue,
the presentation to the public has been so skewed and the debate
has been so hampered by not presenting the other side that most
people believe that CO2 represents ten percent or 20 percent of the
atmosphere. Ask the people around you, and you will find even
Members of Congress giving you that answer.
Well, today, we are trying to get to the bottom of this; and I ap-
preciate the fact that, again, we are having a debate where at least
one out of four witnesses is going to be able to address some issues.
Let me ask Dr. Lindzen some of the points that you have made.
I would like to specifically ask you whether or not you believe that
there will be dire consequences due to our lifestyle on the climate
of this planet.
Dr. LINDZEN. No, I don’t think so. I think—we are talking about
finite issues. The elevation of finite issues to catastrophism prob-
ably would leave behind a large portion of the scientific community.
I think there has been a problem that the agreement is on the
trivial. The controversy is on really obscure things that depend on
many factors. I mean, one of the things that bothers me in this in
the discussion of extremes and storms and so on, a basic feature
of meteorology is the cause of storms in mid-latitudes is the tem-
perature difference between the Equator and pole. Under a warmer
climate, that should be reduced, and that should lead to fewer
storms. It is the storms that bring in record highs and lows by car-
rying air from distant places. Why suddenly in this complex thing
a particular observation that is actually contrary to the basic phys-
ics assumes importance, I don’t know.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. We have had many cycles of warming and
cooling throughout the history of this planet, many, many cycles.
And a minuscule change in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere,
as compared to other time periods when there were other cycles
going on, when CO2, by the way, was dramatically higher than
what it is today, we have seen that the relationship between
CO2——
This is what it comes down to. People are trying to tell us—in
the scientific community, there are people trying to tell us that we
have got to accept Draconian changes in our way of life mandated
by law because the CO2 that we are emitting is going to cause
drastic consequences to the planet’s climate. That does not seem to
hold up.
Dr. LINDZEN. It’s also that even if the U.S. shut down period, re-
tired from the world, its impact on the CO2 levels would be rather
undramatic.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are
rather undramatic.
Dr. LINDZEN. Yeah.
82
Mr. ROHRABACHER. The fact is CO2 is a minor, minuscule part

of the atmosphere. Its increase during the time period where man-
kind has increased the standard of living of the people of the
human race has been used as a scare tactic to frighten people into
accepting controls over their lives that they otherwise would not ac-
cept. That’s what this debate is all about. And, frankly, I have seen
in the past—I am a former journalist. I have seen example after
example where people in the political world will try to frighten the
public on an issue in order to achieve a political end, and this is
one of the worst examples of that that I have seen.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman BAIRD. Mr. Rohrabacher, whereas you began your
statements by emphasizing the importance of hearing from all
sides and during the most recent questioning you heard from one
side, I am going to invite the witnesses if they—other witnesses if
they wish to respond to some of the points that you made to do so,
because I am sure you would want to hear their responses.
Dr. MEEHL. There was a number of different points made there.
I don’t know quite where to start. Maybe I will just take a couple
of them.
This is one of the things that I personally find difficult, that a
lot of times the science gets kind of blurred together with the polit-
ical side of this issue. What we are here to talk about is the science
of this issue. When you talk about dire consequences, those are
value judgments made by human societies that aren’t science
issues.
You know, there has been an effort in the European community
to come up with a number of two degrees sea warming above
preindustrial as a threshold for dangerous climate change, and peo-
ple argue about that a lot. And that number is out there, but I
think you would find a lot of disagreement even among the sci-
entific community about what constitutes dangerous climate
change.
Certainly with climate change things will shift around. You will
have dry areas probably getting dryer; wet areas will get wetter.
You will see changes to extremes. You see things that would have
impacts on human societies.
But the fact that these greenhouse gases, which we call trace
gases—because, as you point out, rightfully so, they constitute a
really small fraction of the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere—
the fact that they have this interesting and unique property that
they have more than two atoms per molecule. Oxygen and nitrogen,
which are the biggest constituents, as you say, have only two atoms
per molecule, when you have more than two atoms per molecule
that makes that molecule really active and really important, and
it can absorb and reemit heat and trap it. So I think that——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. But if it’s so minuscule, how does that then
have a greater impact?
Dr. MEEHL. See, that’s the interesting thing about it. Because
even at these really small quantities they can be really important
to the climate system and really make a difference in how the cli-
mate of the Earth is behaving. So I think in terms of the science,
these are the things that we grapple with, too. You know, we try
to incorporate these things in the models the best we can, and we
83
try to use the tools the best we can, and these are the indications
that we get.
In terms of evidence, science is a great thing because, you know,
Dick Lindzen has his theories about low climate sensitivity. Other
people have tried to use other evidence to contradict what he said,
and this is how science works. We have this ongoing discussion,
and at the end of the day try to come up with some idea of what
we think is really going on out there in the world. So I think that’s
why all of us probably got into science in the first place, because
we are really interested in how the world works.
But, you know, focusing on the science makes it a very inter-
esting problem that has all these interesting things that go on in
terms of physical processes that we can try to use tools like climate
models to understand. And I think that’s where the interest is for
us. I think that’s what makes this a very interesting problem.
Now, as far as what you decide to do as policymakers about this
problem is something we can try to give you information on. I think
Mr. Inglis’ example of the advice you get from doctors that maybe
98 give you A, and two say B, and you say, well, okay, what do
you want to do? It’s still a call that you have to make as policy-
makers as to what you do with this information. But I think we
have to do the best we can to give you the best possible information
from our community.
Chairman BAIRD. So help us understand.
First of all, I very much appreciate what you said, Dr. Meehl, be-
cause on this committee and elsewhere in the public and the media
there is an assertion that climate science is a hoax, meaning some-
thing intentionally perpetrated. Piltdown Man is a hoax, but I don’t
see this as a hoax. People may disagree on the findings and impli-
cations and the models, et cetera, but the idea that it’s a conspiracy
to force Draconian changes or that it’s a hoax flies in the face of
what I know about the individuals on all sides before us today. And
so, if nothing else, let us put to rest this assertion that in some way
you are motivated by some bizarre intent to change our way of life.
Help us understand, though, the fundamental question that Mr.
Rohrabacher asked about how a relatively small trace element im-
pacts raising temperatures. That’s really——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. As compared to the natural cycles.
Chairman BAIRD. That’s a fair question. That’s a fair question.
Help us understand that. Dr. Cicerone. I am going to call on—we
will work our way down.
Dr. LINDZEN. I will be happy to answer that.
There is no simple relation between the amount of a constituent
and its ability to absorb radiation. If you have a very strong ab-
sorbing molecule, then you need less of it to do something.
CO2 is a significant absorber. I differ with my colleagues about
the reason why. It’s the permanent dipole moment that’s impor-
tant. You know, OH, NO, all have two atoms and they absorb well
in the infrared. So, I don’t know, that makes me wonder about the
testimony.
But, still, it is possible for a trace gas to be important. It isn’t
strictly the amount, even though the amount is minuscule. For in-
stance, a very thin visibly invisible cloud will absorb more infrared
84
than all the other infrared absorbers in the atmosphere when it’s
present.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Cicerone.
Dr. CICERONE. The framework is the energy balance of the plan-
et. And so in deciding whether an entry is small or diminutive or
whatever, it’s when we look at those balancing, as you said, Mr.
Rohrabacher, compared to the natural balances. And these
polyatomic molecules that have vibrational and rotational modes
that they can interact with the infrared radiation, as Dr. Lindzen
just said, sometimes the tiniest presence can intercept parts of the
spectrum which are otherwise transparent.
Generally speaking, the Earth’s atmosphere is transparent in
some of these infrared wavelength regions where the planet’s emit-
ting. So it’s not too much of a mystery. We have to go through the
numbers.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, could I make a comment on Mr. Bart-
lett’s very interesting puzzle about energy policy?
Chairman BAIRD. Please. And then I will give one more oppor-
tunity to others, and then we will finish. We have two more panels
to get through.
Dr. CICERONE. I have heard a very graphic presentation of the
same three conundrums in testimony to the House from a former
CIA director, Jim Woolsey, where he gets back to your three over-
lapping groups and interests by having a fictional conversation be-
tween John Muir, Mahatma Gandhi, and General George Patton.
And he shows that they can agree on the kinds of things that you
just said. He testified in the House a year or two ago, and I have
heard him give this presentation. It’s fascinating.
Getting down to basics, energy efficiency is a solution that should
appeal to all three of your groups; and yet if all of this free money
is lying on the floor to be saved with energy efficiency, why aren’t
more people taking advantage of it? We now have some analysis
from business groups of why various companies and individuals are
not doing more to capture this free energy through efficiency, and
I am optimistic that people will get their acts together who are con-
cerned about those three different sides of the issue.
Chairman BAIRD. Any final comments by Dr. Meehl or Dr.
Cullen? And then we will release this excellent panel for the next
one.
Dr. CULLEN. I think one remark I would like to simply make is
that with this notion that extreme weather events will increase
over time, I think it’s important to just remember that in our daily
lives as we move forward there are numerous things we all need
to worry about. And if you look at the tragic events that happened
during the national floods, yes, we dealt with extreme weather
events in the past, but from an infrastructure standpoint, from
doing things in the short term to reduce to our overall vulner-
ability, I think rather than think about catastrophes it’s thinking
about the fact that we have information that can reduce our overall
vulnerability, make our communities stronger.
And, you know, I just come back to the fact that, just as mete-
orologists on the short term are trying to keep people out of harm’s
way, this is information that is ultimately meant to make our com-
85
munities stronger and safer. And it’s sort of as simple as that as

we move forward over the next decade or two.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Meehl, any final comment?
I want to thank this outstanding panel for their expertise, for
their years of work, and for modeling a productive and constructive
discussion. Thank you very much.
We will recess for about four or five minutes until the next panel
can be seated. I am sure my colleagues join me in thanking this
panel of witnesses, and I will ask them to retire at this moment
and invite our others to join us.
[Recess.]
Panel II
Chairman BAIRD. I appreciate everyone joining us again. We now
will begin our second panel.
As before, it’s my pleasure to introduce our second panel of wit-
nesses: Dr. Patrick Michaels is a Senior Fellow in Environmental
Studies for the Cato Institute. Dr. Benjamin D. Santer is an At-
mospheric Scientist for the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis
and Intercomparison at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Dr. Richard B. Alley is the Evan Pugh Professor for the Depart-
ment of Geosciences and Earth and the Environmental Systems In-
stitute at Pennsylvania State University. And Dr. Richard Feely,
from my home State of Washington, is a Senior Scientist for the
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory with the National Oce-
anic and Atmospheric Administration.
As our witnesses observed before, we do our level best to try to
stick to five minutes. Sometimes if you go a little bit over I will
be as patient as I can. But please do your best to keep it at five
minutes. And following the presentations, we will have a series of
questions. Again, I thank our witnesses.
Dr. Michaels, you are welcome to begin. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK J. MICHAELS, SENIOR FELLOW IN

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES, CATO INSTITUTE
Dr. MICHAELS. Thank you, Congressman Baird. It’s very nice to
be here. It’s an honor to be here.
I think the first panel set what I think what is an interesting
scientific discussion. What we are really looking at here is to
whether the sensitivity of temperature to carbon dioxide is as large
as some people think or whether there are other factors that are
responsible for the temperature changes that we have seen.
I would like to show the first slide, if I could.
86
The important thing about climate change to remember is that

it doesn’t matter whether people change the climate. One of the
rhetorical devices that is inaccurate on this is to say all scientists
agree that human beings have an influence on climate. So what?
What matters is how much we influence the climate. And we are
getting some guidance from Mother Nature on this, despite our
best efforts, if you will.
This slide shows—each piece of colored spaghetti on this slide is
a computer model. There are 21 different models from the United
Nations IPCC scenario for concentrations in the atmosphere that
pretty much resemble what’s been going on in the atmosphere. One
of the things you see is each one of those pieces of colored spaghetti
is pretty much a straight line, and the reason for that is because
we put carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exponentially, but the re-
sponse is logarithmic, and it tends to do that.
Now, ask yourself the question: Since the planet started its
warming of the late 20th century, has the warming been a straight
line? And the answer is yes. So how do you discriminate between
these straight lines? The same thing you tell students in weather
forecasting, which I have taught. When different models say dif-
ferent things, look out the window. And when you look out the win-
dow, what you see here is at the low end of this line.
Now, I hope it went to the next image. Very good.
87
Another way to look at this issue is to look at the frequency dis-

tribution of temperatures produced by all these temperature trends
produced by all these models for periods say of five on out to 15
years. And the blue line are the observed trends from the Climate
Research Center—Climate Research Unit at East Anglia. And what
you can see, which corresponds to what we saw on the last slide,
is in fact the warming is clearly below the average predicted by
these models. Yes, we have a greenhouse gas fingerprint, and we
are going to hear about that in this talk. But I submit to you that
it’s a pinkie. It’s not one of the dreaded other fingers.
And, furthermore, if we take a look at the attempts like this,
they are very sensitive to the years that are chosen.
88
This particular paper right here is probably the most famous

paper ever published on attribution of climate change. It appeared
in 1996, and it shows that the temperature between 1963 of the
free atmosphere and 1987 corresponded remarkably to what was
modeled. It was fantastic. It was a wonderful result.
And here is the left-hand side, is the computer.
You can see in the Southern Hemisphere, which is on the right-

hand side of the left-hand image, a massive warming, and you see
from 1963 through 1987 in the Southern Hemisphere a massive
warming. What a wonderful finding. But the weather data actually
begins in 1957, the weather balloon record for this, and it ends in
1995 for the purposes of a paper published in 1996.
I offer you the observation by the way, this paper appeared four
days before probably the most important conference on climate
change ever held by the United Nations Policy Committee; and it
was highly, highly influential.
At any rate, when you add in all the data from 1957 through
1995, the relationship vanishes. So these studies are very, very
sensitive to what goes on with the temperature—what period we
study, rather.
So the search goes on. Sulfates, aerosols, the sensitivity or the
effect of them is estimated between zero and minus two watts per
meter squared. You can pick pretty much any value you want,
which makes it very easy to fit curves.
Then there is the problem of volcanoes. After this appeared, an-
other research effort was made to look at the effect of volcanoes on
the temperature. You see, scientists actually are involved mainly in
trying to find out why it has warmed so little compared to the
greenhouse-gas-only models. And so a paper came out by pretty
much the same group that said, well, if we go back to Krakatoa in
1883 and we factor in the volcanoes, my God, 2/3 of the warming
that would have occurred has been suppressed. Wow.
89
That’s another remarkable finding that turns out to be incredibly

time-dependent. Because, you see, there were volcanoes before
1883. Mount Tambora went off in 1815, created the year without
a summer, 1816. We have these records.
And, very recently, Jonathan Gregory just got a paper accepted,
and it will be published very soon, which uses the entire volcanic
record.
And I offer you this is an artifact of experimental design caused

by the models having been spun up to a steady state with episodic
volcanic forcing before the historical simulations began. This arti-
fact could be misleading in comparison and attributions observed
and simulated changes in climate.
So I will tell you what my conclusion is.
First of all, scientists works by tentative hypotheses, and you
look at data to see whether you can maintain your tentative hy-
pothesis or whether you have to modify it. My tentative hypothesis
would be that the sensitivity has been overestimated, in agreement
with Lindzen and Spencer and a whole host of other scientists; and
that is the prospect that we need to test.
Now, I realize some people might not agree with me on this, be-
cause some people say there is no such thing as climate change,
and some people say, well, yes, climate change is the end of the
world. If you disagree, you can join this Facebook site that ap-
peared and you can take care of me.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Michaels follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF PATRICK J. MICHAELS
Thank you for inviting my testimony. I am a Senior Fellow in Environmental
Studies at the Cato Institute and Distinguished Senior Fellow in the School of Pub-
lic Policy at George Mason University. This testimony represents no official point
of view from either of these institutions and is tendered with the traditional protec-
tions of academic freedom.
90
My testimony has four objectives
1) Demonstration that the rate greenhouse-related warming is clearly below the
mean of climate forecasts from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) that are based upon changes in atmospheric car-
bon dioxide concentrations that are closest to what is actually being ob-
served,
2) demonstration that the Finding of Endangerment from greenhouse gases by
the Environmental Protection Agency is based upon a very dubious and crit-
ical assumption,
3) demonstration that the definition of science as a public good induces certain
biases that substantially devalue efforts to synthesize science, such as those
undertaken by the IPCC and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
(CCSP), and
4) demonstration that there is substantial discontent with governmental and
intergovernmental syntheses of climate change and with policies passed by
this House of Representatives.
‘‘Climate change’’ is nothing new, even climate change induced by human activity.
What matters is not whether or not something so obvious exists, but to what mag-
nitude it exists and how people adapt to such change.
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 estab-
lished before human prehistory. The results are interesting but are highly depend-
ent 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. It is safe
to say that no one—no matter whether he or she works for the government, for in-
dustry, or in education—can tell what our technology will be 100 years from now.
We can only say that if history is to be any guide, it will be radically different from
what we use today and that therefore projecting greenhouse gas emissions so far
into the future is, to choose a word carefully, useless.
One thing we are certain of, though, is that the development of future tech-
nologies depends upon capital investment, and that it would be foolish to continue
to spend such resources in expensive programs that will in fact do nothing signifi-
cant to global temperature.
Fortunately, despite the doomsaying of several, we indeed have the opportunity
to not waste resources now, but instead to invest them much further in the future.
That is because the atmosphere is clearly declaring that the response to changes
in carbon dioxide is much more modest that what appears to be the consensus of
scientific models.
Testimony Objective #1: Greenhouse-related warming is clearly below the

mean of relevant climate forecasts from the IPCC
Figure 1 shows the community of computer model projections from the IPCC’s
‘‘midrange’’ scenario. Observed changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentra-
tions correspond closer to this one than to others. You will note one common char-
acteristic of these models: they predict warmings of a relatively constant rate. This
is because, in large part, the response of temperature to changes in atmospheric car-
bon dioxide is logarithmic (meaning that equal incremental increases produce pro-
portionally less warming as concentration increases), while the increase in carbon
dioxide itself is a low-order exponent rather than a straight line. This combination
tends to produce constant rates of warming.
91
Figure 1. Projected temperature rise over the course of the 21st century from cli-
mate models used in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (colored lines) running
a ‘midrange’’ emissions scenario, with observed temperatures superimposed (red cir-
cles).
The various models just produce different quasi-constant rates. Divining future
warming then becomes rather easy. Do we have a constant rate of warming? And
if so, then we know the future rate, unless the functional form of all of these models
is wrong. And if this is wrong, scientists are so ignorant of this problem, that you
are wasting your time in soliciting our expertise.
How does the observed rate of global temperature increase compare to what is
being projected? For that, we can examine the behavior of literally hundreds of
iterations of these models. For time periods of various lengths, some of these models
will actually produce no significant warming trend (as has been observed since
1996), or even a short-term interval of cooling.
Figure 2 gives us the mean and 95% confidence limits of the midrange family of
IPCC models as well as temperatures observed by the Climate Research Unit at the
University of East Anglia. (More will be said on this history below). It is quite ap-
parent that the observed rates of change are below the mean value forecast by the
IPCC.
Figure 2. Range of climate model probabilities of surface temperature trends (gray

shading) overlaid with the observed surface temperature trend from the Climate Re-
search Unit (blue line) (data through September 2010).
An additional and important discrepancy between the models and reality extends
into the lower atmosphere as well. In the lower atmosphere, climate models expecta-
92
tions are that the degree of warming with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations
should be greater than that experienced at the surface, with the lower atmosphere
warming about 1.4 times faster than the average surface temperature. Despite
claims that observations and models are in agreement (Santer et al., 2008), new
analyses incorporating a large number of both observational datasets as well as cli-
mate model projections, clearly and strongly demonstrate that the surface warming
(which itself is below the model mean) is significantly outpacing the warming in the
lower atmosphere—contrary to climate model expectations. Instead of exhibiting
40% more warming than the surface, the lower atmosphere is warming 25% less—
a statistically significant difference (Christy et al., 2010).
And further, the climate models are faring little better with oceanic temperature
changes. There again, they project far more warming than has been observed. In
a much-publicized paper published in Nature magazine in 2006 (by authors
Gleckler, Wigley, Santer, Gregory, AchutaRao, Taylor, 2006), it was claimed that by
including the cooling influence of a string of large volcanic eruptions starting in
1880, that climate models produced a much closer match to observed trends in ocean
warming than when the models did not include the volcanic impacts. Further, it was
claimed that volcanic eruptions as far back as Krakatoa in 1883 were still signifi-
cantly offsetting warming from human greenhouse gas emissions. However, a soon-
to-be-published paper by one of the Nature paper’s original authors, Jonathan Greg-
ory, shows that the influence of volcanoes was greatly exaggerated as the original
climate models assumed that no major volcanic eruptions had occurred prior to
Krakatoa. In fact, episodic major eruptions are an integral part of the earth’s nat-
ural climate. Gregory shows that had climate models been equilibrated with more
realistic natural conditions, that the long-term impact of volcanoes since the late
19th century would be greatly minimized. In that case, the apparent match between
model simulations and observations of oceanic heat content that was noted by
Gleckler et al. would deteriorate, leaving climate models once again over-responsive
to rising levels of greenhouse gases.
I caution you that analyses of climate models can be highly dependent upon the
time period chosen. There was a major El Nino event in 1998, which is the warmest
year in the instrumental histories. Thus any analysis beginning in this year will
show little warming. On the other hand, if one studies the last twenty years, there
is a major volcano at the beginning of the record (Pinatubo in 1991), so any analysis
beginning then will show anomalously large warming trends.
An example of the time dependency of model validation can be seen in one of the
most famous papers ever published on this subject, by Santer et al. (1996). It was
clearly rushed to print by Nature magazine in order to provide a scientific justifica-
tion for the Second Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Con-
vention on Climate Change, held in Geneva a mere few days after its publication.
The findings were reported in virtually every major newspaper on the planet in this
politically sensitive timeframe.
The analysis shows a remarkable fit between the observed three-dimensional
changes in the atmosphere and what was projected by models between 1963 and
1987. But, indeed, this three-dimensional history actually begins in 1957, and, for
the purposes of this paper, clearly ends in 1995, not 1987.
The major match for this record results from the substantial warming of the
southern hemisphere compared to the northern (Figure 3). Indeed the time evolution
of southern hot spot is striking from 1963 through 1987. But, when all of the data
are used, the warming trend completely disappears.1
1 The attitude displayed in the famous ‘‘climategate’’ emails has a long provenance. This find-
ing was shown in an invited presentation to the American Meteorological Society annual meet-
ing in 1997. A scientist whom I had held in high esteem, Tim Barnett of Scripps Institute of
Oceanography, in the discussion after its presentation, threatened to asphyxiate me with the
microphone cord ‘‘if I ever gave it again’’.
93
Figure 3. Modeled (upper left) and observed (upper right) temperatures changes
throughout the atmosphere. Time series of temperatures in the region of the high-
lighted box in the upper right panel, 1957–1995. Filled circles: 1963–1987; Open cir-
cles, 1957–62 and 1988–95. Use of all the available data clearly changes the result.
Nonetheless, the Geneva conference marked the turning point in international cli-
mate change policy. It was agreed there that at the next conference, in Kyoto, that
the nations of the world would adopt a binding protocol to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions. The resultant Kyoto protocol demonstrably did nothing about climate
change and was an historic, expensive failure that led to the ultimate failure in sub-
sequent policy that took place in Copenhagen last December.
Testimony Objective #2: The Finding of Endangerment from greenhouse

gases by the Environmental Protection Agency is based upon a
very dubious and critical assumption
The reluctance of the Senate to mandate significant reductions in carbon dioxide
emissions has resulted in EPA taking the lead in this activity. Consequently it
issued an ‘‘endangerment finding’’ on December 7, 2009. The key statement in this
Finding is adapted from the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC and from the
CCSP:
Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th
century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG
[greenhouse gas] concentrations. [italics added]
Here the EPA gives us a very testable hypothesis. ‘‘Most’’ means more than 50%.
‘‘Very likely’’, according to the IPCC and CCSP, means with a subjective probability
of between 90 and 95 %. ‘‘Since the mid-20th century’’ means after 1950. So, is more
than half of the warming since 1950 a result of ‘‘the observed increase in anthropo-
genic GHG concentrations?’’
Figure 4 is a plot of observed global surface temperature since 1950 from the Cli-
mate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Note that its linear behavior
is quite striking, with a warming trend of 0.70°C.
94
Figure 4. Annual global average temperature history from 1950 to 2009 (source:
U.K. Hadley Center).
Thompson et al., writing in Nature in 2008, noted that sea-surface temperatures
were measured too cold between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s. Accounting for this
lowers the surface warming trend from 0.70 to 0.55°C; see Figure 5.
U.K. Hadley Center) and adjusted annual global average temperature to remove
SST errors (Thompson et al., 2008).
Late in 2007, Ross McKitrick and I published an analysis of ‘‘non climatic’’ trends
in surface temperature data. While the global effect was not as large as some erro-
neous reports have stated, we found that approximately .08°C of the warming trend
was a result of these factors. We were looking at effects that could only occur over
land, and Thompson et al. was concerned with the ocean, so these two adjustments
are obviously independent, additive, and not from GHG changes. The remaining
warming is now 0.47°C (Figure 6).
95
SST errors (Thompson et al., 2008) and non-climatic influences (McKitrick and Mi-
chaels, 2007).
In January, 2010, in an attempt to explain the lack of significant warming that
has been observed since 1996, Susan Solomon published a new simulation in Science
that took into effect the radiative consequences of changing water vapor in the strat-
osphere. No one really knows why this is happening, but it is not an obvious con-
sequence of changing GHG concentrations. This additional factor drops the warming
to 0.41°C; see Figure 7.
SST errors (Thompson et al., 2008), non-climatic influences (McKitrick and Mi-
chaels, 2007) and the influence of stratospheric water vapor increases (Solomon et
al., 2010).
96
In 2009, Ramanathan and Carmichael reviewed the effects of black carbon—which
is not a GHG—on temperature and concluded it was responsible for approximately
25% of observed warming. This now drops the residual warming to a ceiling of
0.31°C, or 44% of the original 0.70° (Figure 8). Note that this catena of results does
not invoke solar variability, as estimates of its impact on recent climate vary widely
(Scafetta, 2009).
SST errors (Thompson et al., 2008), non-climatic influences (McKitrick and Mi-
chaels, 2007), the influence of stratospheric water vapor increases (Solomon et al.,
2010) and the influence of black carbon aerosols (Ramanathan and Carmichael,
2009).
Consequently EPA’s core statement (as well as that of the IPCC and the CCSP),
‘‘Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th
century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG [green-
house gas] concentrations’’, is not supported.
Testimony Objective #3: The definition of science as a public good induces

certain biases that substantially devalue efforts to synthesize
science, such as those undertaken by the IPCC and the U.S. Cli-
mate Change Science Program (CCSP).
Visitors to the website of Scientific American have been invited to participate in
an ongoing survey on global warming. This survey finds—despite the general envi-
ronmentalist bent of its readership—that only a tiny minority (16%) agree that the
IPCC is ‘‘an effective group of government representatives, scientists, and other ex-
perts’’. 84% agree, however, that it is ‘‘a corrupt organization, prone to groupthink,
with a political agenda’’ (Figure 9). The concordance between the IPCC and the bi-
zarre one-sidedness of the CCSP Synthesis would compel the respondents to say the
same about it, if asked.
97
Figure 9. Only a tiny minority of respondents (16%) agree that the IPCC is ‘‘an ef-
fective group of government representatives, scientists, and other experts’’. 84%
agree, however, that it is ‘‘a corrupt organization, prone to groupthink, with a polit-
ical agenda’’ (Questions 4 from a Scientific American on-line poll, downloaded No-
vember 12, 2010).
This stems from the very nature of modern science, which is treated largely as
a public good, to be funded by taxpayer dollars. But, like other tax-supported enti-
ties, science also competes within itself for attention to its disciplines and problems.
In the environment of Washington, the most emergent or apparently urgent subjects
receive proportional public largesse. With regard to incentives, no scientific commu-
nity ever came into this House of Representatives and claimed that its area of inter-
est was overemphasized and that funding should be directed elsewhere. This is nor-
mal behavior.
However, an implication of this behavior is that the peer-review process is also
populated by a community of incentivized individuals. The test of this hypothesis
would be in fact if that literature were demonstrably biased.
Rather than use the inflammatory subject of climate change as an example, I
draw your attention to the everyday weather forecast. In the US, we recast our glob-
al forecasting models twice a day, based upon three dimensional measurements of
atmospheric state variables that simultaneously updated.
If the initial forecast model is unbiased, each new pieced of information has an
equal probability of either raising or lowering the high temperature forecast three
days from now. And, indeed, that turns out to be the case.
The same should apply to climate science if there is no incentivized bias. In fact,
the ‘‘mainstream’’ community of climate scientists claims this is true. In their Ami-
cus brief in Massachusetts v EPA, the supreme court case that required the EPA
to determine whether or not carbon dioxide caused ‘‘endangerment’’, Battisti et al.,
writing as ‘‘The Climate Scientists’’ state:
Outcomes may turn out better than our best current prediction, but it is just
as possible that environmental and health damages will be more than severe
than the best predictions.
As with the EPA’s use of ‘‘most’’ and ‘‘mid-20th century’’, ‘‘just as possible’’ is a
quantitatively testable hypothesis. In this case, ‘‘The Climate Scientists’’ are stating
that there is an equal probability that a new scientific finding in global warming,
in amount or consequence makes future prospects either worse than previously
thought or not as bad.
I examined 13 consecutive months of Nature and Science to test the hypothesis
of unbias. Over a hundred articles were examined. Of those that demonstrably had
a ‘‘worse than’’ or ‘‘not as bad as’’ component, over 80 were in the ‘‘worse’’ category
and 11 were ‘‘not as bad’’.
The possibility that this did not reflect bias can be determined with a binomial
probability. It is similar to the likelihood that a coin could be tossed 93 times with
only 11 ‘‘heads’’ or ‘‘tails’’. That probability is less than 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.
In fact, climate science holds itself apart from other quantitative fields. Both eco-
nomics and biomedical science acknowledge this problem, known as ‘‘publication
98
bias’’ when doing meta-analyses. It a concept is completely foreign to the dominant
mainstream in my profession, in the IPCC and in the CCSP.
Testimony Objective #4: There is substantial discontent with governmental

and intergovernmental syntheses of climate change and with poli-
cies passed by this House of Representatives.
In response to a perceived political need for mandated reductions to demonstrate
our national resolve at Copenhagen, this House passed a cap-and-trade bill on June
26, 2009. The Senate never considered such legislation and it will rest when this
Congress adjourns.
The survey by Scientific American shows the unpopularity of this approach. Fig-
ure 10 shows that only 7.5% of nearly 7,000 respondents say cap and trade was the
course that should have been taken.
Figure 10. Only 7.5% of nearly 7,000 respondents said cap and trade was the
course that should have been taken (Questions 7 from a Scientific American on-line
poll, downloaded November 12, 2010).
Conclusion
I hope to have demonstrated in this testimony that observed warming rates are
certainly below the mean of the most likely suite of climate models, and that the
finding of endangerment by the EPA is based upon an important assumption that
may not be true.
Further, science and scientists are demonstrably incentivized, as publicly funded
goods, in ways that make any synthesis of the scientific literature highly susceptible
to bias. Finally, an ongoing survey by Scientific American reveals profound distrust
of scientific institutions such as the IPCC, and by extension, the CCSP, probably
caused by the incentives noted above.
References:
Battisti, D., et al., 2006. Brief of the Amici Curiae Climate Scientists David Battisti
et al. Supreme Court of the United States, case 05–1120. 30pp.
Christy, J. R., et al. 2010. What do observational datasets say about modeled tropo-
spheric temperature trends since 1979? Remote Sensing, 2, 2148–2169,
doi:10.3390/rs2092148.
99
Gleckler, P. J., T. M. L. Wigley, B. D. Santer, J. M. Gregory, K. AchutaRao, and
K. E. Taylor, 2006. Krakatoa’s signature persists in the ocean. Nature, 439, 675,
doi:10.1038/439675a.
Gregory, J. M., 2010. The long-term effect of volcanic forcing on ocean heat content.
Geophysical Research Letters, in press.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Phys-
ical Basis. Solomon S., et al. (eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
U.K., 996 pp.
McKitrick, R. R., and P. J. Michaels, 2007. Quantifying the influence of anthropo-
genic surface processes inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data. Journal
of Geophysical Research, 112, D24S09, doi:10.1029/2007JD008465.
Michaels, P.J., and P. C. Knappenberger, 1996. Human effect on global climate? Na-
ture, 384, 522–523.
Michaels, P.J., 2008. Evidence for ‘‘publication bias’’ concerning global warming in
Science and Nature. Energy & Environment, 19, 287–301
Ramanathan V., and G. Carmichael, 2009. Global and regional climate changes due
to black carbon. Nature GeoScience, 1, 221–227.
Santer, B.D., et al., 1996. A search for human influences on the thermal structure
of the atmosphere. Nature, 382, 39–46.
Santer, B.D., et al., 2008. Consistency of modeled and observed temperature trends
in the tropical troposphere. International Journal of Climatology. doi:10.1002/
joc.1756.
Scafetta, N., 2009. Empirical analysis of the solar contribution to global mean air
surface temperature change. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial
Physics, 71, 1916–1923.
Solomon, S., et al. 2010. Contributions of stratospheric water vapor to decadal
changes in the rate of global warming. Science, published on-line January 28,
2010.
Thompson, D., et al., 2008. A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in
observed global-mean surface temperature. Nature, 453, 646–649.
BIOGRAPHY FOR PATRICK J. MICHAELS

Patrick J. Michaels is Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Insti-
tute Distinguished Senior Fellow in the School of Public Policy at George Mason
University. He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatolo-
gists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the Amer-
ican Meteorological Society. Michaels was also a research professor of Environ-
mental Sciences at University of Virginia for thirty years. Michaels was a contrib-
uting author and is a reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. His writing has
been published in the major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic
Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science, as
well as in popular serials worldwide. He was an author of the climate ‘‘paper of the
year’’ awarded by the Association of American Geographers in 2004. He has ap-
peared on most of the worldwide major media. Michaels holds A.B. and S.M. degrees
in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and he re-
ceived a Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison
in 1979.
Michaels is the author of five books on climate change, the latest of which is Cli-
mate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know (Cato
Books, 2009).
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Santer.
STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN D. SANTER, ATMOSPHERIC SCI-

ENTIST, PROGRAM FOR CLIMATE MODEL DIAGNOSIS AND
INTERCOMPARISON, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL
LABORATORY
Dr. SANTER. Thank you very much, Chairman Baird, for the op-
portunity to talk to you here today about climate change and have
a rational discussion.
100
I am not going to address some of the issues that Professor Mi-

chaels raised. I hope that I may be able to do so in the question
and answer session.
Today is November the 17th, and my dad was born 91 years ago
on November the 17th, 1919.
This figure is from the report which was published last year by
the U.S. Global Change Program, Global Climate Change Impacts
in the United States; and what you see on the right-hand side is
a scale that shows you the change in atmospheric CO2 levels, as
Dr. Cicerone mentioned earlier, measured worldwide. On the left-
hand side, the temperature change, this difficult estimate of the av-
erage temperature of the planet.
And the point I want to illustrate with this is over a human life-
time there has been a change from roughly 300 parts per million
per volume CO2 in the atmosphere to 390. That’s not a belief sys-
tem. People often ask me, Dr. Santer, do you believe in global
warming? I believe in facts and evidence. This is a fact. I think we
can all agree on this.
So the question is, what did this change in atmospheric composi-
tion do, if anything? Well, that’s a difficult question to answer. Cli-
mate change is not an either/or proposition. It’s not either all
human influences or all natural influences. Clearly, many things
are happening simultaneously: massive volcanic eruptions, changes
in the Sun’s energy output, human changes in greenhouse gases,
and aerosol particles. The difficulty is separating the natural fac-
tors from the nonnatural factors.
In the real world, of course, we can’t do that. We have no undis-
turbed Earth without any human intervention. But with computer
models of the climate system we can look purely at the natural fac-
101
tors, and that’s what you see here, and how they may have
changed over the 20th century, changes in the Sun’s energy output
and volcanic aerosols.
You use a computer model, many computer models in this case,

and what you can see is that just with natural factors you can’t ex-
plain the warming we have observed over the second half of the
20th century. When you have put in combined human and natural
factors, you can.
Now, this isn’t convincing evidence. I agree with Dr. Lindzen on
that point. He said, you know, if you just look at global tempera-
ture alone it’s difficult to make reliable influences about causation.
And that’s why, as scientists since 1979, since the first paper on
fingerprinting, we have looked beyond the global mean. We have
looked at complex patterns of climate change. And what you see
here, again from last year’s Global Climate Change Impacts in the
United States report, is a model-based estimate of the fingerprints
of different factors which affect climate.
102
And there are five different fingerprints up there. There are

changes in well-mixed greenhouse gases. There are changes in sul-
fate aerosol particles. Both of those are human. Sulfate aerosols are
produced by the burning of fossil fuels. Then there are changes in
stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, changes in volcanic aerosols,
solar irradiance, and then the final pattern is all factors considered
together.
Now, I don’t want to go into the details. The key point here is
that they are all different. And what we are doing here is we are
looking at slices of the atmosphere from the Earth’s surface right
up to 20 miles, and from the North Pole to the South Pole; and
these are model-based estimates of changes in temperature over
the last 50 years of the 20th century. They are different, and we
exploit those differences in fingerprinting to try and understand
cause and effect relationships.
As you have heard, some people still posit even today that the
Sun explains everything. That is a testable hypothesis. We rou-
tinely look at that hypothesis. Our best understanding is, if the
Sun’s energy output had slightly increased over the last 50 years,
there would be more solar energy arriving at the top of the atmos-
phere; we would see heating throughout the full vertical extent of
the atmosphere. We don’t see that.
103
The reality is that the observations look much more similar to

the top fingerprint, the signature of well-mixed greenhouse gases.
They don’t look anything like the Sun explains everything.
Also, as Dr. Cicerone mentioned earlier, for the last 30 years we

have measured with a number of different satellite instruments the
Sun’s energy output in space, and we know that there are these 11-
104
year cycles, but there is no overall increase in temperature in solar

irradiance over the last 30 years. There is, however, an increase in
temperature over the last 30 years. So the Sun explains everything
does not convincingly explain observed climate change. It doesn’t fit
the bill.
Now, back at the time when this fingerprinting work first came
to the fore, Professor Michaels mentioned that in the mid-1990s it
was criticized. Quite rightly, I believe. People said if there really
is a human-caused fingerprint in observations, go look in many dif-
ferent locations, not just at the at the surface of the Earth, not just
in atmospheric temperatures. But look in rainfall, look in moisture,
look in pressure patterns. And that’s exactly what the community
has done. The community has looked in many different aspects of
the climate system, used these statistical rigorous comparisons to
look at patterns of change, not global mean numbers, and has been
able to show that the changes in all of these things are not con-
sistent with natural causation alone. Now, you may not like that
result, but that’s our best understanding that we have. The climate
system is telling us an internally and physically consistent story.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Santer follows:]
BIOGRAPHY AND PREPARED STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN D. SANTER
1. Biographical information
My name is Benjamin Santer. I am a climate scientist. I work at the Program
for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. I am testifying today as a member of
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and of PCMDI.
I have been employed at PCMDI since 1992. PCMDI was established in 1989 by
the U.S. Department of Energy, and has been at LLNL since then. PCMDI’s mission
is to quantify how well computer models simulate important aspects of present-day
and historical climate, and to reduce uncertainties in model projections of future cli-
mate change.
PCMDI is not engaged in developing its own computer model of the climate sys-
tem (‘‘climate model ’’). Instead, we study the performance of all the world’s major
climate models. We also coordinate international climate modeling simulations, and
help the entire climate science community to analyze and evaluate climate models.
I have a Ph.D. in Climatology from the Climatic Research Unit of the University
of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. I went to the Climatic Research Unit in 1983
because it was (and still is) one of the world’s premier institutions for studying past,
present, and future climate. During the course of my Ph.D., I was privileged to work
together with exceptional scientists—with people like Tom Wigley, Phil Jones, Keith
Briffa, and Sarah Raper.
My thesis explored the use of so-called ‘‘Monte Carlo’’ methods in assessing the
quality of different climate models. After completing my Ph.D. in 1987, I spent five
years at the MaxPlanck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. During my
time in Hamburg, I worked with Professor Klaus Hasselmann on the development
and application of ‘‘fingerprint’’ methods, which are valuable tools for improving our
understanding of the nature and causes of climate change.
Much of the following testimony is adapted from a chapter Tom Wigley and I re-
cently published in a book edited by the late Professor Stephen Schneider (1), and
from previous testimony I gave to the House Select Committee on Energy Independ-
ence and Global Warming (2).
2. Introduction
In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was jointly es-
tablished by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Envi-
ronment Programme. The goals of this panel were threefold: to assess available sci-
entific information on climate change, to evaluate the environmental and societal
impacts of climate change, and to formulate response strategies. The IPCC’s first
major scientific assessment, published in 1990, concluded that ‘‘unequivocal detec-
105
tion of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely for a decade
or more’’ (3).
In 1996, the IPCC’s second scientific assessment made a more definitive state-
ment regarding human impacts on climate, and concluded that ‘‘the balance of evi-
dence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate’’ (4). This cautious
sentence marked a paradigm shift in our scientific understanding of the causes of
recent climate change. The shift arose for a variety of reasons. Chief amongst these
was the realization that the cooling effects of sulfate aerosol particles (which are
produced by burning fossil fuels that contain sulfates) had partially masked the
warming signal arising from increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse
gases (5).
A further major area of progress was the increasing use of ‘‘fingerprint’’ studies
(6, 7, 8). The strategy in this type of research is to search for a ‘‘fingerprint’’ (the
climate change pattern predicted by a computer model) in observed climate records.
The underlying assumption in fingerprinting is that each ‘‘forcing’’ of climate—such
as changes in the Sun’s energy output, volcanic dust, sulfate aerosols, or greenhouse
gas concentrations—has a unique pattern of climate response (see Figure 1). Finger-
print studies apply signal processing techniques very similar to those used in elec-
trical engineering (6). They allow researchers to make rigorous tests of competing
hypotheses regarding the causes of recent climate change.
The third IPCC assessment was published in 2001, and went one step further
than its predecessor. The third assessment reported on the magnitude of the human
effect on climate. It found that ‘‘There is new and stronger evidence that most of
the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities’’ (9).
This conclusion was based on improved estimates of natural climate variability, bet-
ter reconstructions of temperature fluctuations over the last millennium, continued
warming of the climate system, refinements in fingerprint methods, and the use of
results from more (and improved) climate models, driven by more accurate and com-
plete estimates of the human and natural ‘‘forcings’’ of climate.
This gradual strengthening of scientific confidence in the reality of human influ-
ences on global climate continued in the IPCC AR4 report, which stated that ‘‘warm-
ing of the climate system is unequivocal’’, and that ‘‘most of the observed increase
in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the
observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’’ (10) (where
‘‘very likely’’ signified >90% probability that the statement is correct). The AR4 re-
port justified this increase in scientific confidence on the basis of ‘‘. . . longer and
improved records, an expanded range of observations and improvements in the sim-
ulation of many aspects of climate and its variability’’ (10). In its contribution to the
AR4, IPCC Working Group II concluded that anthropogenic warming has had a dis-
cernible influence not only on the physical climate system, but also on a wide range
of biological systems which respond to climate (11).
106
Figure 1: Climate simulations of the vertical profile of temperature change due to

five different factors, and the effect due to all factors taken together. The panels
above represent a cross-section of the atmosphere from the North Pole to the South
Pole, and from the surface up into the stratosphere. The black lines show the ap-
proximate location of the tropopause, the boundary between the lower atmosphere
(the troposphere) and the stratosphere. This Figure is reproduced from Karl et al.
(12).
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof (13). The IPCC’s extraordinary
claim that human activities significantly altered both the chemical composition of
Earth’s atmosphere and the climate system has received extraordinary scrutiny.
This claim has been independently corroborated by the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences (14), the Science Academies of eleven nations (15), and the Synthesis and
Assessment Products of the U.S. Climate Change Science Plan (16). Many of our
professional scientific organizations have also affirmed the reality of a human influ-
ence on global climate (17).
Despite the overwhelming evidence of pronounced anthropogenic effects on cli-
mate, important uncertainties remain in our ability to quantify the human influ-
ence. The experiment that we are performing with the Earth’s atmosphere lacks a
suitable control: we do not have a convenient ‘‘undisturbed Earth’’, which would pro-
vide a reference against which we could measure the anthropogenic contribution to
climate change. We must therefore rely on numerical models and paleoclimate evi-
dence (18, 19, 20) to estimate how the Earth’s climate might have evolved in the
absence of any human intervention. Such sources of information will always have
significant uncertainties.
107
In the following testimony, I provide a personal perspective on recent develop-
ments in the field of detection and attribution (‘‘D&A’’) research. Such research is
directed towards detecting significant climate change, and then attributing some
portion of the detected change to a specific cause or causes (21, 22, 23, 24). I also
make some brief remarks about openness and data sharing in the climate modeling
community, and accommodation of ‘‘alternative’’ views in the IPCC.
3. Recent Progress in Detection and Attribution Research
Fingerprinting
The IPCC and National Academy findings that human activities are affecting
global-scale climate are based on multiple lines of evidence:
1. Our continually-improving physical understanding of the climate system, and
of the human and natural factors that cause climate to change;
2. Evidence from paleoclimate reconstructions, which enables us to place the
warming of the 20th century in a longer-term context (25, 26);
3. The qualitative consistency between observed changes in different aspects of
the climate system and model predictions of the changes that should be oc-
curring in response to human influences (10, 27);
4. Evidence from rigorous quantitative fingerprint studies, which compare ob-
served patterns of climate change with results from computer model simula-
tions.
Most of my testimony will focus on the fingerprint evidence, since this is within
my own area of scientific expertise.
As noted above, fingerprint studies search for some pattern of climate change (the
‘‘fingerprint’’) in observational data. The fingerprint can be estimated in different
ways, but is typically obtained from a computer model experiment in which one or
more human factors are varied according to the best-available estimates of their his-
torical changes. Different statistical techniques are then applied to quantify the
level of agreement between the fingerprint and observations and between the finger-
print and estimates of the natural internal variability of climate. This enables re-
searchers to make rigorous tests of competing hypotheses (28) regarding the possible
causes of recent climate change (21, 22, 23, 24).
While early fingerprint work dealt almost exclusively with changes in near-sur-
face or atmospheric temperature, more recent studies have applied fingerprint
methods to a range of different variables, such as changes in ocean heat content (29,
30), Atlantic salinity (31), sea-level pressure (32), tropopause height (33), rainfall
patterns (34, 35), surface humidity (36), atmospheric moisture (37, 38), continental
river runoff (39), and Arctic sea ice extent (40). The general conclusion is that for
each of these variables, natural causes alone cannot explain the observed climate
changes over the second half of the 20th century. The best statistical explanation
of the observed climate changes invariably involves a large human contribution.
These fingerprint results are robust to the processing choices made by different
groups, and show a high level of physical consistency across different climate vari-
ables. For example, observed atmospheric water vapor increases (41) are physically
consistent with increases in ocean heat content (42, 43) and near-surface tempera-
ture (44, 45).
There are a number of popular misconceptions about fingerprint evidence. One
misconception is that fingerprint studies consider global-mean temperatures only,
and thus provide a very poor constraint on the relative contributions of human and
natural factors to observed changes (46). In fact, fingerprint studies rely on informa-
tion about the detailed spatial structure (and often the combined space and time
structure) of observed and simulated climate changes. Complex patterns provide
much stronger constraints on the possible contributions of different factors to ob-
served climate changes (47, 48, 49).
Another misconception is that computer model estimates of natural internal cli-
mate variability (‘‘climate noise’’) are accepted uncritically in fingerprint studies,
and are never tested against observations (50). This is demonstrably untrue. Many
fingerprint studies test whether model estimates of climate noise are realistic. Such
tests are routinely performed on year-to-year and decade-to-decade timescales,
where observational data are of sufficient length to obtain reliable estimates of ob-
served climate variability (51, 52, 53, 54).
Because regional-scale climate changes will determine societal impacts, finger-
print studies are increasingly shifting their focus from global to regional scales (55).
Such regional studies face a number of challenges. One problem is that the noise
of natural internal climate variability typically becomes larger when averaged over
108
increasingly finer scales (56), so that identifying regional and local climate signals
becomes more difficult.
Another problem relates to the climate ‘‘forcings’’ used in computer model simula-
tions of historical climate change. As scientific attention shifts to ever smaller spa-
tial scales, it becomes more important to obtain reliable information about these
forcings. Some forcings are both uncertain and highly variable in space and time
(57, 58). Examples include human-induced changes in land surface properties (59)
or in the concentrations of carbon-containing aerosols (60,61). Neglect or inaccurate
specification of these factors complicates D&A studies.
Despite these problems, numerous researchers have now shown that the climate
signals of greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols are identifiable at continental and
sub-continental scales in many different regions around the globe (62, 63, 64, 65).
Related work (66, 67) suggests that a human-caused climate signal has already
emerged from the background noise at spatial scales at or below 500 km (68), and
may be contributing to regional changes in the distributions of plant and animal
species (69).
In summarizing this section of my testimony, I note that the focus of fingerprint
research has evolved over time. Its initial emphasis was on global-scale changes in
Earth’s surface temperature. Subsequent research demonstrated that human finger-
prints were identifiable in many different aspects of the climate system—not in sur-
face temperature only. We are now on the verge of detecting human effects on cli-
mate at much finer regional scales of direct relevance to policymakers, and in vari-
ables tightly linked to climate change impacts (70, 71, 72, 73, 74).
Assessing Risks of Changes in Extreme Events

We are now capable of making informed scientific statements regarding the influ-
ence of human activities on the likelihood of extreme events (75, 76, 77).
As noted previously, computer models can be used to perform the control experi-
ment (no human effects on climate) that we cannot perform in the real world. Using
the ‘‘unforced’’ climate variability from a multi-century control run, it is possible to
determine how many times an extreme event of a given magnitude should have
been observed in the absence of human interference. The probability of obtaining
the same extreme event is then calculated in a perturbed climate—for example, in
a model experiment with historical or future increases in greenhouse gases, or
under some specified change in mean climate (78). Comparison of the frequencies
of extremes in the control and perturbed experiments allows climate scientists to
make probabilistic statements about how human-induced climate change may have
altered the likelihood of the extreme event (53, 78, 79). This is sometimes referred
to as an assessment of ‘‘fractional attributable risk’’ (78).
Recently, a ‘‘fractional attributable risk’’ study of the 2003 European summer heat
wave concluded that ‘‘there is a greater than 90% chance that over half the risk of
European summer temperatures exceeding a threshold of 1.6 K is attributable to
human influence on climate’’ (78).
This study (and related work) illustrates that the ‘‘D&A’’ community has moved
beyond analysis of changes in the mean state of the climate. We now apply rigorous
statistical methods to the problem of estimating how human activities may alter the
probability of occurrence extreme events. The demonstration of human culpability
in changing these risks is likely to have significant implications for the debate on
policy responses to climate change.
4. Summary of Detection and Attribution Evidence

In evaluating how well a novel has been crafted, it is important to look at the
internal consistency of the plot. Critical readers examine whether the individual
storylines are neatly woven together, and whether the internal logic makes sense.
We can ask similar questions about the ‘‘story’’ contained in observational records
of climate change. The evidence from numerous sources (paleoclimate data, rigorous
fingerprint studies, and qualitative comparisons of modeled and observed climate
changes) shows that the climate system is telling us an internally consistent story
about the causes of recent climate change.
Over the last century, we have observed large and coherent changes in many dif-
ferent aspects of Earth’s climate. The oceans and land surface have warmed (29, 30,
42, 43, 44, 45, 80, 81). Atmospheric moisture has increased (36, 37, 38, 41). Rainfall
patterns have changed (34, 35). Glaciers have retreated over most of the globe (82,
83, 84). The Greenland Ice Sheet has lost some of its mass (85). Sea level has risen
(86). Snow and sea-ice extent have decreased in the Northern Hemisphere (40, 87,
88, 89). The stratosphere has cooled (90), and there are now reliable indications that
the troposphere has warmed (16, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100). The height
109
of the tropopause has increased (33). Individually, all of these changes are con-
sistent with our scientific understanding of how the climate system should be re-
sponding to anthropogenic forcing. Collectively, this behavior is inconsistent with
the changes that we would expect to occur due to natural variability alone.
There is now compelling scientific evidence that human activity has had a dis-
cernible influence on global climate. However, there are still significant uncertain-
ties in our estimates of the size and geographical distribution of the climate changes
projected to occur over the 21st century (10). These uncertainties make it difficult
for us to assess the magnitude of the mitigation and adaptation problem that faces
us and our descendants. The dilemma that confronts us, as citizens and stewards
of this planet, is how to act in the face of both hard scientific evidence that our ac-
tions are altering global climate and continuing uncertainty in the magnitude of the
planetary warming that faces us.
5. Openness and Data Sharing in the Climate Modeling Community
Recently, concerns have been expressed about ease of access to the information
produced by computer models of the climate system. ‘‘Climate modeling’’ is some-
times portrayed as a secretive endeavor. This is not the case.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the evaluation and intercomparison of climate models
was largely a qualitative endeavor, mostly performed by modelers themselves. It
often involved purely visual examination of maps from a single model and observa-
tions (or from several different models). There were no standard benchmark experi-
ments, and there was little or no community involvement in model diagnosis. It was
difficult to track changes in model performance over time (101).
This situation changed dramatically with the start of the Atmospheric Model
Intercomparison Project (AMIP) in the early 1990s. AMIP involved running different
Atmospheric General Circulation Models (AGCMs) with observed sea-surface tem-
peratures and sea-ice changes over 1979 to 1988. Approximately 30 modeling groups
from 10 different countries participated in the design and diagnosis of the AGCM
simulations. Subsequent ‘‘revisits’’ of AMIP enabled the climate community to track
changes in model performance over time (102).
The next major Model Intercomparison Project (‘‘MIP’’) began in the mid-1990s.
In phase 1 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP–1), over a dozen
fully-coupled Atmosphere/Ocean General Circulation Models (A/OGCMs) were used
to study the response of the climate system to an idealized climate-change sce-
nario—a 1% per year (compound interest) increase in levels of atmospheric CO2
(103). The key aspect here was that each modeling group performed the same
benchmark simulation, allowing scientists to focus their attention on the task of
quantifying (and understanding) uncertainties in computer model projections of fu-
ture climate change.
AMIP and CMIP have spawned literally dozens of other international Model
Intercomparison Projects. ‘‘MIPs’’ are now a de facto standard in the climate science
community. They have allowed climate scientists to:
• Identify systematic errors common to many different models;
• Track changes in model performance over time (in individual models and col-
lectively);
• Make informed statements about the relative quality of different models;
• Quantify uncertainties in model projections of future climate change.
Full community involvement in ‘‘MIPs’’ has led to more thorough model diagnosis,
and to improved climate models.
Perhaps the best-known model intercomparison is phase 3 of CMIP. The CMIP–
3 project was a valuable resource for the Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) of the
IPCC (10). In the course of CMIP–3, simulation output was collected from 25 dif-
ferent A/OGCMs. The models used in these simulations were from 17 modeling cen-
ters and 13 countries. Twelve different types of simulation were performed with
each model. The simulations included so-called ‘‘climate of the 20th century’’ experi-
ments (with estimated historical changes in greenhouse gases, various aerosol par-
ticles, volcanic dust, solar irradiance, etc.), pre-industrial control runs (with no
changes in human or natural climate forcings), and scenarios of future changes in
greenhouse gases. All of the simulation output was stored at LLNL’s PCMDI.
At present, 35 Terabytes of CMIP–3 data are archived at PCMDI, and nearly 1
Petabyte of model output (1 Petabyte = 1015 bytes) has been distributed to over
4,300 users in several dozen countries. The CMIP–3 multi-model archive has trans-
formed the world of climate science. As of November 2010, over 560 peer-reviewed
publications used CMIP–3 data. These publications formed the scientific backbone
of the IPCC FAR. The CMIP–3 archive provided the basis for roughly 75% of the
110
figures in Chapters 8–11 of the Fourth Assessment Report, and for 4 of the 7 figures
in the IPCC ‘‘Summary for Policymakers’’ (10).
The CMIP–3 database can be used by anyone, free of charge. It is one of the most
successful data-sharing models in any scientific community—not just the climate
science community.
6. Accommodation of ‘‘alternative’’ views in the IPCC

Some parties critical of the IPCC have claimed that it does not accommodate the
full range of scientific views on the subject of the nature and causes of climate
change. In my opinion, such claims are specious. I would contend that all four pre-
vious IPCC Assessments (3, 4, 9, 10) have dealt with ‘‘alternative viewpoints’’ in a
thorough and comprehensive way. The IPCC reports have devoted extraordinary sci-
entific attention to a number of highly-publicized (and incorrect) claims.
Examples include the claim that the tropical lower troposphere cooled over the
satellite era; that the water vapor feedback is zero or negative; that variations in
the Sun’s energy output explain all observed climate change. The climate science
community has not dismissed these claims out of hand. Scientists have done the re-
search necessary to determine whether these ‘‘alternative viewpoints’’ are scientif-
ically credible, and have shown that they are not.
7. Concluding Thoughts
My job is to evaluate climate models and improve our scientific understanding of
the nature and causes of climate change. I chose this profession because of a deep
and abiding curiosity about the world in which we live. The same intellectual curi-
osity motivates virtually all climate scientists I know.
As my testimony indicates, the scientific evidence is compelling. We know, beyond
a shadow of a doubt, that human activities have changed the composition of Earth’s
atmosphere. And we know that these human-caused changes in the levels of green-
house gases make it easier for the atmosphere to trap heat. This is simple, basic
physics. While there is legitimate debate in the scientific community about the size
of the human effect on climate, there is really no serious scientific debate about the
scientific finding that our planet warmed over the last century, and that human ac-
tivities are implicated in this warming.
References and notes

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113
46 The argument here is that some anthropogenic ‘‘forcings’’ of climate (particularly
the so-called indirect forcing caused by the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on
cloud properties) are highly uncertain, so that many different combinations of
these factors could yield the same global-mean changes. While this is a valid
concern for global-mean temperature changes, it is highly unlikely that different
combinations of forcing factors could produce the same complex space-time pat-
terns of climate change (see Figure 1).
47 Some researchers have argued that most of the observed near-surface warming
over the 20th century is attributable to an overall increase in the Sun’s energy
output. The effect of such an increase would be to warm most of the atmosphere
(from the Earth’s surface through the stratosphere; see Figure 1, lower left
panel). Such behavior is not seen in observations. While temperature measure-
ments from satellites and weather balloons do show warming of the tropo-
sphere, they also indicate that the stratosphere has cooled over the past 2–4
decades (ref. 16). Stratospheric cooling is fundamentally inconsistent with a
’solar forcing only’ hypothesis of observed climate change, but is consistent with
simulations of the response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases and
ozone decreases (see Figures 1, top left and middle left panels). The possibility
of a large solar forcing effect has been further weakened by recent research in-
dicating that changes in solar luminosity on multi-decadal timescales are likely
to be significantly smaller than previously thought (refs. 48, 49).
48 Foukal, P., G. North, and T.M.L. Wigley, 2004: A stellar view on solar variations
and climate. Science, 306, 68–69.
49 Foukal, P., C. Frohlich, H. Spruit, and T.M.L. Wigley, 2006: Physical mecha-
nisms of solar luminosity variation, and its effect on climate. Nature, 443, 161–
166.
50 In order to assess whether observed climate changes over the past century are
truly unusual, we require information on the amplitude and structure of climate
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measurements are of insufficient length to provide such information. This
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Chairman BAIRD. Thank you Dr. Santer.
Dr. Alley.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD B. ALLEY, EVAN PUGH PROFESSOR,

DEPARTMENT OF GEOSCIENCES AND EARTH AND ENVIRON-
MENTAL SYSTEMS INSTITUTE, THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE
UNIVERSITY
Dr. ALLEY. Yes. Thank you for the honor, Chairman Baird, Mr.
Rohrabacher. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Your body has, in its wisdom, established mechanisms to gain an
assessment of the science. Because, as you know, the lead scientists
sometimes can argue about things. In fact, you pay us to argue
about things. We love arguing about things. And so you have set
up things such as the National Academy to give you assessments
116
that are outside of the argument and say, what does the science
say?
And if you look at the assessments, the science is now very clear
for my interests, or especially with ice as well as climate history.
And the science says that the ice is melting almost everywhere, al-
most all of it consistent with warming.
There are a few really cold places, the top of Greenland and the
frozen ocean water around Antarctica, that increasing precipitation
has still been controlling. And that is also consistent with our un-
derstanding of the effects of warming, and that is expected to
switch to shrinkage in the fairly near future.
So when we look at the world, what we see is ice shrinking be-
cause it’s getting warmer. And in fact you can estimate the warm-
ing from looking at how much the ice shrinks. And that agrees
with the thermometers.
117
This is the plot of melting of mountain glaciers contributing to

the global sea level rise. You will find people that put the plum-
meting one there and say catastrophe, and you will find people that
look at that blue one on top that’s Norway that grew a little bit
before it started shrinking, or they look at one wiggle in that black
one, which is the Himalayas, and they say, oh, nothing’s hap-
pening. If you look at those curves, the mountain glaciers assessed
taken together are shrinking, and they are contributing to sea level
rise. And there is really no serious question about that.
118
Now, if we want to know what happens in the future, this is a

very complicated plot, and I hope that you don’t look in any great
detail at it. This is how much warming we expect from rising CO2.
And this particular one is if you just doubled CO2 and then let the
climate come into equilibrium how much warming. We may go way
past doubled CO2. But the blue number up there, which is a little
over five degrees Fahrenheit, is sort of the most likely. If you could
bet on one horse, you would bet on that horse.
You have heard Dr. Michaels and earlier you heard Dr. Lindzen
arguing, well, couldn’t it be lower than that, down the green arrow?
And it certainly could be. That’s within the realm of scientific pos-
sibility. But the orange arrow shows that it could be higher than
that, and the red arrow shows it could be a lot higher than that.
You have now sort of had a discussion or a debate here between
people who are giving you the blue one and people giving you the
green one. This is certainly not both sides. If you want both sides
of it, we would have to have somebody in here who is screaming
hairy panic conniption fit on the red end. But you are hearing just
one, very optimistic side—we wish that Dr. Michaels and Dr.
Lindzen were correct—against the assessed central value.
119
Now, when we look at the impacts of warming we get the same

sort of story. The IPCC looked at sea level rise, and they said, well,
this century it’s probably not going to be huge. But that excludes
anything weird that the ice sheets do. And we are very nervous be-
cause the ice sheets have started doing something weird, and they
started doing it a hundred years before we expected them to from
the previous assessment. So when you look at sea level rise, what
you find is that it’s going to rise. There is virtually no way to avoid
that. But there is a big unknown.
And so if you look at what people have been planning for, it’s
something. It might be a little better, a little worse, or a lot worse.
But we don’t find any evidence for a lot better. The ice sheets are
already shrinking, and they are shrinking way before we expected
them to.
120
Now, we do not believe in any way that you could melt a whole
ice sheet in mere decades. But we are very nervous that within
decades we could get warm enough to melt a whole ice sheet. Now,
Greenland would be seven meters plus of sea level. Antarctica is
very much bigger than Greenland. The last estimate I saw, ten per-
cent of the world population lives within 10 meters of sea level. So
the amount of ice which is in play is huge for people and where
they live and what they do.
We don’t have really reliable projections, but we do see sea level
rising and the possibility that this century we get to a point where
we are committed to very, very large rises. So what the planning
people have been doing on this is our best estimate. It could be a
little better, a little worse, or a lot worse, where worse I mean larg-
er impacts on people.
So, just to summarize then, it’s getting warmer. That’s melting
ice. This is all consistent with what we understand about what
should happen. Everything is in there. We keep hoping that we
have overestimated the impacts, it will be better than that. But if
you plot all of the unknowns, it could be a little better, a little
worse, or a lot worse.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Alley follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD B. ALLEY
Introduction. My name is Richard Alley. I am Evan Pugh Professor of Geo-

sciences and Associate of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at the
Pennsylvania State University. I have authored over 200 refereed scientific papers,
which are ‘‘highly cited’’ according to a prominent indexing service, and I have made
many hundreds of public presentations concerning my areas of expertise. My re-
search is especially focused on the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica,
their potential for causing major changes in sea level, the climate records they con-
tain, and their other interactions with the environment; I also study mountain gla-
ciers, and ice sheets of the past. I have served with distinguished national and
international teams on major scientific assessment bodies, including chairing the
National Research Council’s Panel on Abrupt Climate Change (report published in
121
2002), and serving the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in var-
ious ways, and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. I had the honor of testi-
fying to the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House Committee
on Science and Technology in 2007; my testimony today updates and extends the
material I presented then.
Background on Climate Change and Global Warming. Scientific assess-
ments such as those of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (e.g.,
National Research Council, 1975; 1979; 2001; 2006; 2008; 2010a; 2010b), the U.S.
Climate Change Science Program, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change have for decades consistently found with increasingly high scientific con-
fidence that human activities are raising the concentration of CO2 and other green-
house gases in the atmosphere, that this has a warming effect on the climate, that
the climate is warming as expected, and that the changes so far are small compared
to those projected if humans burn much of the fossil fuel on the planet.
The basis for expecting and understanding warming from CO2 is the fundamental
physics of how energy interacts with gases in the atmosphere. This knowledge has
been available for over a century, was greatly refined by military research after
World War II, and is directly confirmed by satellite measurements and other data
(e.g., American Institute of Physics, 2008; Harries et al., 2001; Griggs and Harries,
2007).
Although a great range of ideas can be found in scientific papers and in state-
ments by individual scientists, the scientific assessments by bodies such as the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences consider the full range of available information. The
major results brought forward are based on multiple lines of evidence provided by
different research groups with different funding sources, and have repeatedly been
tested and confirmed. Removing the work of any scientist or small group of sci-
entists would still leave a strong scientific basis for the main conclusions.
Ice Changes. There exists increasingly strong evidence for widespread, ongoing
reductions in the Earth’s ice, including snow, river and lake ice, Arctic sea ice, per-
mafrost and seasonally frozen ground, mountain glaciers, and the great ice sheets
of Greenland and Antarctica. The trends from warming are modified by effects of
changing precipitation and of natural variability, as I will discuss soon, so not all
ice everywhere is always shrinking. Nonetheless, warming is important in the over-
all loss of ice, although changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation in response
to natural or human causes also have contributed and will continue to contribute
to changes. The most recent assessment by the IPCC remains relevant (Lemke et
al., 2007). Also see the assessment of the long climatic history of the Arctic by the
U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP, 2009), showing that in the past
warming has led to shrinkage of Arctic ice including sea ice and the Greenland ice
sheet, and that sufficiently large warming has removed them entirely.
The large snowfalls that closed much of Washington, D.C. last winter are success-
fully explained by the accidental ‘‘weather’’ of El Nino and the North Atlantic Oscil-
lation (Seager et al., 2010), and do not undermine our understanding of the long-
term effects of warming on snow and ice. The existence of such variability virtually
guarantees that any climate record will be ‘‘bumpy’’, but scientific techniques suc-
cessfully identify the long-term trends in such bumpy records.
For sea ice (frozen ocean water), the trends in Arctic sea-ice area and volume have
been strongly downward. The reports of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (a
research institute at the University of Colorado with funding from NSF, NASA, and
NOAA) provide up-to-date data; also see Kwok and Rothrock (2009) among many
other studies. Note that the observed shrinkage of Arctic sea ice with warming is
consistent with (although somewhat faster than) expectations from a great range of
climate models. The models generally project shrinkage of Antarctic sea ice once
warming becomes notably larger, but for the warming to date some models have
projected growth of Antarctic sea ice in response to changing winds and ocean condi-
tions in the very cold Antarctic winter including freshening of the surface waters
from increasing precipitation and shrinkage of the land ice, consistent with observa-
tions (e.g., Manabe et al., 1992; Turner et al., 2009; Liu and Curry, 2010).
Glaciers and ice caps occur primarily in mountainous areas, and near but distinct
from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. On average, the world’s glaciers were
not changing much around 1960 but have lost mass since, generally with faster
mass loss more recently. Glacier melting contributed almost an inch to sea-level rise
during 1961–2003 (about 0.50 mm/year, and a faster rate of 0.88 mm/year during
1993–2003). Glaciers experience numerous intriguing ice-flow processes (surges,
kinematic waves, tidewater instabilities), allowing a single glacier over a short time
to behave in ways that are not controlled by climate. Care is thus required when
interpreting the behavior of a particular iconic glacier (and especially the coldest
122
tropical glaciers, which interact with the atmosphere somewhat differently from the
great majority of glaciers). But, ice-flow processes and regional effects average out
if enough glaciers are studied for a long enough time, allowing glaciers to be quite
good indicators of climate change. Furthermore, for a typical mountain glacier, a
small warming will increase the mass loss by melting roughly 5 times more than
the increase in precipitation from the ability of the warmer air to hold more mois-
ture. Thus, glaciers respond primarily to temperature changes during the summer
melt season. Indeed, the observed shrinkage of glaciers, contributing to sea-level
rise, has occurred despite a general increase in wintertime snowfall in many places
(Lemke et al., 2007). An erroneous paragraph about Himalayan Glaciers in the
IPCC assessment from Working Group II in 2007 was identified by a distinguished
scientific team with ties to the IPCC (Cogley et al., 2010), and this in no way
changes the reality that strong glacier melting has been occurring, with more warm-
ing expected to cause more melting (Meehl et al., 2007).
Ice-sheet changes. The large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are of spe-
cial interest, because they are so big and thus could affect sea level so much. Melt-
ing of all of the world’s mountain glaciers and small ice caps might raise sea level
by about 1 foot (0.3 m), but melting of the great ice sheets would raise sea level
by just over 200 feet (more than 60 m). We do not expect to see melting of most
of that ice, but even a relatively small change in the ice sheets could matter to the
world’s coasts; roughly 10% of the world’s population lives within 10 m of sea level
(McGranahan et al., 2007).
Data collected recently show that the ice sheets very likely have been shrinking
and contributing to sea level rise over 1993–2003 and with even larger loss by 2005
and more recently, as noted in the IPCC report and updated elsewhere (e.g., Allison
et al., 2009). Thickening in central Greenland from increased snowfall has been
more than offset by increased melting in coastal regions. Many of the fast-moving
ice streams that drain Greenland and parts of Antarctica have accelerated, transfer-
ring mass to the ocean and further contributing to sea-level rise.
Measurements of mass loss from the ice sheets rely on multiple techniques, imple-
mented by multiple groups. Techniques include repeatedly ‘‘weighing’’ the ice sheets
using the GRACE gravity satellites, measuring changes in surface elevation using
radar or laser altimeters from satellite or aircraft, and comparing snow delivered
to the ice sheets (estimated from measurements on the ice or from atmospheric mod-
els) to loss of ice by melting or flow into the ocean; the results are checked against
changes in the ocean level (together with estimates of sea-level rise from other
sources) and against changes in Earth’s rotation caused by the water moving from
ice sheets into the ocean (e.g., Allison et al., 2009; Cazenave et al., 2009; Lemke et
al., 2007). To date, sea-level rise has been controlled more by mountain-glacier melt-
ing and expansion of ocean water as it warms, but ice sheets have the greatest po-
tential to increase their contribution in the future.
Ice-sheet behavior. An ice-sheet is a two-mile-thick, continent-wide pile of snow
that has been squeezed to ice under the weight of more snowfall. All piles tend to
spread under their own weight, restrained by their own strength (which is why
spilled coffee spreads on a table top but the stronger table beneath does not spread),
by friction beneath (so pancake batter spreads faster on a greased griddle than on
a dry waffle iron), or by ‘‘buttressing’’ from the sides (so a spatula will slow the
spreading of the pancake batter). Observations in Greenland have shown that
meltwater on top of the ice sheet flows through the ice to the bottom and reduces
friction there. More melting in the future thus may reduce friction further, speeding
the production of icebergs or exposing more ice to melting from warmth at low alti-
tude, and thus speeding the increase in sea level (Parizek and Alley, 2004).
Some early gothic cathedrals suffered from the ‘‘spreading-pile’’ problem, in which
the sides tended to bulge out while the roof sagged down, with potentially unpleas-
ant consequences. The beautiful solution was the flying buttress, which transfers
some of the spreading tendency to the strong earth beyond the cathedral. Ice sheets
also have flying buttresses, called ice shelves. The ice reaching the ocean usually
does not immediately break off to form icebergs, but remains attached to the ice
sheet while spreading over the ocean. The friction of these ice shelves with local
high spots in the sea floor, or with the sides of embayments, helps restrain the
spreading of the ice sheet much as a flying buttress supports a cathedral. The ice
shelves are at the melting point where they contact water below, and are relatively
low in elevation hence warm above. Ice shelves thus are much more easily affected
by climatic warming than are the thick, cold central regions of ice sheets. Rapid
melting or collapse of several ice shelves has occurred recently, allowing the ‘‘gothic
cathedrals’’ behind to spread faster, contributing to sea-level rise. Many additional
ice shelves remain that have not changed notably, and these contribute to but-
123
tressing of much more ice than was supported by those ice shelves that experienced
the large recent changes, so the potential for similar changes contributing to sea-
level rise in the future is large.
Although science has succeeded in generating useful understanding and models
of numerous aspects of the climate system, similar success is not yet available for
ice-sheet projections, for reasons that I would be happy to explore with the com-
mittee. We do not expect ice sheets to collapse so rapidly that they could raise sea
level by meters over decades; simple arguments point to at least centuries. However,
the IPCC (2007) is quite clear on the lack of scientific knowledge to make confident
projections of ice-sheet behavior. The changes in ice-sheet flow that have been con-
tributing to sea-level rise were not projected in the 2001 assessment (see Lemke et
al., 2007), part of the reason why best-estimate projections of sea-level rise have fall-
en below observations (Rahmstorf et al., 2007). For 2007, the IPCC noted that the
sea-level-rise projections provided excluded contributions from ‘‘future rapid dynam-
ical changes in ice flow’’ (Table SPM–3) ‘‘because a basis in published literature is
lacking’’ (page SPM14), so that it was not possible to ‘‘provide a best estimate or
an upper bound for sea level rise’’ (page SPM15). (The 2007 report also noted a simi-
lar difficulty arising from lack of knowledge of feedbacks in the carbon cycle, refer-
ring to the possibility that warming will cause much release of methane and carbon
dioxide from soils in the Arctic, sediments under the sea, or elsewhere, contributing
to more warming.)
In the absence of an assessed estimate of sea-level rise, various ‘‘back-of-the-enve-
lope’’ estimates have been provided. Without in any way representing an assessed
projection, these estimates show that a meter or more of sea-level rise this century,
with additional and probably faster rise beyond that, falls within the realistic sci-
entific discussion (e.g., Pfeffer et al., 2008; Vermeer and Rahmstorf, 2009).
Tipping Points, and Abrupt Climate Change. A golden retriever leaping to
the side will force a canoe to lean, but usually the canoe will remain upright. If an
ice chest slides across the seat towards the retriever, this positive feedback will
cause the canoe to lean further. In exceptional circumstances a tipping point may
be crossed, leading to an abrupt change as the canoe dumps the dog, ice chest, and
paddlers into the water.
Much scientific and popular discussion has focused on the possibility that human-
caused climate change may force the Earth to cross one of its tipping points.
Paleoclimatic history shows clearly that very large, rapid and widespread changes
occurred repeatedly in the past (e.g., National Research Council, 2002; CCSP, 2008).
An ice-sheet collapse, a large change in the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean,
a rapid outburst of methane stored in sea-floor sediments, a sudden shift in rainfall
patterns, or others are possible based on available scientific understanding (CCSP,
2008).
The available assessments, and in particular that of the U.S. Climate Change
Science Program (CCSP, 2008), do not point to a high likelihood of triggering an ab-
rupt climate change in the near future that is large relative to natural variability,
rapid relative to the response of human economies, and widespread across much or
all of the globe. However, such an event cannot be ruled out entirely, and rapidly
arriving regional droughts seem more likely than the others considered, with poten-
tially large effects on ecosystems and economies.
Projections of warming from a given release of greenhouse gas generally include
a best estimate, the possibility of a somewhat smaller or somewhat larger rise, and
the slight possibility of a much larger rise; because of the way feedbacks interact
in the climate system, very large changes remain possible if unlikely, and are not
balanced by an equal probability of very small changes (e.g., Meehl et al., 2007). The
possibility of an abrupt climate change gives a similar shape to the uncertainties
about damages from whatever warming occurs, with a chance of very large impacts.
Synopsis. With high scientific confidence, human CO2 and other greenhouse
gases are having a warming influence on the climate, and the resulting rise in tem-
perature is contributing to changes in much of the world’s ice. Shrinkage of the
large ice sheets was unexpected to many observers but appears to be occurring, and
the poor understanding of these changes prevents reliable projections of future sea-
level rise over long times. Large, rapid changes in the ice sheets, or in other parts
of the Earth system, may be unlikely but cannot be excluded entirely, and such an
event could have very large effects.
124
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BIOGRAPHY FOR RICHARD B. ALLEY

Dr. Richard Alley is Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences and Associate of the
Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at The Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, where he has worked since 1988. He was graduated with the Ph.D.
in 1987 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and with M.Sc. (1983) and B.Sc.
(1980) degrees from The Ohio State University-Columbus, all in Geology. Dr. Alley
teaches, and conducts research on the climatic records, flow behavior, and sedi-
mentary deposits of large ice sheets, to aid in prediction of future changes in climate
and sea level. His experience includes three field seasons in Antarctica, eight in
Greenland, and three in Alaska. His awards include election to the US National
Academy of Sciences, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the Revelle
Medal of the American Geophysical Union and the Horton Award of their Hydrology
Section and Fellowship in the Union, the Seligman Crystal of the International
Glaciological Society, the Agassiz Medal of the European Geosciences Union
Cryospheric Section, Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement
of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US Presidential
Young Investigator Award, the Public Service Award of the Geological Society of
America, the Easterbrook Award of their Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology
Division and Fellowship in the Society, the American Geological Institute Award
For Outstanding Contribution To Public Understanding of the Geosciences, and at
Penn State, the Eisenhower Teaching Award, the Evan Pugh Professorship, the Fac-
ulty Scholar Medal in Science, and the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Wil-
son Teaching Award, Mitchell Innovative Teaching Award and Faculty Mentoring
Award. Dr. Alley has served on a variety of advisory panels and steering commit-
tees, including chairing the National Research Council’s Panel on Abrupt Climate
Change and participating in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
126
(which was co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize), and has provided requested
advice to numerous government officials in multiple administrations including a US
Vice President, the President’s Science Advisor, and committees and individual
members of the US Senate and the House of Representatives. He has published over
200 refereed papers, and is a ‘‘highly cited’’ scientist as indexed by ISI. His popular
account of climate change and ice cores, The Two-Mile Time Machine, was chosen
science book of the year by Phi Beta Kappa in 2001. Dr. Alley is happily married
with two daughters, two cats, two bicycles, and a pair of soccer cleats.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Dr. Alley.
Dr. Feely.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD A. FEELY, SENIOR SCIENTIST, PA-

CIFIC MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL LABORATORY, NATIONAL
OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
Dr. FEELY. Good morning Chairman Baird, Ranking Member
Inglis, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for giving me
the opportunity to speak today about ocean acidification, its im-
pacts on marine life, and our economic values.
I know this issue is one that this subcommittee has the strongest
interest in; and I would like to recognize and thank you for your
bipartisan leadership in passing the seminal legislation, the Fed-
eral Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009, that
is now the driving force behind a NOAA, interagency, and academic
effort throughout this country to understand this new phenomenon.
Fundamental changes in seawater chemistry are occurring
throughout the world’s oceans. Over the past two-and-a-half cen-
turies, the release of carbon dioxide from the industrial, agricul-
tural activities has resulted in atmospheric carbon dioxide con-
centrations that have increased from 280 to about 390 parts per
million.
To date, the oceans absorbed about one-third of the carbon diox-
ide emissions by human activities during this period. This natural
process of absorption has benefited humankind by significantly re-
ducing global warming in the atmosphere and reducing some of the
impacts of global warming as well. However, decades of ocean ob-
servation and research from NOAA, the National Science Founda-
tion, and the Department of Energy has shown that the daily up-
take of 22 million tons of carbon dioxide is having a significant ef-
fect on the oceans’ chemistry and biology.
When carbon dioxide reacts with seawater, chemical changes
occur that causes a decrease in seawater pH and carbonate ions.
These chemical changes are largely referred to as ‘‘ocean acidifica-
tion’’ because of the direction of change involved. Scientists have
estimated that ocean pH has fallen about .1 pH units since the be-
ginning of the industrial period.
127
This first slide want to I show you shows the atmospheric con-
centration of CO2 at the Mauna Loa site that Dr. Charles Keeling
started in 1957, and underneath it you find the Hawaiian Ocean
Time-Series data that’s maintained by the University of Hawaii
under the direction of the National Science Foundation. You can
see the increase in surface ocean CO2 is commensurate in terms of
the rate of change with the atmospheric CO2 concentration, about
1.7 parts per million per year. Underneath that is the cor-
responding pH measurements from this site, and we see a .02 pH
change at this site over the last decade. So you can see from meas-
urements alone we can see the acidification process.
Since the pH scale is like the Richter scale, it is logarithmic. This
change in pH represents a 20 percent increase in the hydrogen ion
concentration of seawater or the acidity of seawater. Further pre-
dictions out through the end of the century suggest that we could
have a 150 percent increase in the acidity of seawater using the
IPCC business-as-usual scenario.
128
Now, it’s important to note that at present we are exceeding the

CO2 emission scenarios to date. Many marine organisms that
produce calcium carbonate shells and skeletons are negatively im-
pacted by increasing ocean acidification and have been shown to re-
duce their ability to produce their shells and skeletons. For exam-
ple, in a recent paper just published last week, coral reef biologists
have shown that acidification could compromise fertilization and
settlement of elkhorn coral. Elkhorn coral is an endangered species,
and we are causing further harm to these organisms. These re-
search results suggest that ocean acidification could severely im-
pact the ability of coral reefs to recover from any kind of disturb-
ances, including major storms.
Other research indicates that by the end of this century coral
reefs may erode faster than they can be rebuilt. This could com-
promise the long-term viability of those particular ecosystems that
perhaps impact over a million species that depend on coral reefs for
their survival.
Ongoing research that decrease in pH may also negatively affect
commercially important fish and shellfish species is well under
way. Both crab and sea bream larvae exhibit high mortality rates
in a high CO2 world. The calcification rates of edible mussels and
Pacific oysters decline linearly with increasing CO2 levels. Since
2006, some oyster hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest along Wash-
ington, Oregon, and California have experienced massive mortali-
ties of oyster larvae in association with a combination of factors, in-
cluding the upwelling of cold, high CO2-rich waters.
Scientists have also seen a reduced ability of some types of ma-
rine plankton that produce calcium carbonate shells, and these or-
ganisms are food sources for many marine species. One type of
free-swimming mollusk called the pteropod is eaten by organisms
129
ranging in size from all the way from krill to whales. Pteropods are
the major food source for North Pacific salmon and are a major
food for mackerel, herring, and cod.
You can see the importance of these species to our ocean eco-
system as they rise through the food chain. The impact of ocean
acidification in our fisheries and coral reef ecosystems could rever-
berate through the United States and global economy. The United
States is the third largest seafood consumer in the world, and total
consumer spending on fish and shellfish is about $70 billion per
year. Coastal and marine commercial fisheries generate up to $35
billion per year and employ 70,000 people.
In conclusion, ocean acidification is caused by the buildup of car-
bon dioxide in the atmosphere and can have significant impacts on
marine ecosystems. Ocean acidification is an emerging scientific
issue and much research is needed before all the ecosystem re-
sponses are understood. However, to the limit of the scientific un-
derstanding we have about this issue right now, the potential for
environmental, economic, and societal risks are very high, hence
demanding serious and immediate attention.
Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your ques-
tions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Feely follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD A. FEELY
Introduction
Chairman Baird and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the
opportunity to speak with you today on the evidence of climate change and ocean
acidification. My name is Richard Feely. I am a Senior Scientist at the Pacific Ma-
rine Environmental Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis-
tration (NOAA) in Seattle, WA. My personal area of research is the study of the
oceanic carbon cycle and ocean acidification processes. I have worked for NOAA for
36 years and have published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles,
book chapters and technical reports. I serve on the U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeo-
chemistry Scientific Steering Committee and I am the co-chair of the U.S. Repeat
Hydrography Program Scientific Oversight Committee. I am also a member of the
International Scientific Advisory Panel for the European Program on Ocean Acidifi-
cation and the Interagency Working Group on Ocean Acidification, under the Joint
Subcommittee on Science and Technology. Today I will discuss observed ocean acidi-
fication, its impacts on marine life, and potential economic impacts.
What is Ocean Acidification?
Over the past two and a half centuries, the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) from
our collective industrial and agricultural activities has resulted in atmospheric CO2
concentrations that have increased from about 280 parts per million (ppm) to 392
ppm. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is now higher than experienced on
Earth for at least the last 800,000 years, and is expected to continue to rise, leading
to significant temperature increases in the atmosphere and oceans by the end of this
century. To this day, the oceans have absorbed more than 500 billion tons of carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, equivalent to about one third of the anthropogenic
CO2 emissions released during this period (Sabine and Feely, 2007). This natural
process of absorption has benefited humankind by significantly reducing the green-
house gas levels in the atmosphere and reducing the magnitude of global warming
experienced thus far.
Unfortunately the ocean’s daily uptake of 22 million tons of CO2 is having a sig-
nificant impact on the chemistry and biology of the oceans. Over the last three dec-
ades, NOAA, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy have
co-sponsored repeat hydrographic and chemical surveys of the world’s oceans, docu-
menting their response to increasing amounts of carbon dioxide being emitted to the
atmosphere by human activities. These surveys have confirmed the oceans are ab-
sorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide. Both the hydrographic surveys and
modeling studies reveal that chemical changes in seawater resulting from absorp-
130
tion of carbon dioxide are increasing the acidity of seawater or lowering of its pH.
A drop in pH indicates an increase in acidity, as on the pH scale 7.0 is neutral, with
points lower on the scale being ‘‘acidic’’ and points higher on the scale being ‘‘basic’’
(Raven et al, 2005; Feely et al., 2009). Scientists have estimated that the pH of our
ocean surface waters has already fallen by about 0.1 units from an average of about
8.2 to 8.1 since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Because the pH scale, like
the Richter scale, is logarithmic, a 0.1 unit decrease represents approximately a 26
percent increase in acidity.
Future predictions indicate that the oceans will continue to absorb carbon dioxide
and become even more acidic. (Feely et al., 2004; On et al., 2005; Caldeira and
Wickett, 2005; Doney et al., 2009a; Feely et al., 2009). The United Nation’s Intergov-
ernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios and numerical circulation
models indicate that by the middle of this century, future atmospheric carbon diox-
ide levels could reach more than 500 ppm, and near the end of the century they
could be as much as 700–800 ppm (On et al., 2005). This would result in a surface
water pH decrease of approximately 0.3 pH units as the ocean becomes more acidic,
which is equivalent to a doubling of acidity. To put this in historical perspective,
the resulting surface ocean pH would be lower than it has been for at least the last
20 million years (Feely et al., 2004). When CO2 reacts with seawater, fundamental
chemical changes occur that cause seawater to become more acidic. The interaction
between CO2 and seawater also reduces the availability of carbonate ions, which
play an important role in shell formation for a number of marine organisms such
as corals, marine plankton, and shellfish. This phenomenon, which is commonly
called ‘‘ocean acidification,’’ could affect some of the most fundamental biological and
geochemical processes of the sea in coming decades. This rapidly emerging issue has
created serious concerns across the scientific and marine resource management com-
munities.
Evidence of Ocean Acidification Effects on Coral Reefs

Many marine organisms that produce calcium carbonate shells are negatively im-
pacted by increasing carbon dioxide levels in seawater (and the resultant decline in
pH). For example, increasing ocean acidification has been shown to significantly re-
duce the ability of reef-building corals to produce their skeletons, affecting growth
of individual corals and making the reef more vulnerable to erosion (Kleypas et al.,
2006; Doney et al., 2009a; Cohen and Holcomb, 2009). Some estimates indicate that,
by the end of this century, coral reefs may erode faster than they can be rebuilt.
This could compromise the long-term viability of these ecosystems and perhaps im-
pact the thousands of species that depend on the reef habitat. Decreased calcifi-
cation may also compromise the fitness or success of these organisms and could shift
the competitive advantage towards organisms that are not dependent on calcium
carbonate. Carbonate structures are likely to be weaker and more susceptible to dis-
solution and erosion in a more acidic environment. Furthermore, recent findings
suggest that the calcium carbonate cementation that serves to bind the reef frame-
work together may be eroded (Manzello et al., 2008). Such effects could compromise
reef resiliency in the face of other threats, such as thermal stress, diseases, storms,
and rising sea level (e.g., Silverman et al., 2009). For example, in CO2-enriched wa-
ters around the Galapagos Islands, reef structures were completely eroded to rubble
and sand in less than 10 years following an acute warming disturbance (1982–83
El Nino event; Manzello et al., 2008). In long-term laboratory and mesocosm experi-
ments, or contained laboratory model ecosystems under controlled conditions, corals
that have been grown under lower pH conditions for periods longer than one year
have not shown any ability to adapt their calcification rates to the lower pH levels.
In fact, two studies showed that the projected increase in CO2 is sufficient to dis-
solve the calcium carbonate skeletons of some coral species (Fine and Tchernov,
2007; Hall-Spencer et al., 2008).
Evidence of Ocean Acidification Effects on Fish and Shellfish

Ongoing research is showing that decreasing pH may also have deleterious effects
on commercially important fish and shellfish larvae. Both king crab and silver
seabream larvae exhibit very high mortality rates in CO2-enriched waters
(Ishimatsu et al., 2004). Some of the experiments indicated that other physiological
stresses were also apparent. Exposure of some fish and shellfish to lower pH levels
can cause decreased respiration rates, changes in blood chemistry, and changes in
enzymatic activity. The calcification rates of the edible mussel (Mytilus edulis) and
Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) decline linearly with increasing CO2 levels (Gazeau
et al. 2007). Squid are especially sensitive to ocean acidification because it directly
impacts their blood oxygen transport and respiration (Portner et al., 2005). Sea ur-
131
chins raised in lower-pH waters show evidence for inhibited growth due to their in-
ability to maintain internal acid base balance (Kurihara and Shirayama, 2004). The
supply of these commercially valuable species is in jeopardy from ocean acidification.
Scientists have also seen a reduced ability of marine algae and free-floating plants
and animals to produce protective carbonate shells (Feely et al., 2004; On et al.,
2005; Doney et al., 2009b). These organisms are important food sources for other
marine species. One type of free-swimming mollusk called a pteropod is eaten by
organisms ranging in size from tiny krill to whales. In particular, pteropods are a
major food source for North Pacific juvenile salmon, and also serve as food for other
salmon species, mackerel, pollock, herring, and cod. Other marine calcifiers, such as
coccolithophores (microscopic algae), foraminifera (microscopic protozoans), coralline
algae (benthic algae), echinoderms (sea urchins and starfish), and mollusks (snails,
clams, and squid) also exhibit a general decline in their ability to produce their
shells with decreasing pH (Kleypas et al., 2006; Fabry et al., 2008).
Evidence of Ocean Acidification Effects on Marine Ecosystems
Since ocean acidification research is still in its infancy, it is impossible to predict
exactly how the individual species responses will cascade throughout the marine
food chain and impact the overall structure of marine ecosystems. It is clear, how-
ever, from both the existing data and from the geologic record that some coral and
shellfish species will be negatively impacted in a high-CO2 ocean. The rapid dis-
appearance of many calcifying species in past extinction events has been attributed,
in large part, to ocean acidification events (Zachos et al., 2005; Vernon, 2008). Over
the next century, if CO2 emissions continue to increase as predicted by the IPCC
CO2 emissions scenarios, humankind may be responsible for increasing oceanic CO2
and making the oceans more corrosive to calcifying organisms than at anytime in
the last 20 million years. Thus, the decisions that are made about carbon dioxide
emissions over the next few decades will probably have a profound influence on the
makeup of future marine ecosystems for centuries to millennia.
Potential Economic Impacts of Ocean Acidification

The impact of ocean acidification on fisheries and coral reef ecosystems could re-
verberate through the U.S. and global economy. The U.S. is the third largest seafood
consumer in the world with total consumer spending for fish and shellfish around
$70 billion per year. Coastal and marine commercial fishing generates upwards of
$35 billion per year and employs nearly 70,000 people (NOAA Fisheries Office of
Science and Technology; http://www.st.nmfs.gov/stl/fus/fus05/index.html). In a re-
cent study by Cooley and Doney (2009) the total value of U.S. commercial harvests
from U.S. waters and at-sea processing was approximately $4 billion in 2007. Al-
most a quarter (24%) of all U.S. commercial harvest revenue was from harvesting
fish that prey directly on calcifying organisms. Different species dominate different
regional revenues; mollusks are more important in the New England and mid- to
south-Atlantic regions, crustaceans contribute greatly to New England and Gulf of
Mexico fisheries, and predators dominate the Alaskan, Hawaiian, and Pacific terri-
tory fisheries. On the west coast shellfish industries bring in more than $110 million
in revenue each year. Bivalves, such as oysters, also filter marine and estuarine wa-
ters and create habitat for other species, serving important ecosystem services
(NOAA OA Plan, 2009; Feely et al., 2010). Since 2006, some oyster hatcheries in
the Pacific Northwest region have experienced mass mortalities of oyster larvae in
association with a combination of factors, including unusually saline surface waters
and the upwelling of cold, CO2- and nutrient-rich waters (Feely et al., 2008).
Healthy coral reefs are the foundation of many viable fisheries, as well as the
source of jobs and businesses related to tourism and recreation. Increased ocean
acidification may directly or indirectly influence the fish stocks because of large-
scale changes in the local ecosystem dynamics. It may also cause the dissolution of
the newly discovered deepwater corals in the West Coast and Alaskan Aleutian Is-
land regions, where many commercially important fish species in this region depend
on this particular habitat for their survival. In the Florida Keys alone, coral reefs
attract more than $1.2 billion in tourism annually (English et al., 1996). In Hawaii,
reef-related tourism and fishing generate $360 million per year, and their overall
worth has been estimated at close to $10 billion (Cesar et al., 2002). In addition to
sustaining commercial fisheries, tourism, and recreation, coral reefs also provide
vital protection to coastal areas that are vulnerable to storm surges and tsunamis.
NOAA Ocean Acidification Research

Ocean acidification is an important new scientific frontier which we must under-
stand better given its potentially adverse consequences. NOAA research activities
132
offer significant contributions to improving our understanding and assessing the im-
pacts of this rapidly emerging issue. In response to the Federal Ocean Acidification
Research and Monitoring Act of 2009 (FOARAM Act), NOAA is in the process of hir-
ing a permanent ocean acidification program director as a final step to the establish-
ment of a new NOAA ocean acidification program, per section 12406 of the
FOARAM Act. NOAA has also developed an integrated Ocean Acidification and
Great Lakes research and long-term monitoring plan for assessing climate change
impacts on living marine resources and the businesses and communities that de-
pend on their sustainable use. The primary goals of this plan are to:
• Assess the ecological and socioeconomic effects of ocean acidification on com-
mercial fish species and the greater ecosystems on which they rely;
• Develop and provide sensors to monitor ocean acidification both for fixed plat-
forms and for mobile use by researchers and coastal managers in the field;
• Determine and monitor the status and potential effects of ocean acidification
on coral reefs and other protected areas such as National Marine Sanctuaries;
and
• Expand carbonate analytical capabilities at NOAA science centers in order to
meet the growing demand for quality control on samples being collected both
in the field from U.S. waters and from researchers studying the impacts of
ocean acidification on critical species through laboratory experiments.
The results of this research will help to inform future strategies to help commu-
nities, ecosystems, and industries respond to ocean acidification. The increased re-
search capabilities will complement, accelerate, and enhance current NOAA ocean
acidification activities within the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, Na-
tional Ocean Service, and National Marine Fisheries Service.
Interagency Planning
The FOARAM Act directed the Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Tech-
nology (JSOST) of the National Science and Technology Council to create an Inter-
agency Working Group on Ocean Acidification (IWG–OA), chaired by NOAA. The
IWG–OA was charged with developing a strategic plan for Federal research and
monitoring on ocean acidification that will provide for an assessment of the impacts
of ocean acidification on marine organisms and marine ecosystems and the develop-
ment of adaptation and mitigation strategies to conserve marine organisms and ma-
rine ecosystems. The IWG–OA has developed a draft strategic plan that is presently
undergoing review, in preparation for delivery in early spring 2011 as requested by
the FOARAM Act.
Conclusion
In conclusion, ocean acidification is caused by the buildup of carbon dioxide and
other acidic compounds in the atmosphere and is expected to have significant im-
pacts on marine ecosystems. Results from laboratory, field and modeling studies, as
well as evidence from the geological record, clearly indicate that marine ecosystems
are highly susceptible to the increases in oceanic CO2 and the corresponding de-
creases in pH. Because of the very clear potential for ocean-wide impacts of ocean
acidification at all levels of the marine ecosystem, from the tiniest phytoplankton
to zooplankton to fish and shellfish, we can expect to see significant impacts that
are of immense importance to humankind. Ocean acidification is an emerging sci-
entific issue and much research is needed before the breadth and magnitude of eco-
systems’’ responses are well understood. However, to the limit that the scientific
community understands this issue right now, the potential for environmental, eco-
nomic and societal risk is quite high, hence demanding serious and immediate at-
tention. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this Subcommittee. I
look forward to answering your questions.
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BIOGRAPHY FOR RICHARD A. FEELY

Dr. Richard A. Feely is a Senior Scientist at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environ-
mental Laboratory in Seattle. He also holds an affiliate full professor faculty posi-
tion at the University of Washington School of Oceanography. His major research
areas are carbon cycling in the oceans and ocean acidification processes. He received
a B.A. in chemistry from the University of St. Thomas, in St Paul, Minnesota in
1969. He then went to Texas A&M University where he received both a M.S. degree
in 1971 and a Ph.D. degree in 1974. Both of his post-graduate degrees were in
chemical oceanography. He is the co-chair of the U.S. CLIVAR/CO2 Repeat Hydrog-
raphy Program. He is also a member of the Steering Committee for the U.S. Carbon
and Biochemistry Program. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Oceanography Soci-
ety. Dr. Feely has authored more than 200 refereed research publications. He was
awarded the Department of Commerce Gold Award in 2006 for research on ocean
acidification. In 2007, Dr. Feely was elected to be a Fellow of the American Geo-
physical Union. He recently was awarded the Heinz Award for his pioneering re-
search on ocean acidification.
DISCUSSION
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Dr. Feely. Thanks to all the wit-
nesses.
At this point, I will recognize myself for five minutes and follow-
up questions from my colleagues.
OCEAN ACIDIFICATION AND CORAL DAMAGE
Dr. Feely, you focused on the evidence of ocean acidification. It
appears to be a pretty strong connection. Two questions for you,
one tangential. There has, my understanding, been an enormous
coral die-off worldwide, particularly in the Caribbean, as we have
seen coral bleaching from high sea temperatures. Can you very
briefly comment on that?
And then, secondly, are there alternative explanations that seem
credible to explain the acidification levels that you have been meas-
uring?
Dr. FEELY. To answer your first question, because of the increas-
ing level of temperatures in the ocean, we have seen coral die-offs
of as much as 16 percent globally. And the projections are that out
to the end of this century we may not see very many of the coral
reefs be able to survive. That’s the dire situation we are faced with.
The concern we have in terms of the acidification is that some
of the preliminary research has shown that the combination of in-
creased CO2 and the increased temperature associated with global
warming enhances the bleaching impact on those corals. So their
risk of survival is even greater.
135
Chairman BAIRD. Do you want to—are there other alternatives?

What is another alternative explanation for the measured increase
in acidity or, in other words, lowered pH, other than the CO2 hy-
pothesis?
Dr. FEELY. The major alternative suggestion is that perhaps CO2
evolution from volcanic activity, hydrothermal activity in the deep
sea, could be enriching the CO2 levels in the surface oceans. But
we have published papers on this subject to show that the amount
of CO2 from volcanic activity in any given year is 1/100 of the
amount of CO2 that enters the atmosphere.
Chairman BAIRD. Thanks, Dr. Feely.
MEASURING GLACIAL CHANGES
Dr. Alley, two questions. One, tell us a little bit about how—from
your graph, it looked like you feel pretty confident that the data
suggests the ice sheets, glaciers around the world are melting, with
a few exceptions. Tell us a little bit about the methodology by
which that is measured first.
And secondly, haven’t there been times in the past when we have
seen receding glaciers and receding ice sheets and comments about
my goodness, things seem to be going in the opposite direction. Gla-
ciers—you know. And what is the difference now?
Dr. ALLEY. Right. So for measuring, say, what Greenland is
doing, some of that work is done by weighing the ice sheet using
the GRACE gravity satellites, which is truly wonderful. It is like
watching cars on a roller coaster and the one going down gets away
from the one that is going up, and then the one going down catches
up. And you watch——
Chairman BAIRD. As I understand it, it is fascinating with sat-
ellites sort of pursuing each other and gravitational attraction
slows one down, relative to the other. And by measuring the rate
of that different speed, you can tell how much mass is underneath
you. And as that mass declines, there is less slowing down.
Dr. ALLEY. Perfect. I should retire and let you teach this.
Chairman BAIRD. I just think it is beautiful.
Dr. ALLEY. So you weigh them using GRACE, but then you meas-
ure changes in surface elevation, is it going down or up, using a
radar or a laser from a plane or a satellite, and all of those have
been done. And then you figure out how much snow is being added
and how much melt water is leaving and how much ice is leaving.
And then you compare all of these to see if they give the same an-
swer. And all of them indicate shrinkage of Greenland.
You are certainly correct that the ice has grown and shrunk in
the past. And I had the honor of serving for the United States Gov-
ernment on the Climate Change Science Program on a report of the
history of the arctic. And what we found was very clear for Green-
land. When nature made it warmer, Greenland got smaller. And
when nature made it colder, Greenland got bigger. And we are now
making it warmer and Greenland is getting smaller.
EVIDENCE OF ANTHROPOGENIC CHANGE
Chairman BAIRD. How do we know it is we, not nature? I mean,
we have the increase in CO2. But the skeptic would argue, well,
136
wait a second, I can go back to 1927 and find articles about glaciers
retreating. What is the difference? I mean, you know, you can look
at a football team and say they were losing back then and they are
losing now, so what is the difference?
Dr. ALLEY. Right. So the first one is the physics. We just cannot
get away from the warming effect of CO2. It has been known for
over a century. It was really clarified by the Air Force who were
actually interested in what wavelength should I use for the sensor
on my heat-seeking missile. But CO2 interacts with radiation and
there is enough CO2 to make a difference. And we just can’t get
away from that physics.
The second one is—is looking at is there any other possible thing
to explain this. And it really took—I am sorry, sir, it took a few
billion dollars of your money and about 30 years to say that there
is nothing else that we can find in nature to do this. And this is
because satellites are expensive.
But someone says it is the sun. Well, then you need a satellite
to watch the sun to see if the sun is getting brighter, but it isn’t.
And if someone says, well, it is volcanoes, then we need a history
of volcanoes and we need to know what they are doing. And some-
one says it is cosmic rays, we need cosmic ray monitors. And it has
taken sort of 30 years to get to the point of saying, no, we have
looked really hard, we can’t find anything else.
And there is a third piece, which is the fingerprinting, which is
what Dr. Santer was discussing. If you were to say, okay, yeah, I
know we spend a lot of money on satellites and the satellites say
the sun is not getting brighter, but maybe, maybe, maybe the sat-
ellites are wrong and the sun is getting brighter and we can’t see
it. That makes a prediction. It gets warmer down here and it gets
warmer way up at the top of the stratosphere. CO2 says warm
down there or colder up there. What is going on is warmer down
here and colder up there? So the fingerprinting and time in space
says that we got it right on the other two pieces. It is mostly us
now.
Chairman BAIRD. I want to be clear. It is not my money. It is
your money.
Dr. ALLEY. Thank you, sir. Absolutely.
Chairman BAIRD. It is the taxpayers’ money. I never forget it.
But I think at the same time, if we don’t address our energy de-
pendence and if we don’t address appropriately, then by my judg-
ment, real impacts of this will vastly exceed a billion dollars. And
if we can make some measured changes to reduce that impact, the
savings will exceed the expenditures by—Dr. Santer, you might
want to comment, Dr. Michaels? And then I will recognize my col-
league.
Dr. SANTER. Yeah. I just wanted to comment briefly on what Dr.
Alley said about the fingerprinting. We have known that increases
in CO2 have this characteristic fingerprint of warming the lower at-
mosphere, the troposphere, and cooling the upper atmosphere since
about the late 1950s, early 1960s, when people performed the first
numerical model experiments and doubled CO2. And they saw this
characteristic pattern of cooling of the stratosphere and warming
of the troposphere. Very robust. We see that in virtually every
model experiment that has been performed. And as mentioned, we
137
also see it in observations, too. We see it in satellite data. We see

it in weather balloon data.
Now, people often say these computer models are not falsifiable.
They make predictions that we can’t test. That is not true. Back
in the 1960s, when Suki Manabe and his colleagues at the Geo-
physical Fluid Dynamics Lab in Princeton made these calculations
and doubled atmospheric CO2 and saw this fingerprint, we didn’t
really have the observational data to see whether the stratosphere
was actually cooling, whether the troposphere was warming. They
have. The stratosphere has cooled. The troposphere has warmed.
That fingerprint is robust and it is just not consistent with other
natural causes.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Michaels, did you care to comment on any
of this?
Dr. MICHAELS. I have several comments I would like to make. It
would probably take up the rest of the day. So I will just limit—
that won’t happen, no, it certainly won’t. I will limit it to the notion
of—what we are talking about here, you’ve noticed, is everybody
says that the planet has warmed up and that people have some-
thing to do with it. So what really matters is the magnitude of it.
If I can have the clicker, this is just going to take a second. It
is not going to be as bad as you think. There it is. Right there. This
is the warming from the IPCC—from the CRU record from 1950.
And our Environmental Protection Agency which, as you know, has
taken over the regulatory aspect of this because of what happened
in the Congress, issued an endangerment finding on warming. And
they asserted in their endangerment finding that more than half
of the warming of the late 20th century is a result—very likely a
result of human greenhouse gases. More than half means more
than 50 percent. Late 20th century means after 1950. Do you agree
with that?
Second—sorry. I said second half of the 20th century. Well, in
fact there are four different factors that are totally independent of
the greenhouse effect. One that we overestimated—underestimated
sea surface temperatures from 1944 to 1965. That was published
by Thompson in Nature Magazine. Number two, that there are
nonclimatic subtle effects on the temperature history. That was
published by McKitrick in the Journal of Geophysics Atmospheres.
Susan Solomon found that water vapor in the stratosphere is re-
sponsible for a lot of the secular changes. And we don’t know why
water vapors fluctuate in the stratosphere. It is not a greenhouse
effect. I mean, it is not—it is not, apparently, from greenhouse gas
emissions. And number four, Rominoffon at Stanford said, well,
about 25 percent of the warming is a result of black carbon going
in the atmosphere. That is also not a greenhouse gas.
When you add all of those up, the warming drops from .7 to .3
degrees. So the assertion that over half the warming is a function
of greenhouse gases is challenged by four completely independent
factors. I think we have got a lot more work to do on this frankly.
Chairman BAIRD. Any very quick response to that? And then Mr.
Inglis.
Dr. SANTER. Yes, might I respond to that?
Chairman BAIRD. Very quickly.
138
Dr. MICHAELS. Dr. Michaels’ analysis is wrong. I am sorry. It is

just completely incorrect. What he has attempted to do here is ex-
plain the observed temperature change over the last 60 years from
1950 through 2010. And he said that the estimated total change in
temperature is .7 degrees. Now, he has identified four things—eco-
nomic activity, black carbon, errors in the sea surface temperature
data and stratospheric water vapor—and he said, I think all of
those things have had a warming influence, so I am going to sub-
tract them from this .7 degrees and I am left with .3. Point 3 is
less than half of .7, therefore the IPCC is wrong. And the conclu-
sion that more than half of the observed warming over the 20th
century was very likely due to increases in greenhouse gases is one
of the central conclusions of the IPCC. So if Dr. Michaels is right,
that central conclusion is wrong.
What Dr. Michaels did not mention either here or in his written
testimony is the cooling effect of sulfate aerosols, which has already
been discussed at this hearing. If you indulge me for a moment, I
am just going to bring up one slide here.
Now, this is a slide from a paper published in 2006 by Peter

Stott at the Hadley Center. So what you see in the bottom are
three different climate models, and it is the estimate of their sul-
fate cooling caused by the scattering effects of sulfate aerosols over
the 20th century. It is negative.
Now, if you assume conservatively that that cooling effect over
1950 to 2010 period Dr. Michaels looked at was, say, minus .4 de-
grees Celsius over that 60-year period and you assume that Dr. Mi-
chaels was completely correct in estimating the magnitude of the
four factors that he removed from the observations, you would be
adding minus .4 and plus .4. You would get to zero. So you still
139
need to explain .7. You need to get to the observed total tempera-
ture change over the 60-year period.
What could that be? Could it be the sun? No way. It couldn’t be
the sun. If solar effects were that large on the 60-year time scale,
we could see a huge 11-year cycle in the temperature data. We
don’t. Could it be volcanoes? No, it couldn’t be volcanoes. Could it
be some mode of natural variability, some internal oscillation of the
climate system that could generate that .7 degree temperature in-
crease? Not plausible.
The most plausible explanation is an increase in atmospheric
CO2. We know CO2 has changed. Again, that is not some assertion.
That is not supposition. We know that. So what the IPCC found
here and what they reported on was that actually the change in
temperature due to greenhouse gases, which is what you see in red,
was larger than the actually observed change in temperature,
which is that horizontal black line. So the greenhouse gas signal
was offset. That is our best understanding by the cooling caused by
these sulfate aerosols. They scatter incoming sunlight and they also
change cloud properties.
Dr. MICHAELS. Excuse me. Excuse me. I beg your pardon for a
second. The IPCC gives the range of prospective forcing from sul-
fate aerosol at zero, a range from zero to minus two watts per
meter square. That gives you an incredible wiggle room any time
you want to make an argument, doesn’t—doesn’t it now?
It is very interesting to look at sulfate aerosol in terms of the
history of science. The first book I ever read at the University of
Chicago was ‘‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’’ by Thomas
Kuhn. I recommend it to everyone. It predicts that when a para-
digm experiences anomalous data, then increasingly strange expla-
nations are brought forth.
In 1985, Tom Wigley, who was Ben’s advisor, recognized in a
paper that the greenhouse gas models were producing too much
warming and invoked sulfates. And then you can tune models with
sulfates and get things to work perfectly well. Well, the fact of the
matter is that our understanding of what the radiative effects of
these things are is so wide that I can give you virtually any an-
swer. And So I am just assuming to leave that alone.
Chairman BAIRD. I recognize Mr. Inglis.
Mr. INGLIS. And I think it is worth following up on that be-
cause—and this is why this hearing is so valuable, because these
are the kind of things that confuse people and confuse the public
a great deal. So, Dr. Santer, do you want to continue with your—
what is your retort?
Dr. SANTER. Yes, if I could. Dr. Michaels was wrong again. He
claimed that the IPCC’s published estimate of the radiative effect
of sulfate aerosols was zero to minus two watts per square meter.
That serves for the indirect effect. That is for the effect of aerosols
on clouds, on cloud cover and on cloud brightness, which is very un-
certain.
The IPCC’s estimate of the direct scattering of effect of aerosols,
how they scatter incoming sunlight back into space, does not inter-
sect with zero. It is negative. And the best estimate is an order of
minus .5 watts per square meter.
140
The cooling effect of sulfate aerosols has been established not

only observationally and in models and theoretically. In dozens of
studies, we can see these things from space. They are not suppo-
sition. This is not science fiction. And leaving out this negative
forcing in his testimony to you is misleading you. I am sorry.
Dr. MICHAELS. The problem here is that the error bars around
these things are very, very large. And furthermore, there is an
issue with the sensitivity. Excuse me. I would like to finish.
This discussion is really about the sensitivity of temperature to
various and sundry forcings. And there is quite a discussion as to,
in fact, what the change in temperature is per change in watt per
meter squared down while in flux. If it is on the order of I think
what Lindzen thinks it is, then the sulfates aren’t going to be all
that important. So this is just—this is an open matter for discus-
sion. I am sorry. We just don’t know everything.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Santer.
Dr. SANTER. Might I respond very quickly? I am glad that Dr.
Michaels raised the issue of uncertainties. In the fingerprinting
work that we do, we constantly look at uncertainties. They are part
and parcel of our lives. We look at uncertainties in the fingerprints,
those patterns I showed you that arise from use of different mod-
els. We look at uncertainties in model estimates of natural climate
noise. And we look at uncertainties in the statistical methods that
we use to compare models and observations. We spend all of our
time looking at uncertainties.
In this analysis here on Dr. Michael’s slide, you will see there
are no error bars. In this subtraction exercise, no error bars, and
the temperature changes are given to within a thousandth of a de-
gree C.
Now, to me, again, that is just completely ignoring the significant
scientific uncertainties in this partitioning of natural and human
effects. You have to account for them. You have to look at all ef-
fects, both positive and negative. You can’t forget sulfate aerosols.
This analysis has not done that. And anything that claims to over-
turn the central finding of the IPCC’s fourth assessment report
should do it as thoroughly and comprehensively as possible. This
analysis fails in that regard.
Dr. MICHAELS. Is that why one would use 1963 through 1987,
when there was data through 1995? Is that why one would, in fact,
begin a volcanic analysis in 1883 when the atmosphere was loaded
with volcanic junk prior to then?
Chairman BAIRD. I am going to intervene just a little bit. I think
for understandable reasons, people have published different papers.
And the challenge is if two individuals are sort of in the scientific
community going at it with each other, it is an interesting and im-
portant discussion.
So I want Dr. Santer to respond to that because you addressed
it earlier, Mr. Michaels. But I don’t want to dominate. I am inter-
rupting my colleague’s time here. But I just want to set a little bit
of ground rules. We won’t go on forever with this particular debate.
Is that all right with you, Bob?
Mr. INGLIS. Yeah.
Chairman BAIRD. I will give my colleague more time to finish.
141
Dr. SANTER. Thank you, Chairman Baird. I really appreciate the

opportunity go on the record on this issue. I thank Pat Michaels
for referring to this as the most famous paper published in climate
science. And he criticized this analysis back in 1996 when it was
published.
I would like to address three aspects of that criticism very brief-
ly. The first aspect was that the editorial process of Nature maga-
zine had been interfered with, that somehow I had imposed on Na-
ture to publish this paper shortly before the conference of the par-
ties. That is wrong. That is incorrect.
The second claim is that there was selective data analysis that
we looked at a time period from 1963 to roughly 1988 in observa-
tional weather balloon data, compared computer model output with
that. And then if you looked at a longer period of record, you got
different results.
First of all, Professor Michaels was right. If you looked at a
longer period of record, you did get different results. Had there
been intent to fool people to manipulate data? No. We were doing
a fingerprint analysis pattern—observational data, grided data.
And at that time they were only available from one source. That
source extended from 1973 through to 1988.
When Professor Michaels criticized our paper, we responded as
scientists do, we addressed the scientific criticism. What we found
was that when we looked at a newly available weather balloon data
set that went through to 1995, he was right, and this change in the
temperature asymmetry between the Northern Hemisphere and
Southern Hemisphere had this sort of u-shape.
What we were able to show and what others have convincingly
repeated since then is that that change is forced behavior. If you
look at models with combined changes in greenhouse gases and sul-
fate aerosols, indeed the Stott paper that I mentioned earlier shows
that models—including greenhouse gases and aerosol changes—
replicate that behavior. It was not, as Professor Michaels men-
tioned, some representation of natural causes alone.
Actually doing the additional science strengthened our confidence
in the ability of the models to reproduce this subtle interhemi-
spheric temperature change difference. He has not reported, unfor-
tunately, on those responses to his scientific criticism, which I do
not think is correct.
Dr. MICHAELS. Can I—one thing.
Chairman BAIRD. I am going to recognize Mr. Inglis.
Dr. MICHAELS. Ask me questions after the hearing on this, writ-
ten questions.
Mr. INGLIS. Okay. Good. I think it is very interesting to kind of
back-and-forth because it does show that scientists are involved in
trying to criticize each other’s work and hope to reach better
science, which is very helpful. And then there are some things that
are sort of basic.
OCEAN ACIDIFICATION AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS
And so, you know, I am not a scientist, but I play one on the
Science Committee when I am here. So we did this little science ex-
periment that I hope to convince some folks about the ocean acidifi-
cation. You know, what it is is an egg that we put in vinegar, a
142
vinegar water. And you come back in a couple of days and—this

is a science experiment you did in seventh grade. There is no more
shell. Now, this is of rather worldly concern, because—rather than
other-worldly and perhaps academic debate in that—you know, my
brother is a shrimper. If he had his choice in what he would like
to do. He has got to do other things because you really can’t make
a living in South Carolina shrimping. And so he has got a pickup
truck in the back. And the back of it says no wetlands, no seafood.
Richard is no tree-hugging environmentalist, but he is a guy who
loves to go shrimping. And he knows that if you don’t have wet-
lands, you don’t have any seafood. And he is, I think, beginning to
see that if you melt the shells of these calcium-based plankton, you
end up with a hole in the bottom of the food chain. It is a little
bit of a problem to have a hole in the—at the top of the food chain.
You lose a polar bear, it is a really bad day. But if you open a hole
in the bottom of the food chain—Dr. Feely, I think it is what you
are talking about—you have really ruined a lot of people’s day. Be-
cause as I understand it, there is something like a billion people
around the world that depend on the ocean for food, right? It is
something like that.
Dr. FEELY. About 20 percent of the protein resources that we as
humans require come from the oceans.
Mr. INGLIS. Yeah. And so—why don’t you speak to the—am I
right about this, that this is sort of a seventh grade science expla-
nation of how it might work and the risk that we face and the real-
world consequences of Richard Inglis, a shrimper off of Hilton
Head?
Dr. FEELY. Well, if we start at the marine phytoplankton level
which is the marine plants, about 11 percent of the abundance of
marine plants form calcium carbonate shells. These are called
coccolithophores. And they clearly show that the formation of shell
is decreased in a higher CO2 world. It is anywhere from nine to 45
percent. And then we go up at the next level. The coccolithophores
are generally eaten by the zooplankton, and the zooplankton such
as protozoans, such as foraminifera, for example, or the pteropods
that I talked about, these free-swimming pteropods, you can see
them with your naked eye. That is the primary food source for ju-
venile fish. That is what they want to eat because they don’t want
to eat plankton per se. So they are dependent on those pteropods
and those species.
While living pteropods are placed in high CO2 water while still
alive, well, the shell will begin to dissolve within 48 hours. And the
shell will be gone within a few weeks. So this is a significant prob-
lem for that ecosystem.
Mr. INGLIS. Is there doubt about the chemistry of higher CO2 lev-
els and impact on ocean acidification?
Dr. FEELY. There is no doubt about that. And let me explain
why. We have worked at the international level with—through the
1990 WOCE program, a Lowes hydrographic survey, with 8 coun-
tries working together, collecting over 72,000 samples in the 1990s
from surface to bottom along every portion of the ocean, from Ant-
arctica to the Arctic Ocean, from Japan to the United States. All
these countries worked together. The data sets were brought to my
laboratory. We processed the entire data set and made all the cor-
143
rections to the data set and that allowed us to determine exactly

where all the anthropogenic CO2 was going. We did this by deter-
mining the changes in anthropogenic CO2 since pre-industrial
times, using a combination of observations and models working to-
gether.
We also had colleagues on those same cruises collecting samples
for the isotopic signature of that CO2, and the changes in the iso-
topic signature were consistent with the increase in anthropogenic
carbon dioxide, which has a very unique isotopic signature. And
that penetration of the anthropogenic CO2 goes down to, for the
most part, the upper 1,500 meters of the water column. So most
of the anthropogenic CO2 is still in the upper part of the water
count where most of our organisms live. And we know that ex-
tremely well.
Now, in this decade, in 2000–2010, we have been repeating those
cruises. So we can see the direct changes to the uptake of carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere from the 1990s to the present. And on
those cruises, we see the same rate of change of pH that we do at
the time series sites at HOTS and BATS. So we know now from
the large extended surveys across our oceans that we are seeing an
exact rate of change of pH and CO2 increases in the water column.
This is the only extreme one. There is no debate about that at all.
Mr. INGLIS. I think I am way over time, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you. I am not sure if it would be Dr.
Bartlett or Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Dr.
Bartlett for your——
SCIENCE AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. And for the record, I
would like to place in the record a——
Chairman BAIRD. I cannot hear.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Can you hear me now? Let me—I would like
to place in the record a portion of President Eisenhower’s farewell
remarks to the country in which he warned about what happens
when science and politics gets too intertwined and government
grants become the goal for various researchers.
Chairman BAIRD. Will that include the military-industrial com-
plex portion of it?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. This was—that is exactly right.
Chairman BAIRD. I understand. I read the whole document. I
would never object to Mr. Eisenhower being entered into the
record.
144
Mr. ROHRABACHER. What you need to understand is that Eisen-

hower equated the threat of the military-industrial complex with—
similarly, with intertwining science and the government.
Chairman BAIRD. Without objection.
MORE ON GLACIERS ANDEVIDENCE OF ANTHROPOGENIC
CHANGE
Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Dr. Alley, with all due respect, you
didn’t answer the Chairman’s question. You know, can—the ques-
tion was a very good question. There have been these back-and-
forth between—on glaciers and the melting that we have seen over
and over again. Why did it happen, then, if these same factors that
you are blaming it on didn’t exist then?
Dr. ALLEY. I can give you as much or as little answer that you
would like.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Give me 15 seconds.
Dr. ALLEY. Okay. Give me 30 if I may.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Go ahead.
145
Dr. ALLEY. The ice ages are caused by features of Earth’s orbit.
Your brightness is the sun. This, my head, is the earth. This,
through my nose, is the equator. Here, the top of my head, is the
North Pole. If the North Pole stood straight up, you could never
give me a sunburn on my bald spot. But in fact as you know, it
is tipped over a little bit and it nods a little more and a little less
over 41,000 years. Now, when it nods more, my bald spot ice melts
and the equator is a little more shaded and now the ice grows and
now the ice melts. But it takes 41,000 years for this change to hap-
pen. We know what that is doing right now and it is not fast
enough to explain what we are seeing.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. No. You are trying to tell me all of the other
melts and backs-and-forth took all those thousands of years? There
wasn’t a situation where on Mount Kilimanjaro you had it—10
years you had this much ice and then the next year you didn’t and
vice versa?
Dr. ALLEY. On Kilimanjaro, the records are fairly short. It would
be not the best one to lean on, unfortunately. You know, what you
do with glaciers—and I had hoped that I had made that point—is
that one glacier can do interesting things. The world’s glaciers tend
to listen to the climate. And so you need to take a large data set
of glaciers to know what is going on. What you then do find is
that——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. We all know that these things happen. The
major question that we will debate today—and I am again very
grateful to the Chairman for bringing this and having an honest
exchange of ideas—is what role mankind is playing. And thus if
mankind is playing a minor role, how does that then justify some
of what we consider to be Draconian solutions in controlling human
behavior that has been offered to us by people who are espousing
this particular theory?
Mr. Santer, I—let me ask you this. You said—I think it was you
who said—the sun—or some people try to say the sun explains ev-
erything. No. A lot of people are trying to say the sun explains a
lot. Maybe you could explain to me why we have noticed that there
are similar trends of these meltings of the polar ice cap that are
going on on Mars. If it is not the sun that is a major factor and
human activity, why is that?
Dr. ALLEY. If I—if I may?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Sure. Go ahead.
Dr. ALLEY. Mars actually is linked a lot to the orbit as well. It
also has some dust storm issues to deal with.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, of course it does. But if we have the
same thing going on at the same time, and you are blaming human
activity for what is going on on Earth but you see it at the same
time on Mars, why do you automatically assume, well, that must
be human activity?
Dr. ALLEY. If, sir, I wanted to get a measure of how bright the
sun was and whether it was getting brighter or dimmer, looking at
an ice cap on Mars, which is changing its orbit, has features which
would change the sunshine, and it has dust storms which change
the sunshine. That is a very, very indirect, imprecise measure
when we have very precise satellites that the people paid for with
146
their taxpayer money, which are measuring and then show no in-
crease in the sun’s brightness.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. You will have to correct me if I am wrong be-
cause I am not a Ph.D.
Dr. ALLEY. Mars is a bad solar sensor and the satellites are actu-
ally very good solar sensors.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. But if you have a situation on Mars that—
you have that situation, is it just—when people talk about solar ac-
tivity, are we just talking about the brightness? Are we talking
about other type of solar activity that has an impact on human—
or not human climate, but the climate of this planet and the other
planets of the hemisphere?
Dr. ALLEY. It is a very interesting question that you ask, sir, be-
cause at some level we know that we see the sun spot cycle and
we see a very weak response in the temperature. So we know that
the sun spots are affecting the climate. And it actually looks like
they are affecting it just a tiny bit more than you would expect
from the change in the brightness. So there is a little possibility
of a fine-tuning knob on the sun, which is not just the brightness,
it is other factors.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. But we do know there has been these
changes because we do know that there was a medieval warming
period, even though we can see that there has been attempts over
the research—history of this research into global warming of trying
to basically negate the changes that took place between the medie-
val period and the current period of time. But was the temperature
higher on the Earth during the medieval period? Is there any evi-
dence that the temperature got to be as high? And if it did, how
could we blame that, then, on the production of CO2?
Dr. ALLEY. Yeah, we have fairly high confidence that—that is
why we call it the medieval climate anomaly. And it reflects a low
in volcanos blocking the sun and a slight high in the brightness of
the sun. And the best reconstructions that we have indicate that
it is not as warm as what we are having now. But with uncertain-
ties, that if you sort of go to the far fringe, it just might be about
where you are.
Now, this is a very interesting thing you bring up because na-
ture—you know, when the snow melts and the glaciers melt and
then they reflect less sun and they soak up more heat and get us
warmer, those positive feedbacks don’t care whether we made it
warmer or whether the sun made it warmer, other things made it
warmer. They just care that it got warmer. So we actually use the
size of the medieval anomaly as one of many ways to find out how
much warming we might get from CO2.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is the essence of the discussion today.
It comes down to whether or not this has—it is Mother Nature or
the master of the universe versus human beings doing something
that now—they now need to be controlled about. Dr. Michaels, be-
fore my time is up, I should give you a chance to comment.
Dr. MICHAELS. On that one? Well, I would look beyond the me-
dieval warm period and I would look at the end of the—what is
called the beginning of the postglacial period, for several millennia
where we know, based upon fallen trees—when a tree falls in the
tundra—or in the northern part of the distribution—falls into acid,
147
an acid environment and it is saved, it is preserved so we can date

the tree with carbon dating and find out when it existed. We know
that the boreal forest, the north woods extended all the way to the
Arctic Ocean in Eurasia and, in fact, on to the Arctic Ocean is-
lands. We know that it has to be about 6 to 7 degrees Celsius. That
is, like, 12 degrees warmer in July for that forest to exist. That is
how much warmer it had to be.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And that is before human kind had any type
of impact on this. And let us note this.
But let us note this. Okay. Let us note this. But let us note this.
The actual statistics when you start your statistics of how much
warmer it is getting now, you are starting—you are starting your
calculations at the bottom of a 500-year decline in world tempera-
ture which is the mini Ice Age. Is that right, Dr. Michaels or Dr.
Alley?
Dr. ALLEY. Yeah. No, it is very, very clear. A lot of my work is
reconstructing the history. Nature has changed climate a lot by
itself, for reasons that we understand reasonably well, and we
know are not active in this one.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is the point.
Dr. ALLEY. If we were not here—you know, if humans weren’t
here and we didn’t care about anything that lives here—If this
were a video game, I would push the button and see what happens,
because it would be really exciting. But it is not a video game.
Dr. MICHAELS. Well, the reason I brought up the Eurasian arctic
is because—again, it appears it was quite warmer for millennia up
there, and the only way you can get it—get it that warm is to run
water into the Arctic Ocean that is very warm. And there is only
one gate for the water. It is the strait between Greenland and Eu-
rope. So that means the temperature of at least eastern Greenland
had to be quite a bit warmer for a very long time, and the inte-
grated warming is probably greater than what we could produce if
we tried to burn as much carbon fuel as we could. And the ice still
didn’t rapidly fall off of Greenland, as some people are saying it is
going to fall off in 100 years. Well, it didn’t fall off a couple of thou-
sand years.
Dr. ALLEY. Central Greenland was about one degree warmer, 1–
1/2 degree warmer based on about five lines of evidence that I
could summarize for you. Greenland was smaller during this warm
time by something like half a meter of sea level.
Dr. MICHAELS. But again, the scenario of the rapid loss of ice
simply didn’t occur and that is—that is what is really driving the
policy on this. It is not the gradual warming that is driving it.
Chairman BAIRD. For the record here, the stenographer here
can’t record that Dr. Alley is periodically pointing to the top of his
head. And it is actually substantive, because his argument was il-
lustrated by the point that the angle of the Earth relative to the
sun can change over time with a bit of a wobble and axis of the
Earth. And the top of Dr. Alley’s head presumably represents the
North Pole. I won’t speculate where the South Pole is. But the sym-
bolism is apparently that the Earth tips towards the sun and that
may be accounting for some of these prior periods in the absence
of anthropogenic CO2. I want to recognize——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Which is fine.
148
Dr. MICHAELS. And the polar bear survived and the Inuit culture
developed.
Chairman BAIRD. I want to recognize Dr. Bartlett.
FOSSIL FUEL RESOURCES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. I apologize for my absence.
The Chevy Volt is on the Mall and I have been scheduled for quite
some time to speak briefly to the group there at the introduction
of the Chevy Volt to the Capitol Hill. So I am very sorry that I
missed your testimony.
You know, in the past, the Earth has been very much warmer.
We had subtropical seas at the north slope of Alaska or we
wouldn’t have oil there, and there weren’t any humans there then.
So clearly something else caused it. That does not mean that our
activities today aren’t enormously important in climate change be-
cause you are at—if you are at the tipping point—if a car is half
way over a cliff and it is at the tipping point and then a little baby
comes up and pushes on the rear end of it, it is going over, isn’t
it? So if we are at the tipping point, it is irrelevant whether our
contribution is small or great. If we are at the tipping point and
we tip it over, we have done it.
I had a chart that I had hoped that the staff could get up on the
screen. Can you get that up on the screen? Okay.
And I want to apologize for my question to the first panel be-

cause I know—I am a scientist. I know that scientists shouldn’t be
concerned with policy. But the only reason you are here is because
we are concerned with policy and we would like science to illu-
minate our policy. And so my question was better directed to other
people, you know, regardless of what the science is, whether you
agree with it or you disagree with it.
149
What the people want to do who want to move to less fossil fuels
is exactly the right thing to do for two other very good reasons. If
we can get that—this was the chart—and this is quite a startling
chart because just a few years ago nobody would have predicted
that—that we would be saying this today, because our USGS was
predicting that oil was going to be ever more and more abundant,
that the consumption of oil is going up and up forever. That is in
spite of the fact that in 1956 M. King Hubbert predicted the United
States would peak in 1970, and we did right on schedule.
There is the chart up on the little screen over there. The dark
blue area—here it is on the screen behind you. The dark blue area
is conventional oil that we now know about that peaked in 2006.
And for the three or four years before the recession, the production
of oil worldwide was static and demand was going up. With static
supply and increasing demand, the price went up 50, 100, $150 a
barrel. Then we had the recession which we should have capital-
ized on because it gave us a little breather.
Of course we did none of that. And SUVs and pickup trucks are
back on the road in grand style in our country. But you look at that
chart there and what we are predicting—you see that light blue
area? You know, that is a dream. That is a dream that says that
we are going to find enough—more oil or produce more oil from the
sites that we have found. And many of these new sites are deep-
water sites, enormously difficult to get at, enormously expensive to
get at. I don’t think that there is even a prayer that we are even
going to come close to producing as much oil as they say we are
going to produce by developing the fields we now know and finding
new fields.
If you look at the oil chart in the discovery zone, most of them
were in the past. The new oil—by the way, a large discovery of oil
is 10 billion barrels of oil. Every 12 days, the world uses a billion
barrels of oil. That is pretty simple arithmetic. But 84 million bar-
rels a day—84 goes into a 1,000 roughly 12 times, doesn’t it? So
if you have a 10 billion barrel discovery of oil, oh, you breathe a
sigh of relief. It is all over, guys, we have got oil, 120 days that
will last the world. Big deal.
So, you know, what we are trying to do—I know the scientists
are concerned about science and I am a scientist, but we are con-
cerned about policy. And the only reason you are here is because
we want you to illuminate our policy. And whether you agree with
my colleague that we are a major factor in this or not is totally ir-
relevant, because the right policy is to do exactly what people want
to do. If you believe that human activity is increasing CO2 and
changing the climate, you want to move to fossil fuel. That is ex-
actly the same thing that those are concerned about national secu-
rity want to do. We have only two percent of the oil. We use 25
percent of the oil. We import 2/3 of what we use. Exactly the same
thing that people want to do who recognize—by the way, the first
person to recognize this was Hyman Rickover in 1957. Pull up his
speech. You can find the link on our website or do a Google search
for Rickover and energy speech. And one of the really important
things he said in that speech was that how long the age of oil
lasted was important in only one regard. The longer it lasted, the
150
more time we would have to plan an orderly transition to other

sources of energy.
I will close, Mr. Chairman, by noting that we in this country
have now blown 30 years. We knew of an absolute certainty in
1980—when we look back to 1970, which is when M. King Hubbert
said that oil would peak in this country, we knew with an absolute
certainty that he was right about the United States. Now, we tried
to make him out a liar by doing a lot of things. We have drilled
more oil wells than all the rest of the world put together. We have
found oil, a lot of it, in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. But in spite
of those things, today we produce half of the oil, less than half the
oil than we did in 1970. He predicted the world would be peaking
about now and we are.
And so—if the policy we are looking for is whether or not we
have got to be moving away from fossil fuels to alternatives, abso-
lutely.
Just one more word. There are two kinds of energy that we use—
electricity and liquid fuels. The future will have all the electricity
that we need with more nuclear plants producing 80 percent with
nuclear, with more wind and solar and micro hydro and true geo-
thermal. That is not your heat pump looking at 50, 60 degrees
rather than 90 degrees in the summer and 10 degrees in the win-
tertime. We will use as much electricity as we would like to use.
The real crunch is going to be liquid fuels. If you are wildly opti-
mistic about every one of the possibilities for liquid fuels, they
don’t—alternatives—they don’t even come close to 84 million bar-
rels a day. Two bubbles have already broken. One is the hydrogen
bubble. Have you heard anybody talk about hydrogen anymore?
They finally figured out it is not an energy source. It is just the
equivalent of a battery that carries energy from one place to an-
other. Although real clean when you use it. You get water when
you burn it.
The second bubble that broke was the corn ethanol bubble. The
National Academy of Sciences has said that if we could turn all of
our corn into ethanol and discount it for a fossil fuel input, still
leaves you to pretend you are displacing fossil fuels if you are sim-
ply using them in another form.
We would displace 2.4 percent of our gasoline—this is not Roscoe
Bartlett—this is the National Academy. They further said—and
this is their statement—that we would save more gas than we
would by turning all of our corn into ethanol if we just tuned up
our car and put air in the tires.
Now, the next bubble that is going to break is going to be the
cellulosic ethanol bubble. We will get something from biomass. It
will not even come close to what they hoped to get. Life on this
Earth is dependent largely, except what comes from the sea, on
about 8 or 10 inches of topsoil. That is topsoil because it has or-
ganic material in it. This year’s weeds grow largely because last
year’s weeds died and are fertilizing them. We can only for a short
period of time rape the topsoil and get away with it.
What is the sustainability of cellulosic ethanol? That is the next
bubble that will break. We just have to come to the realization that
fossil fuels or liquid energy in the amounts that we would like to
use it just aren’t going to be there. We are going to go largely to
151
an electric world, an electric car. You can’t electrify the airplane,

by the way. And big trucks won’t run on batteries very well. So we
are going to have a very—and this is a very challenging future for
me, Mr. Chairman, because every six hours we go another billion
dollars in debt and every 12 hours we have another billion dollar
trade deficit.
The jobs that went overseas aren’t coming back, so we have got
to create new ones. And my dream is that we can create those new
jobs in the green area and we can once begin—become a major ex-
porting country. And this Committee is going to be very important
in that regard in sponsoring the basic science that will make this
green technology.
I am sorry I ran over my time, but this is something obviously
that I am kind of passionate about. Thank you very much for hold-
ing the hearing.
Chairman BAIRD. One would not detect the passion. Dr. Bartlett,
I appreciate the eloquence and the sentiments and echo them my-
self. I share them. And as I mentioned at the outset, you have em-
bodied them in your own choices about how you power your own
life. And it is admirable that you do.
THE IMPACTS OF CURRENT CO2 EMISSIONS
One last question for Dr. Feely, if I may. One of the concerns
that many of us have about—about this phenomenon is to what ex-
tent are we making decisions now that put us well down the road
of a long-term impact even if we make changes today? And so the—
sort of at what point do we start bending the curve in the right di-
rection?
My understanding is that—is that—well, enlighten us. To what
extent is the CO2 already present going to cause problems for the
ocean?
Dr. FEELY. That is the exact question that the scientific commu-
nity is wrestling with right now. And there is already evidence
from looking at organisms in sea water; we already see that we
have already had an impact. Foraminifera shells are getting small-
er. You can compare shells that are collected at present with living
organisms to which shells that were on the bottom of the sea from
200 years or longer ago; there is a significant difference. So we al-
ready know that we are having impacts.
We know with our own shellfish industry on the west coast that
we are having significant impacts. Have we reached a tipping point
yet? This is the question we are really asking ourselves. And it is
very hard to answer that question. What we do know for sure, if
we get above 450 parts per million, we will cause the Arctic Ocean
and the Antarctic Ocean to go corrosive from top to bottom. That
is a tremendous impact on that——
Chairman BAIRD. Say that again. To go corrosive——
Dr. FEELY. Corrosive from top to bottom throughout the entire
water column.
Chairman BAIRD. Corrosive to the marine organisms at——
Dr. FEELY. To the calcifying organisms, which means that the pH
would be about 7.7 or so. And consequently, that is not too far
away. And we have to begin to concern ourselves of whether or not
we will go much farther in terms of CO2 levels beyond that which
152
would impact large areas of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as

well.
The projections out to the end of the century say that we would
have CO2 levels as high as 800 parts per million, which would have
impacts on the entire southern ocean, would impact the coral reefs
throughout the world oceans, and would even impact our deep-
water corals which we know very little about.
Chairman BAIRD. So let me just make sure I understand. We are
already having problems with current rates of CO2 in the atmos-
phere. At projected increases with economic development, et cetera,
if we don’t change, as Dr. Bartlett has been talking about, if we
don’t change our energy system to a less fossil fuels-based energy
system, the projected levels could reach levels where in the major
polar regions and elsewhere in the oceans, the water itself would
become corrosive to the organisms that have evolved over many
millions of years to live there, and the base food chain for much
of ocean life could be significantly impacted. Is that a fair state-
ment?
Dr. FEELY. That is absolutely correct.
Chairman BAIRD. Now, this highlights something that is funda-
mental to this hearing and it is this. It goes back to my friend Dr.
Bartlett’s analogy. If your car might be at the tipping point and
even if there is some uncertainty about that, do you tell the baby
to stop pushing? It just seems to me if the car is going to go off
the bloody cliff, if there is doubt, you stop pushing, especially when
the solution can be beneficial to your economy, beneficial to your
national security perspective, beneficial to your environment, bene-
ficial to human health. Why not stop pushing, for goodness’ sake,
if there is doubt?
And Bob Inglis had the example earlier, the analogy. We have
bent over backwards on this Committee and this hearing today to
include folks like Dr. Michaels, Dr. Lindzen. But the reality is sur-
veys of topflight scientists have shown the vast majority suggest
that there is real reason for concern. And if there is real reason for
concern, should we not tell the baby to stop pushing if we have
ways to do it?
So I thank this panel. We are now going to talk further about
what possible impacts might be. I thank the panel. It has been a
spirited discussion, a constructive one. Again, as I have done before
for folks—please, Dr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT. I cannot stay. But I would like to note that the
importance of these hearings is not the fact that some Congress-
man is up here listening to you. The importance of this hearing is
that it is on the record. And so thank you very much for coming.
The next panel will be on the record. I really regret that I can’t
be here. But my Chairman will ask the questions that I might have
asked and do it better than I.
Chairman BAIRD. Well, Doctor, I can’t do it better than you, I am
sure, my friend. But one thing I am certain of—and I was going
to say—you anticipated it. The transcript, the written transcripts,
the oral transcripts, the video of this will be on the record. So peo-
ple can actually access the Committee website if you can’t sit
through the whole thing or don’t want to.
153
And having had the privilege to read all the transcripts. I note
for example, Dr. Cullen, if you want to get a really marvelous, un-
derstandable grasp of the history of this, I think Dr. Cullen’s testi-
mony is just spectacular in that regard. And all of the others are.
Some of it is, frankly, too deep for me and others, but you will get
the sense. And I think it is good. And, Dr. Bartlett, thanks.
With this, I thank our panelists for their presentations today and
their years of scientific work. We will take a five-minute recess fol-
lowed by the final panel. Let’s reconvene in about 30 seconds if we
can. I know we are having spirited discussion. But let’s try to re-
convene so that we can hear from our extraordinarily distinguished
final panel whose patience I greatly appreciate and—as do I appre-
ciate that of our guests in the audience today and my colleagues
who have, for very understanding reasons, had to depart. But I am
very, very grateful, again.
This is available to Members of Congress, their staff, and to the
general public and media on our website. And so I hope you will
not consider the fact that we have very important and unfortu-
nately timed organizational meetings on both the Democratic and
Republican side happening as we speak. Again, we did our level
best to be sure people were here and in the process made sure peo-
ple were somewhere else, which was a misfortune. But the fact
that you are all here is what matters the most in my judgment.
And the fact that our colleagues who care—and I hope they do
care—will have a chance to review all of the testimony is tremen-
dously important. And thus we begin our final panel as soon as I
can find the introductory page.
[Recess.]
Panel III
Chairman BAIRD. Thus we begin our final panel, as soon as I can
find the introductory page.
Here we go. Again, appreciate the witness’s presence.
Rear Admiral David W. Titley is the Oceanographer and Navi-
gator of the United States Navy. I love that title. The Navigator
for the United States Navy. Every time a ship crashes into another
ship it’s your fault, right?
Admiral TITLEY. Yes, sir.
Chairman BAIRD. Mr. James Lopez, Senior Advisor to the Deputy
Secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Develop-
ment. Mr. Lopez, thanks for being here.
Mr. William Geer is the Director of the Center for Western
Lands of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partisanship; and
Dr. Judith Curry, the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmos-
pheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology. Thank you, Doc-
tor, for being here.
We will begin our testimony. As you saw, we will try to limit the
initial comments to around five minutes, and then we will follow
up with questions. Thank you.
We will begin with Admiral Titley. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL DAVID W. TITLEY,
OCEANOGRAPHER AND NAVIGATOR OF THE U.S. NAVY
Admiral TITLEY. Thank you, sir.
154
Mr. Chairman, and distinguished colleagues, I want to thank you

for the opportunity to address you today regarding why the Navy
cares about climate change and how we are responding to the op-
portunities and challenges it presents. Rather than read from my
written statement, sir, I will provide brief introductory remarks on
the topic and invite any questions from you.
The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, or——
Chairman BAIRD. You have a voice that I could hear, but without
the mic apparently the others didn’t.
Admiral TITLEY. Are we on? Okay. Have to be five percent smart-
er than the microphone.
The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR, and 2010 Na-
tional Security Strategy both require the Department of Defense to
take action regarding climate change by recognizing the effects cli-
mate change may have on its operating environment, roles, mis-
sions, facilities, and military capabilities. Taking into account this
guidance, the Navy recognizes the need to adapt to climate change
and is closely examining the impacts that climate change will have
on military missions and infrastructure.
The Navy is watching the changing Arctic environment with par-
ticular interest. The changing Arctic has national security implica-
tions for the Navy. The Navy’s maritime strategy identifies that
new shipping routes have the potential to reshape the global trans-
portation system.
The QDR identifies the Arctic as a region where the influence of
climate change is most evident in shaping the operating environ-
ment and directs the Department of Defense to work with the
Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security to address
gaps in Arctic communications, domain awareness, search and res-
cue, and environmental observation and forecasting capabilities.
There are other impacts of climate change on missions that the
Navy must consider, including water resources and fisheries redis-
tribution, shifting precipitation patterns, and implications for hu-
manitarian assistance and disaster relief. The Navy must under-
stand where, when, and how climate change will affect regions
around the world and work with Federal partners to develop the
capabilities needed to ensure readiness in the 21st century.
The Navy must also be aware of impacts to military infrastruc-
ture both within and outside the continental United States due to
increased sea level rise and storm surge. The Navy’s operational
readiness hinges on continued access to land, air, and sea training
and test spaces; and many overseas bases provide strategic advan-
tage to the Navy in terms of location and logistic support. Any ad-
aptation efforts undertaken are required to be informed by the best
possible science and initiated at the right time and cost.
The Navy is currently beginning assessments that will inform
Navy strategy, policy, and plans. The Department of Defense is al-
ready conducting adaptation efforts through a variety of activities,
including two Navy roadmaps on the Arctic and global climate
change and the leveraging of cooperative partnerships to ensure
best access to science and information. For example, the Navy is
partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-
tion [NOAA] and the United States Air Force to advance U.S. envi-
155
ronmental prediction capability to mitigate the impact of severe

weather and answer operational requirements facing our Nation.
The Navy understands the challenges and opportunities that cli-
mate change will present to its missions and installations. We are
beginning to conduct the assessments necessary to inform future
investments and are initiating adaptation activities in areas where
we have enough certainty with which to proceed.
Thank you, sir, and I stand ready to answer any questions the
Subcommittee may have.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Titley follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID TITLEY
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee and distinguished colleagues, I want
to thank you for the opportunity to address you today regarding the Navy’s climate
change interests. My name is Rear Admiral David Titley and I am the Oceanog-
rapher of the Navy and the Director of Navy’s Task Force Climate Change. The
Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, established Task Force Climate
Change in May of 2009 to address implications of climate change for national secu-
rity and naval operations. Today I am speaking about why the Navy cares about
climate change and how we are responding to the challenges and opportunities it
presents.
The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) identifies climate change as an
issue that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment,
and directs the Department of Defense to take specific action to reduce the risks
associated with climate change, while also identifying climate change and energy se-
curity as ‘‘inextricably linked.’’ In addition, climate change is addressed in the 2010
National Security Strategy, which states that the issue is a key challenge requiring
broad global cooperation.
The QDR discusses how climate change will affect the Department of Defense
(DoD) in two broad ways: first, by shaping the operating environment, roles, and
missions that we undertake due to physical changes such as rising temperature and
sea level, retreating glaciers, earlier snowmelt, and changing precipitation patterns
and geopolitical impacts resulting from these changes; and second, the QDR de-
scribes the need for DoD to adjust to the impacts of climate change on our facilities
and military capabilities by constructing a strategic approach that considers the in-
fluence of climate change.
In addition, DoD participates in the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task
Force. In October, the Task Force submitted a progress report to the President with
recommendations for how Federal policies and programs can better prepare the Na-
tion to respond to the impacts of climate change. The Task Force recommended that
Agencies and Departments, including DoD, make adaptation a standard part of
planning to minimize climate risks and damages and to ensure that resources are
invested wisely and that services and operations remain effective in a changing cli-
mate.
Taking into account the DoD guidance and Interagency Climate Change Adapta-
tion Task Force recommendations, the Navy recognizes the need to adapt to climate
change and is closely examining the impacts that climate change will have on its
military missions and infrastructure.
In terms of climate change impact on missions, the Navy is watching with great
interest the changing Arctic environment. September 2007 saw a record low in sea
ice extent and the declining trend has continued—September 2010 was third lowest
extent on record and the overall trend has shown an 11.2 percent decline per decade
in seasonal ice coverage since satellites were first used to measure the Arctic ice
in 1979. Perhaps more significantly, estimates from the University of Washington’s
Applied Physics Lab show that the amount of sea ice continues to decrease dramati-
cally. September ice volume was the lowest recorded in 2010 at 78 percent below
its 1979 maximum and 70 percent below the mean for the 1979–2009 period. Re-
gardless of changes to sea ice, the Arctic will remain ice covered in the winter
through this century and remains a very difficult operating environment. The
changing Arctic has national security implications for the Navy. The QDR identifies
the Arctic as the region where the influence of climate change is most evident in
shaping the operating environment and directs DoD to work with the Coast Guard
and Department of Homeland Security to address gaps in Arctic communications,
domain awareness, search and rescue, and environmental observation and fore-
casting capabilities. The Navy’s Maritime Strategy identifies that new shipping
156
routes have the potential to reshape the global transportation system. For example,
the Bering Strait has the potential to increase in strategic significance over the next
few decades as the ice melts and the shipping season lengthens, and companies
begin to ship goods over the pole rather than through the Panama Canal.
While the Arctic is a bellwether for global climate change, there are other impacts
of climate change on missions that the Navy must consider, including water re-
sources, fisheries, and implication for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
Availability of freshwater will change with the redistribution of precipitation pat-
terns and saltwater intrusion resulting from sea level rise. Furthermore, alterations
in freshwater systems will present challenges for flood management, drought pre-
paredness, agriculture, and water supply. On the other hand, some areas of the
world, such as Russia, will likely see longer growing seasons and an increase in
water availability, potentially providing opportunities for economic growth. In addi-
tion to water supply, large scale redistribution of fisheries catch potential is a con-
cern in areas of the world that depend heavily upon this industry as a primary food
source. Leading fishery scientists estimate decreases of up to 40% in overall catch
potential for most major fisheries near the tropics over the next four decades due
to warming and changes in ocean chemistry, while the Arctic region may see an in-
crease in overall catch potential. Further impacts to marine ecosystems will be
caused by ocean acidification, often referred to as ‘‘global warming’s silent partner.’’
Shifting precipitation patterns and frequency of floods and droughts may generate
humanitarian assistance and disaster response requirements and the Navy, with its
expeditionary capabilities, may be tasked to support these requests in accordance
with the 2010 National Security Strategy, which states that ‘‘a changing climate
portends a future in which the United States must be better prepared and resourced
to exercise robust leadership to help meet critical humanitarian needs.’’ The Navy
must understand where, when, and how climate change will affect regions around
the world and work with federal partners to develop the capabilities needed to en-
sure readiness in the 21st century.
In addition to impacts to Navy missions, we must be aware of impacts to military
infrastructure, both within and outside of the Continental United States. The recent
National Research Council Report, ‘‘Advancing the Science of Climate,’’ notes that
many United States military bases are located in areas likely to be affected by sea
level rise and tropical storms. The Navy’s operational readiness hinges on continued
access to land, air, and sea training and test spaces. Coastal infrastructure is par-
ticularly vulnerable because it will be affected by changes in global and regional sea
level coupled with a potential increase in storm surge and/or severe storm events.
Overseas bases may be impacted by sea level rise, changing storm patterns, and
water resource challenges. Bases such as Guam and Diego Garcia provide a stra-
tegic advantage to the Navy in terms of location and logistics support.
The potential impacts of climate change on Navy missions and infrastructure re-
quire adaptation efforts that are informed by the best possible science, and initiated
at the right time and cost. For example, the Strategic Environmental Research and
Development Program (the DoD’s environmental science and technology program) is
currently funding four research projects, situated in different geophysical settings
along the US coastline, that collectively are developing the physical process models
and assessment methodologies needed to assess the impacts of sea level rise and as-
sociated storm surge on DoD coastal installations. In addition, via its recently sub-
mitted Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan mandated by Executive Order
13514, DoD has articulated is strategy for a QDR-directed, comprehensive assess-
ment of military installations to assess the potential impacts of climate change on
DoD’s missions. The associated research and development aspects of this effort will
result in impact and vulnerability assessment tools designed for military installa-
tions, regionally applicable climate change information, and adaptation strategies
appropriate for DoD requirements. The Defense Science Board’s Task Force on
Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security
is making recommendations on the role DoD should play in dealing with other U.S.
government agencies to mitigate potential consequences of environmental change in
areas important to U.S. national security. The Navy has sponsored the National Re-
search Council’s Naval Studies Board to study the national security implications of
climate change on U.S. Naval forces, and is currently conducting a Capabilities
Based Assessment for the Arctic to identify capabilities required for future oper-
ations in the region and possible capability gaps, shortfalls, and redundancies. As-
sessments such as these will inform Navy strategy, policy, and plans to guide future
investments.
The Navy is already executing adaptation efforts through a variety of activities.
The Navy is conducting wargames that include climate change impacts on future
tactical, operational, and strategic Naval capabilities. Within the last year the Navy
157
promulgated two roadmaps concentrated on the Arctic and global climate change.
The roadmaps guide strategy, future investment, action, and public discussion on
the Arctic and global climate change. The Navy Arctic Strategic Objectives, released
in May 2010, specify the objectives required to ensure the Arctic remains a safe, sta-
ble, and secure region where U.S. national and maritime interests are safeguarded
and the homeland is protected. This past summer, the Navy participated in Can-
ada’s largest annual Arctic exercise, Operation NANOOK, which provided our sail-
ors valuable operating experiencing in the region. The Navy established Task Force
Energy to meet the growing energy challenges that we face as a service and a na-
tion, and subsequently, the five energy goals as outlined by the Secretary of the
Navy. Task Force Climate Change and Task Force Energy work closely to ensure
that overlapping issues of climate change and energy security are addressed.
Furthermore, the Navy is actively leveraging interagency, international, and aca-
demic partnerships to ensure it has access to the best science and information and
to avoid duplication of efforts. We are participating, in coordination with appropriate
DoD offices, in many of the interagency efforts being conducted on climate change,
including the National Science and Technology Council’s Roundtable on Climate In-
formation and Services, co-chaired by the Office of Science and Technology Policy,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Geological Sur-
vey and the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s National Climate Assessment,
which in part are coordinating agency climate science needs and adaptation efforts
across the federal government. Finally, the Navy is joining an effort with the Air
Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to advance U.S.
environmental prediction capability to mitigate the impact of the severe weather
and answer operational requirements facing our nation. This capability will combine
the forecasting skills of the Navy’s and the National Weather Service’s global nu-
merical weather, ocean, and ice models to provide a better Earth Systems Prediction
Capability.
I would like to close with a quote from Vice Admiral Richard Truly, former NASA
Administrator, and Director of Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy
Lab. ‘‘The stresses that climate change will put on our national security will be dif-
ferent than any we’ve dealt with in the past . . . this is why we need to study this
issue now, so that we’ll be prepared and not overwhelmed by the required scope of
our response when the time comes.’’ The Navy understands the challenges and op-
portunities that climate change presents to its missions and installations. We are
beginning to conduct the assessments necessary to inform future investments and
are initiating adaptation activities in areas where we have enough certainty with
which to proceed.
Thank you Mr. Chairman and I look forward to answering any questions the Sub-
committee may have.
BIOGRAPHY FOR DAVID TITLEY
A native of Schenectady, N.Y., Rear Admiral Titley was commissioned through the
Naval Reserve Officers Training Commissioning program in 1980. While aboard
USS Farragut (DDG 37) from 1980–1983, Titley served as navigator, qualified as
158
a surface warfare officer, and transferred to the Oceanography community the fol-
lowing year.
Subsequent sea duty included tours as oceanographer aboard USS Belleau Wood
(LHA 3) 1985–1987, USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) in 1990, Carrier Group 6 1993–1995
and U.S. 7th Fleet 1998–2000. Titley has completed seven deployments to the Medi-
terranean, Indian Ocean and Western Pacific theaters. His Belleau Wood deploy-
ment included winter-time amphibious operations north of the Aleutian Islands.
Titley has commanded the Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic
Center in Monterey Calif., and was the first commanding officer of the Naval Ocean-
ography Operations Command. He served his initial flag tour as commander, Naval
Meteorology and Oceanography Command.
Previous shore tours include assignments at the Regional Oceanography Centers
at Pearl Harbor and Guam, the Naval Oceanographic Office, on the staff of the As-
sistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition), Office of
Mine and Undersea Warfare, as the executive assistant to the Principal Deputy As-
sistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition) and as chief
of staff, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command.
Titley also served on the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, as Special Assistant
to the Chairman (Admiral (ret.) James Watkins) for Physical Oceanography and as
senior military assistant to the Director of Net Assessment in the Office of the Sec-
retary of Defense.
In 2009, Titley assumed duties as oceanographer and navigator of the Navy.
Education includes a Bachelor of Science in meteorology from the Pennsylvania
State University, a Master of Science in meteorology and physical oceanography and
a Ph.D in meteorology, both from the Naval Postgraduate School. His dissertation
concentrated on better understanding Tropical Cyclone Intensification. In 2003–
2004, Titley attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI on
Foreign Politics, International Relations and National Interest. He was elected a
Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2009.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you very much, Admiral.
Mr. Lopez.
STATEMENT OF JAMES LOPEZ, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE DEP-

UTY SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND
URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Mr. LOPEZ. Thank you very much.
Is that on? No? How about now? Good?
Good morning, Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Inglis, Mem-
bers of the Subcommittee. My name is Jim Lopez, and I am the
Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Ron Sims at HUD. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify today.
On behalf of Secretary Shaun Donovan and Deputy Secretary
Sims, I appreciate this opportunity to tell you how HUD—individ-
ually and in partisanship with other federal agencies—is working
to develop more sustainable, resilient communities across the Na-
tion. In fact, we believe that sustainable communities are resilient
communities.
Before coming to HUD, I worked on climate change issues in
King County, Washington State; and over the past year, I have had
the opportunity to serve as part of the President’s Interagency Cli-
mate Change Adaptation Task Force, which is chaired by the
Council on Environmental Quality, NOAA, and the Office of
Science and Technology Policy and includes 20 federal agencies and
executive branch offices.
The Council last month released its progress report, with charts
and a roadmap for federal action on climate adaptation and resil-
ience. The report highlights the need to better understand and pre-
pare for climate change and offers a flexible framework for federal
agencies to engage in that important work.
159
The fact is that even if we could halt greenhouse gas emissions

today, the scientific evidence, as we have heard today, suggests
that the world would still experience changing climate for decades
to come. While government efforts have tended to focus on reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, climate mitigation, there should be an
increasing focus on preparing for and responding to the threat that
climate change impacts already represent to our social well-being,
the economy, and the environment. That is climate resilience, and
that is where I would like focus my remarks today.
I would like to make three quick points.
First, as noted before above, we must continue to work to reduc-
ing GHG emissions. We must also step up our efforts to prepare
for and respond to climate change. Across the country, cities, coun-
ties, and states are putting in place strategies to adapt to risks and
stresses caused by climate change such as flooding and extreme
precipitation, temperature spikes, and urban heat island effects,
water shortages and drought, and rises in sea level in coastal com-
munities.
Second, there is a growing recognition that if we are to make
progress on climate change, we need to focus on the built environ-
ment. That is on where we build, how we build, and how we move
people and goods to the places we live, work, and play.
And, third, it’s important that we tackle climate change in ways
that respect and protect the most vulnerable populations: infants
and children, pregnant women, the elderly with chronic medical
conditions, low-income households, and outdoor workers.
And I am pleased to report to you that the Federal Government
is paying attention to climate resilience. Federal agencies are sup-
porting local efforts to adapt the built environment to these new
challenges and to protect vulnerable populations through innova-
tive programs and partnerships.
In HUD, we have formed an unprecedented partisanship with
EPA and DOT, the Partisanship for Sustainable Communities,
which will, we hope, result in reduced carbon emissions as we draw
attention to the benefits of more compact, walkable, and climate-
friendly communities.
We also hope to show that sustainable communities are resilient
communities as HUD requests for proposals explicitly encourage
communities to address climate adaptation and resilience as part
of their regional planning efforts.
Another important component of HUD and the Federal Govern-
ment’s work to support sustainable communities is in the area of
energy efficiency and green building. Properly implemented and
maintained, investments in energy retrofits can significantly re-
duce energy use in existing buildings, improving comfort for resi-
dents and lowering carbon emissions.
Let me conclude by briefly touching on what we are doing to fos-
ter similar cooperation between federal agencies on climate adapta-
tion. The Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, of
which HUD is a member, submitted a report to the President em-
phasizing the importance of this issue to the Federal Government.
President Obama signed an executive order in October, 2009, that
called on the task force to recommend how federal agencies could
play a role in a national climate change adaptation strategy. In the
160
progress report we released last month, we reaffirmed the Obama

Administration’s commitment to mitigating greenhouse gas emis-
sions and in the long term to improve our ability to manage the
impact these emissions have on our lives. Mitigation and adapta-
tion are inextricably linked and both are required in order to re-
duce the impacts of climate change.
The task force recommended in its progress report that federal
agencies make adaptation a standard part of strategic planning to
ensure that resources are invested wisely and that federal pro-
grams, services, and operations remain effective in a changing cli-
mate. In short, the federal response is rising to the level of the
challenges before us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I looked look forward to answering
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lopez follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES C. LOPEZ
Good morning, Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Inglis, members of the Sub-
committee. My name is Jim Lopez, and I am Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary
Ron Sims at HUD, who has been tasked by Secretary Donovan to lead HUD’s cli-
mate change efforts. Thank you for this opportunity to testify today.
On behalf of the Deputy Secretary and Secretary Donovan, I want to thank and
commend you for your leadership in developing and pushing for innovative and inte-
grated approaches to the critical issue of climate change. I appreciate this oppor-
tunity to tell you how we at HUD—individually and in partnership with other fed-
eral agencies—are working to develop more sustainable, resilient communities
across the nation.
I should note that this is an issue with which I’ve had hands-on experience at
the local level. Before coming to HUD, I coordinated King County’s climate change
preparedness initiative in Washington State and I was a contributing author to Pre-
paring for Climate Change. A Guidebook for Local, Regional and State Govern-
ments.1 My experience at the county level has given me an important perspective
on what the federal government could and should be doing on this critical issue.
Efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, known as climate change mitigation,
have become a widespread imperative for all levels of government. However, sci-
entific evidence indicates that even if we could halt greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
today, the world would still experience a changing climate for decades to come due
to the long-lived nature of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as well as the
absorption of heat by oceans.2 While federal, state, and local efforts, including
HUD’s, have tended to focus on reducing GHG emissions, there is an increasing
focus on developing complementary climate resilience strategies, defined by the Na-
tional Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences as the ‘‘capability to
prepare for, respond to, and recover from significant multi-hazard threats with min-
imum damage to social well-being, the economy and the environment.3 ’’
Climate Change and the Built Environment

The consequences of climate change are complex and far reaching. It is becoming
increasingly clear that GHG emissions, the primary cause of climate change, are in
large part a result of energy use in our built environment—either as a result of en-
ergy use in buildings themselves, or transportation energy used to move people and
goods.4
Climate change is affecting many aspects of our society, our livelihoods and our
environment. Communities across the nation are experiencing climate change im-
1 ICLEI, University of Washington, 2007.

2 Councilon Environmental Quality, Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adap-
tation Task Force, p. 15.
3 National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Adapting to the Impacts of Cli-
mate Change, Prepublication Copy.
4 Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.
html. Buildings generate about 40 percent of emissions overall, and transportation generates 28
percent.
161
pacts, such as changes in average temperatures, more extreme weather events, and
rising sea levels.5
The effects of climate change are expected to be significant for both rural commu-
nities and metropolitan regions (where most of the built environment is located). As
a federal cabinet agency focused on the built environment, on strengthening metro-
politan areas as well as rural communities, and expanding opportunity for all Amer-
icans, we at HUD recognize the need to take action.
Reducing GHG emissions in the built environment is essential to making progress
on climate change at the speed and scale required. Across the country, cities, coun-
ties and States are finding innovative solutions to climate change that involve the
built environment—from King County to Miami-Dade County, from Chicago to Los
Angeles, from Milwaukee to New York City, and from Phoenix to San Francisco. In
addition, home builders and community- and faith-based organizations, public hous-
ing authorities and private building owners, and financial institutions and founda-
tions are taking action to prepare the built environment for climate change.6
These communities—and many others—are putting in place strategies to adapt to
risks and stresses caused by climate change, such as flooding and extreme precipita-
tion; temperature spikes and urban heat island effects; water shortages and
drought; and rises in sea-level in coastal communities.7
Addressing Vulnerable Populations

Critical to all of these efforts is the need to pay particular attention to the impact
of climate change on vulnerable populations. As noted in the National Research
Council’s Report, Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, groups with increased
vulnerability to climate change are infants and children, pregnant women, the elder-
ly with chronic medical conditions, low-income households, and outdoor workers.8
Low-income, often minority, families are frequently most at risk from the effects
of extreme heat that will become more frequent due to climate change. They may
be unable to afford the high cost of utilities in these conditions, or invest in the cool-
ing equipment needed to mitigate these effect—often with tragic results.9
As noted by the U.S. Global Science Research Program, ‘‘in the future (as in the
past), the direct impacts of climate change are likely to fall disproportionately on
the disadvantaged. People with few resources often live in conditions that increase
their vulnerability to the effects of climate change. The fate of the poor can be per-
manent dislocation, leading to the loss of social relationships and community sup-
port networks provided by schools, churches and neighborhoods.’’ 10
That’s why we asked grant applicants for HUD’s new regional sustainability plan-
ning grants (described below) to pay particular attention to addressing the needs of
low-income and underserved populations; and why we are expanding our efforts to
lower carbon emissions through improved energy efficiency in the affordable housing
sector. Let me describe these initiatives in more detail.
HUD’s Role—Sustainable Communities Initiative

I am pleased to report that through the Sustainable Communities Initiative HUD
is supporting a new generation of community and regional planning that we think
will result in more climate resilient communities. Just last month Secretary Dono-
van announced the first Regional Planning Grants to be awarded under the Sustain-
able Communities Initiative—our flagship effort to enable communities to develop
more integrated regional responses to both mitigating, and adapting to the effects,
of climate change.
This initiative is being implemented through an unprecedented partnership with
EPA and DOT, the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. This important cross-
agency collaboration is designed to encourage integrated solutions to the multi-
5 Karl, Thomas R, Melillo, Jerry M. Peterson, Thomas C Global Climate Change Impacts in
the United States (2009), cited in Progress Report, of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation
Task Force, p. 15 (2010).
6 Center for Clean Air Policy, Ask the Climate Question: Adapting to Climate Change Impact
in Urban Regions (June 2009).
7 Ibid, p. 11–14.
8 Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, National Academies of Sciences, 2010, pp.32–
33.
9 Center for Clean Air Policy, Ask the Climate Question: Adapting to Climate Change Impact
in Urban Regions, p.12, June 2009. In Chicago, for example, upward of 600 mostly poor, elderly
and African American persons died in the wake of a sever heat wave in that city. As a result,
Chicago has adopted an aggressive plan to enhance its capability to manage heat waves.
10 Karl, Melillo and Peterson, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (2009).
162
dimensional environmental, housing and transportation challenges faced by cities
and suburbs and rural areas.
The initiative will foster collaboration across jurisdictional lines and enable metro-
politan leaders to ‘‘join up’’ housing, transportation, and other policies to address the
critical issues of affordability, competitiveness, and sustainability. Moreover, our
partnership with EPA encourages recipients to consider water infrastructure plan-
ning and conservation along with their housing and transportation plans. As noted
in the National Academy of Sciences Report, climate change will place additional
burdens on already stressed water resources. More intense droughts and flooding
events are projected to become common in some regions.11
HUD’s Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) for the regional sustainability plan-
ning grants encouraged communities to address climate adaptation and resilience
as part of their regional planning efforts. Eligible activities include:
Conduct comprehensive climate change impacts assessments to guide regional
planning and implementation strategies. Assessments may comprehensively
evaluate a range of likely climate change impacts or may focus on an impact
area of special concern in the region (e.g.: sea level rise or reduced water avail-
ability. Findings from climate impact assessments should be used as a basis for
defining adaptation actions to be implemented in appropriate plans and strate-
gies.
Some of the grant awards were to regional planning bodies in areas most vulner-
able to flooding and extreme weather conditions: the South Florida Regional Plan-
ning Council (Hollywood, Florida), the Houston-Galveston Area Planning Council
and the Gulf Regional Planning Council (Gulfport, Mississippi). The goal of these
grants is not just to develop plans—it is to articulate a vision for growth tailored
to specific metropolitan markets that federal housing, transportation, and other fed-
eral investments can support.
Funding to these metropolitan regions and rural communities can be used to sup-
port the development of integrated, state-of-the-art regional development plans that
use the latest data and most sophisticated analytic, modeling, and mapping tools
available.
In addition to these regional sustainability grants, HUD collaborated with DOT
to award another $75 million in Community Challenge grants for local communities
to initiate innovative housing, transportation, rural development and urban revital-
ization initiatives that are also likely to yield lower carbon emissions in these com-
munities.
These efforts will benefit urban, suburban and rural communities alike. The 2007
American Housing Survey estimates that nearly 50 percent of people who live in
rural places today live within the boundaries of metropolitan statistical areas. This
requires a level of integrated planning that spans jurisdictional boundaries in new
and unprecedented ways.
Energy Efficiency and Green Building
Another important component of HUD’s work to support sustainable communities
is in the area of energy efficiency and green building. Properly implemented and
maintained, relatively modest investments in energy retrofit improvements can sig-
nificantly reduce energy use in existing buildings, as well as improve comfort for
residents.12
HUD itself spends more than $5 billion on utilities in public housing and other
federally-assisted and public housing, and is taking steps to lower energy consump-
tion in this stock, which houses some of our more vulnerable populations, including
the elderly.
Through the Recovery Act, we have invested heavily in energy efficiency in hous-
ing, including, for example through the Green Retrofit Program, which has provided
grants and loans to owners of privately-owned multifamily buildings. Average ex-
penditure will be approximately $10,000 per unit, and we expect to retrofit some
20,000 units through the program.
In addition, significant investments have been made in public housing. Through
the Recovery Act, 1,500 new units will be built to green standards or achieve the
Energy Star for New Homes and another 35,000 units of public housing should
11 National Academy of Sciences, Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, p.34 (2010).
12 Hendricks, Goldstein, Detchon and Shickman, Rebuilding America: A National Policy
Framework for Investment in Energy Efficiency Retrofits, Center for American Progress (August
2009). In the residential sector, investments of $5,000 to $20,000 per unit can achieve energy
savings of 20—40 percent on average. In commercial properties, investments of $10 to $30 per
square foot can deliver energy savings of up to 40 percent.
163
lower energy use by at least 20 percent 13. We also provide incentives for public
housing authorities to utilize third-party Energy Performance Contracts, and plan
to retrofit another 15,000 units through this mechanism over the next two years.
We have also established a partnership with the Department of Energy to lower
barriers to the use of DOE’s Weatherization Assistance Program in housing stock
supported by HUD.14
Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force and the Federal Role
The same level of interagency cooperation that underlies the Partnership for Sus-
tainable Communities and our partnership with DOE to improve the energy effi-
ciency of our buildings is now shaping federal actions to address climate adaptation
and resilience. Last month, the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force,
of which HUD is a member, submitted a report to the President emphasizing the
importance of this issue to the Federal government.
The Task Force began meeting in the Spring, 2009. It is co-chaired by the Council
on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis-
tration (NOAA), and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP.) Recog-
nizing the important role of the Federal Government in adaptation, President
Obama signed an Executive Order on October 5, 2009 that called on the Task Force
to recommend how the policies and practices of Federal agencies can be made com-
patible with and reinforce a national climate change adaptation strategy. The Exec-
utive Order charged the Task Force with delivering a report through the Chair of
the CEQ to the President within one year.
The Task Force’s Report to the President reiterated the scientific consensus that
climate change is a scientific fact, and that human activities are a major contrib-
uting factor. It re-affirmed the Administration’s commitment to both take steps to
mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, as well as develop adaptation strategies to en-
able communities to withstand and respond to the effects of climate change:
There is scientific consensus that the Earth is warming due to increased con-
centrations of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere
(IPCC 2007, GCCI 2009, NRC 2010). Increased energy trapped in the atmos-
phere and the oceans due to these higher concentrations of greenhouse gases
is already leading to impacts, in the United States and globally, including
warmer average water and air temperatures.
The Obama Administration is committed to mitigating (i.e., reducing) green-
house gas emissions to minimize the future impacts of climate change. How-
ever, the climate impacts we are observing today will continue to increase, at
least in the short-term, regardless of the degree to which greenhouse gas emis-
sions are managed. Even under lower emissions scenarios, global average tem-
peratures are predicted to rise by over 2°F over the next 100 years (Figure 2)
due to factors such as the long-lived nature of certain greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere and the absorption of heat by the Earth’s oceans. In the long-term,
the ability to manage greenhouse gas emissions and moderate or reduce atmos-
pheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will affect the magnitude of the im-
pacts that we will need to adapt to (NRC 2010). Therefore, mitigation and adap-
tation are inextricably linked, and both are required in order to reduce the im-
pacts of climate change.15
The Federal Role

The Task Force found that the Federal Government has an important and unique
role in climate adaptation—but it is only one part of the broader effort that must
be supported by multiple levels of government and various other private and non-
governmental partners throughout the country.
In particular, ‘‘Federal leadership, guidance, and support are vital to empowering
others to act and to enabling decisions based on the best available information and
science. Just as importantly, the Federal Government can learn from and build off
the efforts of others, as many cities and states within and outside the United States
have already begun to implement adaptive measures.’’
The Task Force also acknowledged that the Federal Government has an impor-
tant stake in adaptation because climate change directly affects a wide range of
13 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Capital Fund Recovery Competition
Grants, Notice of Funds Availability, May, 2009.
14 See www.hud.gov/recovery/weatherization.
15 Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Ad-
aptation Task Force: Actions and Recommendations In Support of a National Climate Change
Adaptation Strategy, October 5, 2010.
164
Federal services, operations and programs, particularly those associated with man-
agement of public lands, infrastructure, and national security, among others.
The Task Force recommended in its Progress Report that Federal Agencies make
adaptation a standard part of strategic planning to ensure that resources are in-
vested wisely and that Federal programs, services and operations remain effective
in a changing climate.
The Task Force also recommended that the Government continue to enhance cli-
mate services that enable informed decisions based on the best available science,
and to work with the international community to improve knowledge sharing and
coordinate adaptation investments.
We also need to pay more attention to the unintended consequences of policies
that may increase our vulnerability to climate risks and thus make adaptation more
costly and difficult; for example, certain policies may lead to high risk activities in
the very areas that climate science would suggest people avoid.
The Interagency Task Force adopted a set of Climate Adaptation Principles (see
Attachment A), as well as five Policy Goals that we hope will shape federal action
in this arena. In addition, we expect to initiate a number of pilot projects where
these principles and goals can be tested in partnership with local communities.
Thank you Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee—I look forward to an-
swering your questions.
165
Attachment A: Federal Interagency Task Force Climate Adaptation Prin-
ciples
Adopt integrated approaches. Climate change preparation and response
should be integrated into core policies, planning, practices, and programs whenever
possible.
Prioritize the most vulnerable. Adaptation plans should prioritize helping peo-
ple, places, and infrastructure that are most vulnerable to climate impacts. They
should also be designed and implemented with meaningful involvement from all
parts of society. Issues of inequality and environmental justice associated with cli-
mate change impacts and adaptation should be addressed.
Use best-available science. Adaptation should be grounded in best-available
scientific understanding of climate change risks, impacts, and vulnerabilities.
Adaptive actions should not be delayed to wait for a complete understanding of cli-
mate change impacts, as there will always be some uncertainty. Plans and actions
should be adjusted as our understanding of climate impacts increases.
Build strong partnerships. Adaptation requires coordination across multiple
sectors, geographical scales, and levels of government and should build on the exist-
ing efforts and knowledge of a wide range of stakeholders. Because impacts, vulner-
ability, and needs vary by region and locale, adaptation will be most effective when
driven by local or regional risks and needs.
Apply risk-management methods and tools. A risk management approach can
be an effective way to assess and respond to climate change because the timing,
likelihood, and nature of specific climate risks are difficult to predict. Risk manage-
ment approaches are already used in many critical decisions today (e.g., for fire,
flood, disease outbreaks), and can aid in understanding the potential consequences
of inaction as well as options for risk reduction.
Apply ecosystem-based approaches. Ecosystems provide valuable services that
help to build resilience and reduce the vulnerability of people and their livelihoods
to climate change impacts. Integrating the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem
services into adaptation strategies will increase resilience of human and natural
systems to climate and non-climate risks, providing benefits to society and the envi-
ronment.
Maximize mutual benefits. Adaptation should, where possible, use strategies
that complement or directly support other related climate or environmental initia-
tives, such as efforts to improve disaster preparedness, promote sustainable resource
management, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions including the development of
cost-effective technologies.
Continuously evaluate performance. Adaptation plans should include measur-
able goals and performance metrics to continuously assess whether adaptive actions
are achieving desired outcomes. In some cases, the measurements will be qualitative
until more information is gathered to evaluate outcomes quantitatively. Flexibility
is a critical to building a robust and resilient process that can accommodate uncer-
tainty and change.
166
Attachment B: Federal Interagency Task Force Policy Goals
Encourage and mainstream adaptation planning across the Federal Gov-
ernment.
Improve integration of science into decision making.
Address key cross-cutting issues.
Enhance efforts to lead and support international adaptation.
Align and coordinate capabilities of the Federal Government to support na-
tional adaptation.
BIOGRAPHY FOR JAMES C. LOPEZ

James (Jim) Lopez is the Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Ron Sims at the De-
partment of Housing and Urban Development. Under the Deputy Secretary’s Office,
he has played a leading role in creating and implementing several of HUD’s inter-
agency initiatives including HUD’s work on sustainable and livable communities,
climate change adaptation, and energy efficiency.
Before joining HUD, Jim served in various senior advisor positions for King Coun-
ty in Seattle, Washington. Of note, he was the Director of Strategic Planning and
Performance Management in the office of King County’s former Executive Ron Sims.
He also served as Executive Sims’ Deputy Chief of Staff and key policy strategist.
Jim led King County’s internationally recognized Climate Change program and
helped create the county’s award winning Health Reform Initiative.
Prior to his entry into government, Jim practiced law for nine years in Boston,
Massachusetts.
Jim received a law degree from Case Western Reserve in 1992 and a M.P.A. from
Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2003. He resides
in Gaithersburg, MD with his wife and two daughters.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Mr. Lopez.
Mr. Geer.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM GEER, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER
FOR WESTERN LANDS, THEODORE ROOSEVELT CONSERVA-
TION PARTNERSHIP
Mr. GEER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We appreciate the opportunity to sit before this committee and
share the concerns we have on climate change and recite what we
are doing about it, what we see in the field, what we are doing
about it today.
I have no PowerPoint slides, but I represent a community of peo-
ple, both professionally and in terms of passionate views, that have
a great concern about what’s happening in environmental change.
Professionally, I represent fish and wildlife biologists. I have
been one for 38 years, and so I have had a chance to work on a
lot of impacts and a lot of development projects, and I have seen
changes. I don’t always know the causes of all those changes, but
the people in my field always have to deal with the consequences
and manage accordingly, even if we can’t always decide where ex-
actly did that change come from.
In terms of the passionate users, I represent hunters and an-
glers. Many of these hunters and anglers are not scientists. Some
in fact are; most are not. But they have a passion for use of the
resource, and we often feel that they also are some of the first ob-
servers of change in the field. They see things in a natural environ-
ment because it affects the distribution of animals, or perhaps they
pursue hunting and fishing, and of course they want us to do some-
thing about it.
I live in Montana, where about half the population actually
hunts and fishs. Twenty percent still hunt, and about half of them
167
hunt or fish. And that’s a sustainable outdoor recreation economy,

in a state of less than a million people, of over a billion dollars a
year. It’s economically pretty significant.
And I meet frequently with these sportsmen in more than 32 cit-
ies scattered around the state on a regular basis. I talk about many
conservation issues, climate change being one. And what I have
found over the past few years in talking about climate change is,
while some sportsmen won’t utter the words climate change—it’s
partisan right now and it’s almost a toxic phrase—most of them
will readily acknowledge that the shorter winters, reduced snow
pack, increasing spring rainfall, lower stream flows, melting gla-
ciers, and mountain pine beetle epidemic reflect an environmental
change that does not bode well for fish and wildlife or hunting and
fishing as recreational activities.
As a consequence, in 2008, nine of the Nation’s leading hunting
and fishing conservation organizations released a book called Sea-
sons’ End, a report predicting the impacts of climate change on fish
and wildlife habitat and its implications for sustainable hunting
and fishing, and some of the conclusions are based on the best
available predictions from scientists.
We heard earlier that upland birds face disruptions in life cycles
that will sever reproduction and the emergence of critical food re-
sources. In cold, wet springs, young birds sometimes suffer fatal ex-
posure to cold from loss of thermal snow cover. Reduced nesting
success leading to losses in specific age classes and eventually to
population instability, coupled with increased predation and an in-
flux of invasive species, result in fewer birds in the hunters’ bags.
In Montana, though, we have some complications. Because cli-
mate change isn’t the only stressor on the landscape. We find that
sage grouse declines have also been tied to natural gas drilling dis-
turbance too close to leks and brood rearing areas. So we have to
integrate many sources of stress on a resource and try to manage
around them and be successful.
There are species like mountain goats and bighorn sheep that
have a much more narrowly defined habitat and are much more
sensitive to a changing climate. They will have to compete for in-
creasingly isolated, fragmented, and diminished habitat. Rising
temperatures in the Rockies potentially will allow trees and shrubs
to overwhelm sagebrush ecosystems that now provide desirable
winter forage for pronghorn, elk, and mule deer; and big game
hunters in Montana are already having less success because winter
snows are arriving later in the fall, keeping elk and mule deer at
a higher elevation and less accessible areas for most of the hunting
season.
It’s not just a matter of we enjoy hunting. Hunting is a necessary
management tool. If you are in the business of managing wildlife,
many of our hunts are based on population management and mi-
grations downhill into areas where people can get to provide the
hunting necessary for herd size management.
Shorter winters will affect the availability of waterfowl food and
cover and quality of habitat. Longer ice-free seasons will lead to
changes in migratory timing, routes, and wintering locations. Sea
level rise on the coasts certainly will inundate coastal wetlands and
squeeze waterfowl into narrowing bands of habitat. And the prairie
168
pothole region, of which Montana is part, could lose up to 90 per-

cent of its wetlands—small wetlands to climate change and reduc-
ing the region’s breeding ducks by as much as 69 percent in an
area that we call America’s duck breeding factory. Hunters
throughout the country now report that waterfowl migrations are
occurring later in the season and in some cases not occurring at all.
Warming waters will slow trout growth rates, increase stress and
susceptibility to toxins, parasites, and disease. Trout will be forced
to congregate in constricted habitats and compete with invasive
species.
Nonnative smallmouth bass have already moved 40 river miles
upstream in the Yellowstone River, displacing Yellowstone cut-
throat trout, a very cold water species, because of warming water.
The physical habitat was there, but now the water’s warmed up.
There is lower June runoff, lower August precipitation, lower Au-
gust flows. Water warms up, we change the species mix.
Declining stream flows with less snow pack have already deci-
mated fishing opportunities in some western states, where trout
populations could be reduced by up to 50 percent. Trout fishing
spots and success will change significantly, and mostly not for the
better.
Climate change could fundamentally change the participation
rates of America’s 13 million hunters and 28 million freshwater an-
glers. As fish and wildlife habitat, abundance, and distribution
shift in response to a changing climate, patterns of recreational ac-
tivities will shift as well. The loss of big game and upland bird
hunting opportunities in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in the
northern Rockies would impair a sustainable recreational economy
that currently supports more than 4.3 million hunter days annually
and generates more than $3.45 billion annually in economic value.
Nationally, outdoor recreation, including hunting and fishing ac-
tivities, contribute 6.5 million jobs, which are pretty necessary in
today’s economy, and a total economic value of $725 billion per
year.
We have another new report now. It’s not just a matter of report-
ing impacts, but it’s what are we going to do about it? We are in
the business of doing adaptive management; and we have pre-
sented ideas and adaptation strategies which we distributed in a
book called Beyond Seasons’ End yesterday to the committee in
which we identify candidate types of strategies and projects that
we could do, along with the likely costs, to help alleviate and ame-
liorate the effects of climate change.
There is going to be species that win and species that lose. We
can’t change the climate necessarily. We are not the greenhouse
gas emission experts. What we specialize in is how do we adapt to
what’s left.
The report gives numerous examples of what can be done on the
ground, real-world stuff to restore and protect crucial habitat for
waterfowl, warm and cold water fisheries, big game and upland
birds and saltwater fish and to secure connective corridors between
habitats, allocate water for sport fish, adjust population manage-
ment and harvests and develop state and national adaptation
plans.
169
We already have some mechanisms that you fund through Con-

gress called state wildlife grants, state wildlife action plans—they
are now at landscape level—that will help become fundamental
tools for managing landscapes of changing environment in the field.
We estimate that the cost of such an adaptational plan nationally
is likely at the start to be in the neighborhood of, nationwide, at
$1 to $3 billion a year.
But we think that the consequences of not taking action now are
going to be much more expensive in the future. It will have eco-
nomic consequences to the economy, and certainly the quality of
living for our children and grandchildren are going to be affected.
I have one statement I would like to make, one sentence I
thought was pertinent that economists made back in March, not bi-
ologists like me. I think it reflects today’s attitude somewhat: Ac-
tion on climate is justified not because the science is certain, but
precisely because it is not.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Geer follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. GEER
I want to thank the chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity
to present testimony on this important issue.
I live in Montana, where 20 percent of the population hunts and fishes, sup-
porting a sustainable outdoor recreation economy exceeding a billion dollars every
year. In fact, the hunting-and-fishing economy in Montana is at least as big as the
state’s energy economy. A bumper sticker recently spotted in Montana said, ‘‘Hunt-
ing is not matter of life or death—it’s much more important than that.’’ Needless
to say, we place great value on our sporting traditions in the Treasure State.
I meet frequently with sportsmen across Montana and have traveled to rod and
gun clubs in 32 towns throughout the state to discuss climate change and its im-
pacts on fish and wildlife. Sportsmen tell me that they both feel and see the effects
of the average air temperature increase of 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit that has occurred
since 1951. They are observing delayed onset of winter conditions, a snowpack that
has declined 17 percent over the past 60 years and spring rainfall amounts that
have increased nearly 6 percent. They also are experiencing late summer precipita-
tion that has declined more than 20 percent and flows in coldwater streams that
are declining noticeably throughout Montana. They realize that the glaciers in Gla-
cier National Park are likely to disappear by 2030 (at this time, only 26 remain of
the 150 that existed in 1850). And, finally, they see that Montana’s warmer winters
and drier summers have allowed the mountain pine beetle to expand its natural in-
festation of Montana’s lodgepole pine forests to epidemic levels, resulting in 2 mil-
lion acres of beetle-killed trees.
While some of these sportsmen might never utter the words ‘‘climate change,’’
they readily acknowledge that the later and shorter winters, reduced snowpack, in-
creasing spring rain, lower streamflows, melting glaciers and widespread pine beetle
epidemic reflect an environmental change that is beyond rational debate. They also
know that this magnitude of environmental change will eventually result in serious
declines in many species of fish and wildlife. Global climate change does not bode
well for the future of fish and wildlife and recreational hunting and fishing.
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s fundamental beliefs regarding
climate change are
• Global climate change is real.
• Sportsmen likely will be the first to experience the repercussions of climate
change.
• We need to safeguard fish and wildlife resources from climate change with
adaptation strategies.
• How we address global climate change now will dictate whether future gen-
erations will continue to enjoy sporting traditions.
In 2008, the Wildlife Management Institute and eight of the nation’s leading
hunting and fishing organizations released Seasons’ End: Global Warming’s Threat
to Hunting and Fishing (www.seasonsend.org), a report detailing the predicted im-
170
pacts of climate change on fish and wildlife habitat and its implications for sustain-
able hunting and fishing. Some of the report’s conclusions follow.
Upland birds face a severe future as climate change progresses. Disruptions in life
cycles likely will sever reproduction and the emergence of critical food sources.
Young birds could suffer fatal exposure to winter cold from loss of thermal snow
cover, with reduced nesting success and increased predation leading to major popu-
lation reductions. These declines coupled with an influx of invasive species will re-
sult in fewer birds in the hunters’ bags. Increasing droughts could devastate food
sources for upland birds, with prairie chickens, sage grouse, sharp-tailed grouse and
pheasants among the species most likely to be diminished in number. Many eastern
Montana ranchers consider the prime prairie grouse and pheasant hunting on their
lands to be an important cash crop, along with cattle and wheat.
Big game likely will be adversely impacted in several ways. Mountain goats and
bighorn sheep will compete for increasingly isolated, fragmented and diminished
habitat. Rising temperatures in the Rocky Mountains will allow trees and shrubs
to overwhelm sagebrush ecosystems that in the past provided desirable winter for-
age for pronghorn, elk and mule deer. As fragmentation and loss of critical winter
range continues, mule deer and elk could dwindle in numbers, particularly in Mon-
tana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Forage becomes less nourishing
in prolonged droughts, and elk and mule deer are likely to remain at higher ele-
vations longer. Big-game hunters in Montana already are having less success be-
cause winter snows are arriving later in the fall, keeping elk and mule deer at high-
er elevations and in less accessible areas through most of the hunting season.
Unlike big game, waterfowl can move quickly and cover vast distances. Neverthe-
less, shorter winters will affect the availability of waterfowl food and cover and
quality of habitat. Longer ice-free seasons will lead to changing migratory timing,
routes and wintering locations. Sea level rise inundating coastal wetlands will
squeeze waterfowl into narrowing bands of habitat. The prairie pothole region,
which includes portions of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana and the Dakotas, could lose
up to 90 percent of its wetlands to climate change, reducing the region’s breeding
ducks by as much as 69 percent in an area often called North America’s duck breed-
ing factory. No species can withstand the loss of 90 percent of its critical habitat
base. Hunters throughout the United States report that waterfowl migrations are
occurring later in the season and, in some cases, not occurring at all.
The outlook for trout in the West is warming water that will slow trout growth
rates, increase stress and increase susceptibility to toxins, parasites and disease.
Trout will be forced to congregate in constricted habitats and compete with invasive
species. Diminishing streamflows from declining snowpack already have decimated
trout populations and fishing opportunities in some Montana streams, such as Lolo
Creek south of Missoula where low flows have reduced once-thriving populations of
cutthroat, rainbow, brown and brook trout. Western trout populations could be re-
duced by 50 percent. Trout fishing spots and success will change significantly—and
not for the better.
Global climate change has the power to fundamentally change the participation
rates of America’s 13 million hunters and 28 million freshwater anglers, as well as
the geography of hunting and fishing in North America. As fish and wildlife habitat,
abundance and distribution shift in response to a changing climate, patterns of rec-
reational activities will shift as well. Today’s carefully delineated protected areas
may not even be encompassed within the new habitat zones where the mobile spe-
cies of wildlife may be forced to migrate under a changing climate.
Collectively, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming still harbor the finest hunting for big
game and upland bird and trout fishing resources in the country. The loss of big
game and upland gamebird hunting opportunities in these northern Rocky Moun-
tain states would impair what has been a sustainable recreational economy that
currently supports more than 4.3 million hunter-days annually and annually gen-
erates more than $3.45 billion in total economic value (Backcountry Bounty, Sonoran
Institute, June 2006).
Now, Beyond Seasons’ End (www.seasonsend.org), a new report released in 2010
by 10 of the nation’s leading hunting and fishing organizations, along with the
TRCP, presents adaptation strategies, measures and costs to aid fish and wildlife
in adapting to global climate change. The common-sense and science-based rec-
ommendations that are spelled out and ‘‘cost out’’ in Beyond Seasons’ End are well-
conceived, field-tested and can be accomplished if funding can be provided. This ap-
plication of science shows what can be done on the ground to restore and protect
crucial fish and wildlife habitat, secure migration corridors and connectivity be-
tween habitats, allocate water for sport fish and develop regional and national adap-
tation plans.
171
A number of state fish and wildlife agencies are in the process of revising their
state wildlife action plans (funded largely by State Wildlife Grant appropriations
from Congress) to incorporate comprehensive strategies for fish and wildlife adapta-
tion to climate change. The state wildlife action plans, when based on landscape-
level habitat management and conservation, will become one of the fundamental
tools of state agencies for improving the resiliency and sustainability of fish and
wildlife under a changing climate, particularly when they are developed in concert
with neighboring states that share the habitat ranges and connective corridors for
wildlife that do not recognize political borders.
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks is updating its comprehensive
fish and wildlife conservation strategy to include adaptive measures to better sus-
tain and manage fish and wildlife across broad landscapes in a changing climate,
using strategies presented in Beyond Seasons’ End. The revised strategy will em-
phasize crucial areas, such as new areas of winter range for elk, and corridors that
will enable mobile fish and wildlife species to move to suitable habitat. The agency’s
new Crucial Areas Planning System integrates many computer databases that pro-
vide wildlife managers with the physical, biological and social information to better
predict impacts of climate change and development on fish and wildlife—and hunt-
ing and fishing—and develop more effective mitigation and adaptive management
measures.
The Yellowstone River Strategy is one example of the landscape-level approaches
identified by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and a working group comprised of
non-agency specialists to help Yellowstone cutthroat trout survive in a warming
river environment. The June runoff and late summer flows have been declining
since the early 1950s, and the water now is favoring smallmouth bass over cut-
throats. The main factors behind a decline in Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the Yel-
lowstone River have been contraction of coldwater habitats in upper reaches, in-
creasing temperatures and loss of connectivity from reduced flows in lower reaches,
loss of tributary connectivity from reduced flows and diversion dams and a decline
of Yellowstone cutthroat trout with encroaching smallmouth bass upstream to Reed
Point. The Yellowstone River System strategy would safeguard genetically pure Yel-
lowstone cutthroat trout by conserving their strongholds in headwater tributaries;
constructing temporary, high-elevation water storage to augment downstream flows
in the summer; re-establishing stream connectivity to allow fish to disperse in mid-
elevation downstream reaches; removing fish passage barriers and restoring ripar-
ian areas, wet meadows and wetlands in lower-elevation downstream reaches while
maintaining the prime coldwater fishing opportunities for which the river is famous.
Another example of a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks landscape-level climate ad-
aptation project is the Sagebrush Steppe System Initiative in southwestern and
eastern Montana. The sagebrush habitat community provides critical habitat to
many of the big-game, waterfowl and upland bird species prized by hunters. These
are the likely effects of climate change on these species in the sagebrush steppe
area: elk, mule deer and pronghorn overwinter survival might improve with milder
winters, but recruitment to the population likely will decline due to forage nutri-
tional deficiencies; Greater sage-grouse are likely to be hurt by the declining extent
and density of sagebrush for food and shelter; and waterfowl likely will decline from
drier climate and loss of small wetlands.
In the Sagebrush Steppe System Initiative, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks more
closely coordinates with agencies, namely the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of
Land Management, which manage the majority of Montana’s publicly owned habitat
and which now are required to consider impacts of their management on the cli-
mate. Also, the agency will work closely with private agricultural landowners using
private-land conservation incentives in the 2008 Farm Bill, such as the Conserva-
tion Stewardship, Environmental Quality Incentives and Farm and Ranchland Pro-
tection programs. Conserving and maintaining crucial areas and migratory corridors
will receive special emphasis.
As Congress develops climate and energy legislation, I urge you to ensure that
such legislation establishes a national program to mitigate the causes of global
warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and sequestering carbon from
the atmosphere.
The unavoidable adverse effects of climate change on fish and wildlife and their
habitats may be minimized or prevented in some cases through adaptation meas-
ures and management actions initiated at the earliest time possible. There is a com-
pelling and urgent need for fish and wildlife managers to initiate specific conserva-
tion actions—such as ensuring crucial habitat availability and connectivity—that
would help fish and wildlife maintain self-sustaining populations through an ongo-
ing flexible management process of adaptive management. Specifically, a House bill
should establish a national policy framework to help protect, reconnect and restore
172
public and private lands; provide increased scientific capacity; identify wildlife mi-
gration corridors; coordinate and share information; and dedicate a sufficient
amount of funding to federal, state and tribal agencies to implement identified ac-
tions needed assure the resiliency and sustainability of our fish and wildlife re-
sources.
The activities of the federal resource agencies needed to restore and protect fish
and wildlife from the impacts of climate change should be directed and coordinated
through a comprehensive national strategy, developed in close consultation with
states, tribes and other stakeholders and with advice from the National Academy
of Sciences and a science advisory board.
The activities of the state resource agencies should be directed and coordinated
through individual, state-based, comprehensive strategies for fish and wildlife adap-
tation to climate change that are approved by the Secretary of the Interior and inte-
grated into state wildlife action plans, state coastal zone management plans and
other state wildlife species or habitat plans. Opportunities should be provided for
scientific and public input during the development and implementation of these
strategies.
Most sportsmen pay homage to President Theodore Roosevelt because he had the
courage and foresight to advance a strong conservation agenda and restore depleted
fish and wildlife against a political tide, bequeathing to us the rich fish and wildlife
heritage sportsmen cherish to this day. Roosevelt had the foresight to recognize that
Congress must take action at a critical time to safeguard this legacy for future gen-
erations of Americans. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we now must
act at what is another critical time. While no one has all the answers to the chal-
lenge of climate change, we know we are dealing with a rapidly changing world. We
must step up today to do the conservation work that will ensure the future—not
only of hunting and fishing, but of our very quality of life.
Thank you.
BIOGRAPHY FOR WILLIAM H. GEER

William Geer joined the TRCP staff full time in 2005 as policy initiatives man-
ager. After earning a bachelor of science from the University of Montana School of
Forestry and a master of science in limnology from Montana State University, Bill
has spent the past 38 years as a professional fish and wildlife conservationist. Be-
fore joining the TRCP, he served as the director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Re-
sources, coordinator for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan for the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, vice president for both field operations and
conservation programs for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Inland Northwest
conservation manager for the Nature Conservancy in Idaho and executive director
of the Outdoor Writers Association of America.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Mr. Geer.
Dr. Curry.
STATEMENT OF JUDITH A. CURRY, CHAIR OF THE SCHOOL OF
EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, GEORGIA INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY
Dr. CURRY. I would like to—Hello? Okay.
I would like to thank the Chairman and the Committee for the
opportunity to participate in this hearing.
You have heard forceful arguments from climate scientists for a
looming future threat from anthropogenic climate change. Anthro-
pogenic climate change is a theory whose basic mechanism is well
understood but whose magnitude is highly uncertain. This conflict
regarding this theory is over the level of our ignorance regarding
what is known about natural climate variability, about what is un-
known about natural climate variability, and the feedback proc-
esses.
Based on the background knowledge that we have, the threat
from global climate change does not seem to be an existential one
on the time scale of the 21st century, even in its most alarming in-
carnation. It seems more important that robust policy responses be
173
formulated than to respond urgently with policies that may fail to

address the problem and whose unintended consequences have not
been adequately explored.
How to deal with this complex problem presents many challenges
at the interface between science and policy. Over the past 20 years,
scientists have become entangled in an acrimonious scientific and
political debate where the issues in each have become confounded.
Debates over relatively arcane aspects of the scientific argument
have become a substitute for what should be a real debate about
politics and values.
I have been publicly raising concerns since 2003 about how un-
certainty surrounding climate change is evaluated and commu-
nicated. At this point, it seems more important to explore the un-
certainties associated with future climate change, rather than to
attempt to reduce the uncertainties in a consensus-based approach.
It’s time for climate scientists to change their view of uncer-
tainty. It’s not just something that is merely to be framed and com-
municated to policymakers while mindful that doubt is a political
weapon in the decision-making process. Characterizing, under-
standing, and exploring uncertainty is at the heart of the scientific
process; and, further, the characterization of uncertainty is critical
information for robust policy decisions.
It’s important to broaden the scope of global climate change re-
search to develop a better understanding of natural climate varia-
bility and the impact of land use changes; and far more attention
needs to be given to establishing robust and transparent climate
data records, particularly the paleoclimate record. Regional plan-
ners and resource managers want accurate, high-resolution climate
model projections to support local climate adaptation plans and cli-
mate-compatible development. The need for such models is unlikely
to be met at least in the short term.
In any event, anthropogenic climate change on time scales of dec-
ades is arguably less important in driving vulnerability than in-
creasing population, land use practices, and ecosystem degradation.
Regions that find solutions to current problems of climate varia-
bility and extreme weather events and address challenges associ-
ated with an increasing population will be better prepared to cope
with any additional stresses from climate change.
Climate researchers need to engage with regional planners,
economists, military intelligence organizations, development banks,
energy companies, and governments in the developing world. Such
engagement can develop a mutual understanding about what kind
of information is needed, promote more fruitful decision outcomes,
and to find new scientific challenges to be addressed by research.
The need for climate researchers to engage with social scientists
and engineers has never been more important, and there is an in-
creasing need for social scientists and philosophers of science to
scrutinize and analyze our field to prevent dysfunction at the
science-policy interface, which has been so evident this past year.
Climate scientists and the institutions that support them need to
acknowledge and engage with ever-growing groups of citizens, sci-
entists, and extended peer communities that have become increas-
ingly well organized by the blogosphere. The more sophisticated of
these groups are challenging our conventional notions of expertise
174
and are bringing much-needed scrutiny particularly into issues sur-

rounding historical and paleoclimate data records. These groups re-
flect the growing public interest in climate science and a growing
concern about possible impacts of both climate change and climate
change policies.
And, further, this interest has illuminated the fundamental need
for improved and transparent historical and paleoclimate data sets
and improved information systems so that these data are easily
accessed and interpreted. We need to identify and secure the com-
mon interests in dealing with the climate, energy, and ocean acidi-
fication problems.
A diversity of views on interpreting the scientific evidence and a
broad range of ideas on how to address these challenges doesn’t
hinder the implementation of diverse, bottom-up solutions. Secur-
ing the common interest on local and regional scales provides a
basis for the successful implementation of climate adaptation strat-
egies and successes on the regional scale and then national scale
make it much more likely that global issues can be confronted in
an effective way.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Curry follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JUDITH A. CURRY
I thank the Chairman and the Committee for the opportunity to offer testimony
today on ‘‘Rational Discussion of Climate Change.’’ I am Chair of the School of Earth
and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. As a climate sci-
entist, I have devoted 30 years to conducting research on a variety of topics includ-
ing climate feedback processes in the Arctic, energy exchange between the ocean
and the atmosphere, the role of clouds and aerosols in the climate system, and the
impact of climate change on the characteristics of hurricanes. As president of Cli-
mate Forecast Applications Network LLC, I have been working with decision mak-
ers on climate impact assessments, assessing and developing climate adaptation
strategies, and developing subseasonal climate forecasting strategies to support
adaptive management and tactical adaptation. Over the past year, I have been ac-
tively engaging with the public (particularly in the blogosphere) on the issue of in-
tegrity of climate science, and also the topic of uncertainty.
The climate change response challenge

Climate change can be categorized as a ‘‘wicked problem.’’ 1 Wicked problems are
difficult or impossible to solve, there is no opportunity to devise an overall solution
by trial and error, and there is no real test of the efficacy of a solution to the wicked
problem. Efforts to solve the wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have framed the climate
change problem (i.e. dangers) and its solution (i.e. international treaty) to be
irreducibly global. Based upon the precautionary principle, the UNFCCC’s Kyoto
Protocol has established an international goal of stabilization of the concentrations
of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. This framing of the problem and its solu-
tion has led to the dilemma of climate response policy that is aptly described by
Obersteiner et al. 2:
The key issue is whether ‘‘betting big today’’ with a comprehensive global cli-
mate policy targeted at stabilization ‘‘will fundamentally reshape our common
future on a global scale to our advantage or quickly produce losses that can
throw mankind into economic, social, and environmental bankruptcy.’’
1 Rittel, Horst, and Melvin Webber; ‘‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,’’ pp. 155–
169, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc., Amsterdam, 1973.
http://www.uctc.net/mwebber/Rittel+Webber+Dilemmas+General¥Theory¥of¥Planning.pdf
2 http://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/1975/292/2001-Man-
aging¥climate¥risk.pdf?sequence=1
175
In a rational discussion of climate change, the question needs to be asked as to
whether the framing of the problem and the early articulation of a preferred policy
option by the UNFCCC has marginalized research on broader issues surrounding
climate change, and resulted is an overconfident assessment of the importance of
greenhouse gases in future climate change, and stifled the development of a broader
range of policy options.
The IPCC/UNFCCC have provided an important service to global society by alert-
ing us to a global threat that is potentially catastrophic. The UNFCCC/IPCC has
made an ambitious attempt to put a simplified frame around the problem of climate
change and its solution in terms of anthropogenic forcing and CO2 stabilization po-
lices. However, the result of this simplified framing of a wicked problem is that we
lack the kinds of information to more broadly understand climate change and soci-
etal vulnerability.
Uncertainty in climate science

Anthropogenic climate change is a theory in which the basic mechanism is well
understood, but in which the magnitude of the climate change is highly uncertain
owing to feedback processes. We know that the climate changes naturally on
decadal to century time scales, but we do not have explanations for a number of
observed historical and paleo climate variations, including the warming from 1910–
1940 and the mid-20th century cooling. The conflict regarding the theory of anthro-
pogenic climate change is over the level of our ignorance regarding what is unknown
about natural climate variability.
I have been raising concerns 3 since 2003 about how uncertainty surrounding cli-
mate change is evaluated and communicated. The IPCC’s efforts to consider uncer-
tainty focus primarily on communicating uncertainty, rather than on characterizing
and exploring uncertainty in a way that would be useful for risk managers and re-
source managers and the institutions that fund science. 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 pos-
sible. Recommendations along these lines were made by the recent IAC 4 review of
the IPCC.
Because the assessment of climate change science by the IPCC is inextricably
linked with the UNFCCC polices, a statement about scientific uncertainty in climate
science is often viewed as a political statement. A person making a statement about
uncertainty or degree of doubt is likely to become categorized as a skeptic or denier
or a ‘‘merchant of doubt,’’ 5 whose motives are assumed to be ideological or moti-
vated by funding from the fossil fuel industry. My own experience in publicly dis-
cussing concerns about how uncertainty is characterized by the IPCC has resulted
in my being labeled as a ‘‘climate heretic’’ 6 that has turned against my colleagues.
Climate change winners and losers

A view of the climate change problem as irreducibly global fails to recognize that
some regions may actually benefit from a warmer and/or wetter climate. Areas of
the world that currently cannot adequately support populations and agricultural ef-
forts may become more desirable in future climate regimes.
Arguably the biggest global concern regarding climate change impacts is concerns
over water resources. This concern is exacerbated in regions where population is
rapidly increasing and water resources are already thinly stretched. China and
South Asia (notably India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) are facing a looming water
crisis arising from burgeoning population and increasing demand for water for irri-
gated farming and industry. China has been damming the rivers emerging from
Tibet and channeling the water for irrigation, and there is particular concern over
the diversion of the Brahmaputra to irrigate the arid regions of Central China. Chi-
na’s plans to reroute the Brahmaputra raises the specter of riparian water wars
with India and Bangladesh.
The IPCC AR4 WGII makes two statements of particular relevance to the water
situation in central and south Asia:
‘‘Freshwater availability in Central, South, East and South-East Asia . . . is
likely to decrease due to climate change, along with population growth and ris-
3 http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/pdf/crc-102103.pdf
4 http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/
5 Oreskes, N. and E.M. Conway, 2010: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Ob-
scured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming. Bloomsbury Press, 368 pp.
6 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-heretic
176
ing standard of living that could adversely affect more than a billion people in
Asia by the 2050s (high confidence).’’ 7
‘‘Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world
and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year
2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current
rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2
by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).’’ 8
The lack of veracity of the statement about the melting Himalayan glaciers has
been widely discussed, and the mistake has been acknowledged by the IPCC.9 How-
ever, both of these statements seem inconsistent with the information in Table 10.2
of the IPCC AR4 WG II and the statement:
‘‘The consensus of AR4 models . . . indicates an increase in annual precipitation
in most of Asia during this century; the relative increase being largest and most
consistent between models in North and East Asia. The sub-continental mean
winter precipitation will very likely increase in northern Asia and the Tibetan
Plateau and likely increase in West, Central, South-East and East Asia. Summer
precipitation will likely increase in North, South, South-East and East Asia but
decrease in West and Central Asia.’’ 10
Based on the IPCC’s simulations of 21st century climate, it seems that rainfall
will increase overall in the region (including wintertime snowfall in Tibet), and the
IPCC AR4 WGII does not discuss the impact of temperature and evapotranspiration
on fresh water resources in this region. The importance of these omissions, incon-
sistencies or mistakes by the IPCC is amplified by the potential of riparian warfare
in this region that supports half of the world’s population.
A serious assessment is needed of vulnerabilities, region by region, in the context
of possible climate change scenarios, demographics, societal vulnerabilities, possible
adaptation, and current adaptation deficits. A few regions have attempted such an
assessment. Efforts being undertaken by the World Bank Program on the Economics
of Adaptation to Climate Change to assess the economics of adaptation in devel-
oping countries are among the best I’ve seen in this regard. This is the kind of infor-
mation that is needed to assess winners and losers and how dangerous climate
change might be relative to adaptive capacities.
Climate surprises and catastrophes

The uncertainty associated with climate change science and the wickedness of the
problem provide much fodder for disagreement about preferred policy options. Un-
certainty might be regarded as cause for delaying action or as strengthening the
case for action. Low-probability, high-consequence events in the context of a wicked
problem provide particular challenges to developing robust policies.
Extreme events such as landfalling major hurricanes, floods, extreme heat waves
and droughts can have catastrophic impacts. While such events are not unexpected
in an aggregate sense, their frequency and/or severity may increase in a warmer cli-
mate and they may be a surprise to the individual locations that are impacted by
a specific event. Natural events become catastrophes through a combination of large
populations, large and exposed infrastructure in vulnerable locations, and when hu-
mans modify natural systems that can provide a natural safety barrier (e.g. defor-
estation, draining wetlands). For example, the recent catastrophic flooding in Paki-
stan 11 apparently owes as much to deforestation and overgrazing as it does to heavy
rainfall. Addressing current adaptive deficits and planning for climate compatible
development will increase societal resilience to future extreme events that may be
more frequent or severe in a warmer climate.
Abrupt climate change 12 is defined as a change that occurs faster than the appar-
ent underlying driving forces. Abrupt climate change, either caused by natural cli-
mate variability or triggered in part by anthropogenic climate change, is a possi-
bility that needs investigation and consideration. Catastrophic anthropogenic cli-
mate change arising from climate sensitivity on the extreme high end of the dis-
tribution has not been adequately explored, and the plausible worst-case scenario
has not be adequately articulated. To what extent can we falsify scenarios of very
high climate sensitivity based on our background knowledge? What are the possibili-
7 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications
¥and¥data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-es.html
¥and¥data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-6-2.html
9 http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf
¥and¥data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-3.html#10-3-1
11 http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/20/pakistan-on-my-mind/
12 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309074347
177
ties for abrupt climate change, and what are the possible time scales involved?
What regions would be most vulnerable under this worst-case scenario?
Weitzmann 13 characterizes the decision making surrounding climate change in
the following way:
‘‘Much more unsettling for an application of expected utility analysis is deep
structural uncertainty in the science of global warming coupled with an eco-
nomic inability to place a meaningful upper bound on catastrophic losses, from
disastrous temperature changes. The climate science seems to be saying that the
probability of a system-wide disastrous collapse is non-negligible even while this
tiny probability is not known precisely and necessarily involves subjective judg-
ments.’’
When a comprehensive decision analysis includes plausible catastrophes with un-
known probabilities, the policy implications can be radically different from those
suggested by optimal decision making strategies targeted at the most likely sce-
nario. Weitzmann argues that it is plausible that climate change policy stands or
falls to a large extent on the issue of how the high impact low probability catas-
trophes are conceptualized and modeled. Whereas ‘‘alarmism’’ focuses unduly on the
possible (or even impossible) worst-case scenario, robust policies consider unlikely
but not impossible scenarios without letting them completely dominate the decision.
In summary, the IPCC focus on providing information to support the establish-
ment of an optimal CO2 stabilization target doesn’t address two important issues
for driving policy:
• reducing vulnerability to extreme events such as floods, droughts, and hurri-
canes
• examination of the plausible worst case scenario.
There are no ‘‘silver bullet’’ solutions

Xu, Crittenden et al.14 argue that ‘‘gigaton problems require gigaton solutions.’’
The wickedness of the climate problem precludes a gigaton solution (either techno-
logical or political). Attempts to address the climate change problem through a U.N.
treaty for almost two decades have arguably not been successful. The climate
change problem now walks hand-in-hand with the ocean acidification problem, the
link between the two problems being the proposed stabilization of atmospheric CO2.
The proposed solution to the wicked climate problem and ocean acidification in
terms of stabilization of atmospheric CO2 has revealed and created new problems
in terms of energy policy. Energy policy is driven by a complicated mix of economics
and economic development, energy security, environmental quality and health
issues, resource availability (e.g. peak oil), etc.
Even if climate change is not the primary driver in energy policy, the climate-en-
ergy nexus is a very important one. Not just in the sense of anthropogenic climate
change motivating energy policy, but weather and climate are key drivers in energy
demand and even supply. On the demand side, we have the obvious impact of heat-
ing and cooling degree days. On the supply side, we have oil and gas supply disrup-
tions (e.g. hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico) plus the dependence of hydro, solar, and
wind power on weather and climate. What is perhaps the most important connec-
tion, and one often overlooked, is the energy-water nexus, whereby power plants re-
quiring water for cooling compete with domestic, agricultural, industrial, and eco-
systems for the available water supply.
The complexity of both the climate and energy problems and their nexus pre-
cludes the gigaton ‘‘silver bullet’’ solution to these challenges. Attempting to use car-
bon dioxide as a control knob to regulate climate in the face of large natural climate
variability and the inevitable weather hazards is most likely futile. In any event,
according to climate model projections reported in the IPCC AR4, reducing atmos-
pheric CO2 will not influence the trajectory of CO2 induced warming until after
2050. The attempt to frame a ‘‘silver bullet’’ solution by the UNFCCC seems un-
likely to succeed, given the size and the wickedness of the problem. The wicked
gigaton climate problem will arguably require thousands of megaton solutions and
millions of kiloton solutions.
13 http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3693423/Weitzman OnModeling.pdf7
¥
sequence=2
14 http://www.spp.gatech.edu/faculty/marilynbrown/sites/default/files/attachment/
Gigaton%20Problems %20Need%20Gigaton%20Solutions.pdf
178
Moving forward
Climate scientists have made a forceful argument for a looming future threat from
anthropogenic climate change. Based upon the background knowledge that we have,
the threat does not seem to be an existential one on the time scale of the 21st cen-
tury, even in its most alarming incarnation. It is now up to the political process
(international, national, and local) to decide how to contend with the climate prob-
lem. It seems more important that robust responses be formulated than to respond
urgently with a policy that may fail to address the problem and whose unintended
consequences have not been adequately explored.
The role for climate science and climate scientists in this process is complex. In
the past 20 years, dominated by the IPCC/UNFCCC paradigm, scientists have be-
come entangled in an acrimonious scientific and political debate, where the issues
in each have become confounded. This has generated much polarization in the sci-
entific community and has resulted in political attacks on scientists on both sides
of the debate, and a scientist’s ‘‘side’’ is often defined by factors that are exogenous
to the actual scientific debate. Debates over relatively arcane aspects of the sci-
entific argument have become a substitute for what should be a real debate about
politics and values.
Continuing to refine the arguments put forward by the IPCC that focus on global
climate model simulations projections of future climate change may have reached
the point of diminishing returns for both the science and policy deliberations. Fur-
ther, the credibility of the IPCC has been tarnished by the events of the past year.
It is important to broaden the scope of global climate change research beyond its
focus on anthropogenic greenhouse warming to develop a better understanding of
natural climate variability and the impact of land use changes and to further ex-
plore the uncertainty of the coupled climate models and the capability of these mod-
els to predict emergent events such as catastrophic climate change. And far more
attention needs to be given to establishing robust and transparent climate data
records (both historical and paleoclimate proxies).
Regional planners and resource managers need high-resolution regional climate
projections to support local climate adaptation plans and plans for climate compat-
ible development. This need is unlikely to be met (at least in the short term) by
the global climate models. In any event, anthropogenic climate change on timescales
of decades is arguably less important in driving vulnerability in most regions than
increasing population, land use practices, and ecosystem degradation. Regions that
find solutions to current problems of climate variability and extreme weather events
and address challenges associated with an increasing population will be better pre-
pared to cope with any additional stresses from climate change.
Hoping to rely on information from climate models about projected regional cli-
mate change to guide adaptation response diverts attention from using weather and
climate information in adaptive water resource management and agriculture on sea-
sonal and subseasonal time scales. Optimizing water resource management and crop
selection and timing based upon useful probabilistic subseasonal and seasonal cli-
mate forecasts has the potential to reduce vulnerability substantially in many re-
gions. This is particularly the case in the developing world where much of the agri-
culture is rain fed (i.e. no irrigation). It would seem that increasing scientific focus
on seasonal and subseasonal forecasts could produce substantial societal benefits for
tactical adaptation practices.
The global climate modeling effort directed at the IPCC/UNFCCC paradigm has
arguably reached the point of diminishing returns in terms of supporting decision
making for the U.N. treaty and related national policies. At this point, it seems
more important to explore the uncertainties associated with future climate change
rather than to attempt to reduce the uncertainties in a consensus-based approach.
It is time for climate scientists to change their view of uncertainty: it is not just
something that is merely to be framed and communicated to policy makers, all the
while keeping in mind that doubt is a political weapon in the decision making proc-
ess. Characterizing, understanding, and exploring uncertainty is at the heart of the
scientific process. And finally, the characterization of uncertainty is critical informa-
tion for robust policy decisions.
Engagement of climate researchers with regional planners, economists, military/
intelligence organizations, development banks, energy companies, and governments
in the developing world to develop a mutual understanding about what kind of in-
formation is needed can promote more fruitful decision outcomes, and define new
scientific challenges to be addressed by research. The need for climate researchers
to engage with social scientists and engineers has never been more important. Fur-
ther, there is an increasing need for social scientists and philosophers of science to
scrutinize and analyze our field to prevent dysfunction at the science-policy inter-
face.
179
And finally, climate scientists and the institutions that support them need to ac-
knowledge and engage with ever-growing groups of citizen scientists, auditors, and
extended peer communities that have become increasingly well organized by the
blogosphere. The more sophisticated of these groups are challenging our conven-
tional notions of expertise and are bringing much needed scrutiny particularly into
issues surrounding historical and paleoclimate data records. These groups reflect a
growing public interest in climate science and a growing concern about possible im-
pacts of climate change and climate change policies. The acrimony that has devel-
oped between some climate scientists and blogospheric skeptics was amply evident
in the sorry mess that is known as Climategate. Climategate illuminated the funda-
mental need for improved and transparent historical and paleoclimate data sets and
improved information systems so that these data are easily accessed and inter-
preted.
Blogospheric communities can potentially be important in identifying and secur-
ing the common interest at these disparate scales in the solution space of the en-
ergy, climate and ocean acidification problems. A diversity of views on interpreting
the scientific evidence and a broad range of ideas on how to address these chal-
lenges doesn’t hinder the implementation of diverse megaton and kiloton solutions
at local and regional scales. Securing the common interest on local and regional
scales provides a basis for the successful implementation of climate adaptation
strategies. Successes on the local and regional scale and then national scales make
it much more likely that global issues can be confronted in an effective way.
BIOGRAPHY FOR JUDITH A. CURRY

Dr. Judith Curry is Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric
Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and President of Climate Forecast
Applications Network (CFAN). Dr. Curry received a Ph.D. in atmospheric science
from the University of Chicago in 1982. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech,
she has held faculty positions at the University of Colorado, Penn State University
and Purdue University. Dr. Curry’s research interests span a variety of topics in cli-
mate; current interests include air/sea interactions, climate feedback processes asso-
ciated with clouds and sea ice, and the climate dynamics of hurricanes. She is a
prominent public spokesperson on issues associated with the integrity of climate
science, and has recently launched the weblog Climate Etc. Dr. Curry currently
serves on the NASA Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee and has recently
served on the National Academies Climate Research Committee and the Space
Studies Board, and the NOAA Climate Working Group. Dr. Curry is a Fellow of the
American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, and the American Geophysical Union.
DISCUSSION
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you, Dr. Curry.
I apologize. Our AV unit, which none of you, apparently, re-
quires, is deciding to cool itself off, perhaps metaphorically. It may
be smarter than we think.
Thank you all for your testimony.
The structure of today’s hearing, as I mentioned from the outset,
was to talk first about the basic science. Are we seeing impacts and
then what are the impacts? What is happening and how does it im-
pact our lives? We have got outstanding witnesses, and what I
would like to do is follow up with each of you sort of on individual
themes, but then, if there are crosscurrents to that, please address
those.
THE U.S. NAVY AND WEATHER CONDITIONS
Admiral Titley, I have had the privilege when I have been to Af-
ghanistan, Iraq, and other theaters, you know, there are command
daily briefings. And the idea is that a regional commander gets to
look at all sorts of things: What’s our force strength, what’s our
availability mobility, et cetera, et cetera.
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One of the key elements of that is always weather. You know,

are there going to be dust storms? Are there going to be clouds?
Can the drones see what their targets are? Will we have air cover?
Et cetera.
It must be especially acute in the Navy for your mission, and
what occurs to me is you would be irresponsible as a commander
if you did not take into account weather changes. The things you
have talked to us today about, including the infrastructure com-
mands, the changing potential in sea lanes, available access to
ports, et cetera, that’s a longer-term frame. But would you not be
equally irresponsible if you didn’t look ahead to that and try to
make long-term strategic plans, not just tactics but strategy on the
ground?
Elaborate on how the Navy views this issue.
Admiral TITLEY. Yes, sir. I am not sure I can say it much better
than what you did, but at the risk of going downhill from here, I
will try.
You are absolutely right, sir. I have done weather forecasting in
the Navy now for over 30 years. It starts off sort of at the unit level
or the tactical level. We look at both the safety of the forces—real-
ly, you know, the Navy has learned that really from time immemo-
rial going to sea.
But certainly, in the typhoon of 1944, Admiral Halsey tragically
lost three destroyers and over 700 sailors because we didn’t know
there was a typhoon out there. We fixed that. We have a Joint Ty-
phoon Warning Center staffed by the Navy and the Air Force, and
we have not had a repeat of that situation, thank God, since then.
As you get more senior, you start looking at operational level.
What will be weather and the ocean be in three, four, or five days?
Where do I put my units to best have my chance of success?
I think Heidi Cullen mentioned that climate is putting the odds
in your favor, and that’s how I look at the weather. I talk about
the weather as we all operate in nature’s casino, and I intend to
count the cards. The bad news is there is a lot more than 52 cards.
The good news, if you can do it, nobody breaks your kneecaps. So
that is really what we are trying to do, is to put the odds in our
favor.
And now, sir, as you absolutely have it spot on, we are looking
strategically out. So not just three, four, or five days, but what are
the next 20, 30, 50 years going to look like?
We can see the signal in the Arctic. The observations tell us
what’s going on. We see that the percentage of what’s called
multiyear, the thick ice has dropped to levels that, frankly, we
have not recorded before. So although 2007 was in area extent the
least amount of sea ice that was recorded, in ’08, ’09, and ’10 the
levels were slightly higher, when you look at the volume of ice, the
volume as of last September has never been lower.
And in respect to Congressman Rohrabacher, I should not say
never. In the last several thousand years, it has not been lower.
So we see the probable, probable opening of the Arctic. I have
told Admiral Gary Roughead, our Chief of Naval Operations, that
we expect to see about four weeks of basically ice-free conditions
in the Arctic in the mid to late 2030s. By the middle of the century,
we could be seeing quite easily two to three months of ice-free con-
181
ditions. That’s enough time to allow the trans-ocean shippers, as-

suming they have governance, search and rescue, charting, insur-
ance, all of those other conditions, but by the middle of the century
that’s very, very possible.
When I talk to my colleagues in Iceland, Iceland is actively
thinking about how do they become the Singapore of the 21st cen-
tury? How do they become that southern terminus? This becomes
a very different ocean and a very different world for our Navy to
operate in.
So this is just one example. I could talk about sea level. I could
talk about ocean acidification. In the interests of time, sir, I will
stop here.
But you are exactly right. This is looking at what we believe, not
guaranteed, but is likely to happen and looking at consequences,
times probabilities, and planning for those kinds of situations. And
that’s what we have embarked on, sir.
Chairman BAIRD. That’s a very, very helpful summary.
CLIMATE MONITORING INSTRUMENTATION
A context of that also is that not with infrequency people here
on the Committee will hear a suggestion that all the money that
has been spent on climate change research has been wasted. Well,
a fair bit of the instrumentation that has been used to gather the
data that leads to the analysis came from Defense applications,
whether it’s satellites in the air, whether it’s sensors on equipment.
And certainly my hunch would be that down the road you folks will
be mighty glad to have those sensors and the data that they have
given you as you make your planning.
Admiral TITLEY. Yes, sir. The data are very useful.
We use data from a wide variety of sources. I am sure you know,
sir, that the submarine missions that we had run not only in the
Cold War but in the 1990s, they provide very, very valuable ground
truth observations of how thick is that ice so we can then calibrate
or basically tune our satellites.
I would be remiss, though, sir, in saying this does not also work
in the other direction. The Department of Defense is a big user of
the civil structure that in part is appropriated from your com-
mittee. We work very closely with NOAA. I have a great relation-
ship with Dr. Lubchenco.
And one of the things, sort of on the practical adaptation side we
are jointly looking at between the Navy and NOAA and the Air
Force, also have Department of Energy and NASA involved, is how
do we look at a next generation of weather, ocean, ice coupled pre-
diction models so that by roughly 2020, in about ten years from
now, we can predict that system as a whole and really going—
spanning between weather time frames, say hours to days, out to
say roughly about two or three decades.
Because as we are planning for our infrastructure—or let’s say
if you are the port of New York and New Jersey, you are planning
for your infrastructure. You want to be looking at that. There are—
for very, very good reasons there are boundaries in the science
community between the weather folks, the oceanographers, the
glaciologists, the climatologists. But if you are a decision-maker, if
you are running a business, if you are running a government agen-
182
cy, you know, with all due respect, you don’t really care what those
boundaries are. You need an answer, and your answers span these
time frames.
I wish I had thought of putting it this way, but the words of Rick
Anthes, a former Director of the National Center for Atmospheric
Research, he said, hey, Titley, what you are trying to do is go be-
tween a condition forced by initial conditions, you know, what is to-
day’s weather, to one forced by boundary conditions. What is the
Sun doing? What are the greenhouse gases doing? How do we get
through there? Open science questions.
Big challenge. But I think it’s a great challenge for this Nation
of ours and one that will help us as we adapt in a cost-constrained
environment.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman BAIRD. Thank you. Thank you, very much.
ADAPTATION CHALLENGES AND POOR COMMUNITIES
Mr. Lopez, I am intrigued by this issue of mitigation and adapta-
tion, particularly as things apply to perhaps disadvantaged commu-
nities. And it seems there are two—well, there are multiple factors,
but one is not only domestically in the United States but globally
a lot of the folks who are going to get—if there are the impacts
which are projected, which seems more probable than not, in many
cases, anyway, if those impacts happen, they are going to impact
some of the people who had the least to do with causing the prob-
lem and the fewest resources to cope with the problem. Can you
elaborate on that domestically within our own sociodemographic
span but also if you have insights into it globally how that impacts
the world?
Mr. LOPEZ. I think that’s absolutely correct. I think that’s of par-
ticular concern for us at HUD.
As we implement our programs and policies, we want to make
sure that the populations that we serve, we are thinking through
adequately about the future stresses that might be imposed on
those populations, knowing that the more stresses you have today
the more likely you are impacted to be tomorrow. And I think there
is a couple of points of insight, focusing more on the domestic side
of things, that I would like to make.
And, first, as the Admiral points out, you know, these decisions,
they are being made today. It’s not like we can wait. Moving be-
yond the military example, the hundred-year flood plan, the man-
agement of goods and services, agricultural economic development,
the built infrastructure, which is what we deal with at HUD, we
have to make decisions now about the future. And those decisions
can’t wait. So our challenge is how do you take that fact and build
a system or a process that helps to mainstream or integrate the cli-
mate change variable? And I would suggest a couple of things.
One, and I think it’s endemic to these grants we put out, is to
find the triggers. There are those communities that are aware of
the assumptions of climate change, but there are opportunities that
happen, planning opportunities like the challenge grants and the
Regional Planning Grants that we have put out. Disaster recovery
is an opportunity where you open up and start to say, okay, what
does the future look like when we have to rebuild? Infrastructure
183
investments. When you have to spend a billion dollars on a waste-

water treatment facility you want to make the best decision you
can. And it’s really about learning as much as you can right now
about what you need to know about the future.
So I really think, Mr. Chairman, it comes down to better deci-
sions. And for us it’s the populations in large measure that you
identified. So it’s about scenario planning, and it’s really about how
do you help communities make a decision most compatible with un-
certainty?
We know there is uncertainty. Local governments and govern-
ments at all levels make decisions with uncertainty every day. It’s
about making the assumptions about climate in those decisions
transparent, understanding them better, and making decisions in
uncertainty.
And one guiding lesson we learned, in my perspective coming
from local government to the Federal Government, is to think on
the margin. It’s about the marginal cost of what you need do next.
It’s not necessarily about building a whole new system. It’s about
the marginal cost of building the reclaimed water system to the bil-
lion dollar investment you already made. And when you reach that
point you can do a cost-benefit analysis based on the margins to
see how much you know, how much you understand about the fu-
ture, and whether or not the investment is worth it.
And the final point I would make is you always have to consider
the co-benefits. For us, we are acutely aware of where you build,
how you build, how you help communities prepare for the future.
That’s what we do. Green roofs, green space, energy efficiency,
water. It’s reuse. It’s conservation. All of these things are co-bene-
fits to decisions that have to be weighed in I think when you are
analyzing the marginal cost of the decision.
Chairman BAIRD. Very well put.
I had the privilege of riding on a cross-country flight with Sec-
retary Sims, who I have great respect for and served our region
very well. You mentioned the co-benefits. One of the things that I
was so impressed with was the Secretary’s analysis of things like
health benefits from healthier communities. If we do if right, there
is a positive synergy to this. If we preserve green space, that, if
properly planted, can take up CO2. If we change how roofs are col-
ored, that can produce greater reflectance, et cetera, and reduce
temperatures inside homes, et cetera.
One of the things I would hope we don’t do as a body is those
who are antagonistic to the climate change scenario, that they don’t
say anything that was ever done in the name of climate science we
are going to reverse, sort of analogous to taking the photovoltaic
panels off the White House as a statement. Well, if we do that, we
are going to roll back a lot of things that have co-benefits in and
of themselves, and I think that would be really unfortunate for all
of the interests we have heard today.
Briefly, I will particularly direct this to Rear Admiral Titley and
Mr. Lopez, but if others want to comment as well, and then I will
get back to specific questions.
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A NATIONAL CLIMATE SERVICE

We in this committee have had significant discussion over wheth-
er or not a climate service is needed. If so, what would its benefits
be? From Admiral Titley and then Mr. Lopez and then Mr. Geer
and Dr. Curry, what are your thoughts about with whether or not
a climate service would be useful to you? And what would be useful
about it if it existed?
Admiral TITLEY. Sir, thanks very much for the question.
A climate service, I believe, would be very useful for the Navy.
It provides—I almost hate the phrase—but a one-stop shop, if you
will, or at least a source of both coherent and authoritative data.
It would be ideally staffed by people who would be conversant with
those data, as well as, of course, machine to machine ways of pull-
ing these.
We have lots of different places with very good quality that
produce various types of climate models. The National Centers for
Atmospheric Research, the Department of Energy have some tre-
mendous programs, as do academia, et cetera. As a DOD, I do not
want to replicate or duplicate. We cannot spend our taxpayers’ dol-
lars doing things that have already been done well, but I need ac-
cess to that.
Chairman BAIRD. But you need that data.
Admiral TITLEY. But I need access, and I need to be able to get
it without sort of the hunt and peck method, or whatever we call
Google now on the hunted. Back when you and I were growing up,
it would be the hunt and peck method.
So having that, you know, probably in one agency. I know NOAA
has looked at this. And, you know, that would make sense to us.
So whatever the Committee and the Congress and the administra-
tion ultimately decide, the concept of a climate services would be
very, very useful.
Chairman BAIRD. The model of that would be that it would inter-
face with a number of other areas like Agriculture, conceivably
Fish and Wildlife, conceivably HUD, obviously, the Defense appli-
cations. That’s the model that we had in mind. And you know, it’s
not a one-way street. It’s not that the climate service tells you
what’s happening. Ideally, the climate service gathers information
from your resources and expertise and data sets, and it’s a syner-
gistic model.
Mr. Lopez or any others want to comment on that issue? Mr.
Geer?
Mr. GEER. Yes. From the Fish and Wildlife perspective, we sup-
port heavily the establishment of a national climate service. We
feel that as additional information becomes available on a scientific
basis we need to have that information to make intelligent man-
agement prescriptions on specific places around the country geo-
graphically. What’s pertinent in the intermountain west, which is
a relatively arid environment in a changing climate, may still be
different than what it is in the Southeastern U.S. And what we
need is geographically specific information, the best prediction we
can get.
So the strategies that we put on the ground are the ones that
are pertinent and applicable for that particular area so we don’t
185
waste the money either for them to be effective. We need a infor-

mation central kind of area where we can store the information, we
can retrieve the information, we can find out where it comes from,
we consult with others, we have a much better information base,
we are better informed as professionals, and we can do a more ef-
fective job.
We think that such a climate service ought to be coordinated
among the state and federal agencies so everyone can—this is a
worldwide issue. We can all participate in the data gathering and
the data sharing and the interpretation.
Chairman BAIRD. Dr. Curry and then Mr. Lopez.
Dr. CURRY. With regards to climate service, I think the funda-
mental need is really the information system. For example, the sea
ice issue that was raised earlier, which of the 12 sea ice data sets
that are out there should we be looking at? I mean, there is a
bunch of different data sets. The average user doesn’t know which
one to use. There is no error assessments. And then they look at
it and they see sea ice in Mediterranean and how are they sup-
posed to interpret that? I mean, these data sets are not—
Chairman BAIRD. There is no sea ice in the Mediterranean.
Dr. CURRY. I know, but some data sets give it to you there.
Chairman BAIRD. Is that true?
Dr. CURRY. Oh, yeah.
Chairman BAIRD. That’s obviously not a data set.
Dr. CURRY. Certain satellite products, if there is clouds, they will
mistake clouds for sea ice.
Chairman BAIRD. Got you. Okay.
Dr. CURRY. And you can get sea ice in the Mediterranean. So
how useful are those kind of data sets?
Chairman BAIRD. Could we ski in it?
Dr. CURRY. My point is we need to establish authoritative cli-
mate data records, where people sift through the information, look
at the uncertainties, and give somebody one data set that they can
use.
Chairman BAIRD. With some error boundaries.
Dr. CURRY. With some error bounds on it.
And, also, it’s an issue of accessibility. People need to be able to
search and use the data sets. And, otherwise, trying to—even for
somebody like me, sometimes trying to get the climate data I need,
it’s like—it’s torture——
Chairman BAIRD. Yeah.
Dr. CURRY. Okay—compared to somebody who is not even a cli-
mate researcher, who is just trying to use the data set. We have
a very fundamental need for a climate data information system.
Chairman BAIRD. So some kind of combination of open source but
with a qualitative filter to it.
Dr. CURRY. Open source would be an interesting route to go.
Chairman BAIRD. Mr. Lopez?
Mr. LOPEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think I would like to stay within the confines of the task force
report, part of our charge, and what we were calling is a National
Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. And I think a lot of the prin-
ciples that we have discussed—the need to get information out, the
need for a dialogue with the scientific community, a process by
186
which we can evaluate that information and embed it into our mis-
sion of each agency and across the Federal Government and down
to the states and local governments—is part of that process. And
I think moving forward we hope to continue a dialogue with you
as we work on that.
Chairman BAIRD. Okay. Thank you.
THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON RECREATIONAL
FISHING
Mr. Geer, I want to ask you specifically, I represent an area
where hunting and fishing is huge. The southwest Washington peo-
ple love to hunt. I grew up as a hunter. We literally fed our family
by hunting and fishing. That was our main source of protein, was
venison or elk or antelope or rabbit or duck, whatever. If it moved,
we shot it. If we shot it, we ate it. And we ate all of it. And that’s
the case in a lot of my district.
And, in addition, the recreational pursuit is tremendously impor-
tant to people. I had the opportunity to talk to—one of the ongoing
fights back home is gill nets versus sports fishermen. I had a long
conversation with a bunch of sports fishermen concerned about gill
netting, and I think it’s a legitimate and important debate. But, at
the end of it, we began to talk about ocean acidification; and these
folks really hadn’t heard much about it. And it struck me that, you
know, we are focusing so much on one issue sometimes.
What impact do you see—if we have ocean acidification, as you
heard Dick Feely testify to earlier, and you lose pteropods, you lose
the basic food chain for salmonids, and if you increase the tempera-
ture of the water—back home, we go nuts, appropriately so, pro-
viding shade, et cetera, for streams and other tributaries so that
the salmon can spawn in cool water. What do you see is the com-
bination with more acidic water and higher temperature water on
just, say, for example, salmonids to take one example?
Mr. GEER. Well, I think it’s a fairly simple prediction in some re-
gards. If you have less food, you have a smaller population base
perhaps of less healthy fish who are able to go upstream and
spawn. Then you have an environment upstream that’s not particu-
larly inviting for them in the first place. There are some questions
to be asked on whether or not, for example, will the chemical
makeup of the water at that time change to the point they do not
recognize their homing stream anymore, which will upset their
spawning behavior? And if they do find the correct stream, or a
stream, will they have a physical environment that still enables
them not only to spawn—it’s not just the act of spawning, the act
of recruitment is you also have to have egg hatch.
One of the things, if you have worked in fish hatcheries, we deal
with things called degree days. A degree day is one Centigrade for
one day. And, typically, an egg for a salmonid is going to require
a little over 300 degree days to hatch. And if you have a species
that’s spawning in spring and is tied to the flow, you have fewer
days with warming water than a species that spawns in the fall
and has cold water for a longer time.
But those cycles are timed to not only when the eggs hatch but
what physical environment for the young-of-the-year fish exists at
that time. Is there side water for younger-than-year fish, which are
187
not muscular, they are small, they are prone to being washed away
and to be preyed upon by big fish. Are there areas of flow at the
time of year that they can escape to so you have successful recruit-
ment, spawning, hatching, and survival of young fish to the next
age class so they can go downstream?
So it’s a whole series of factors. But if you start with the fact
that you have fewer fish to move upstream because you have a
smaller body of fish in the ocean and they are of poorer health,
they have physiologically a less suitable condition, you have a
smaller population going up, you have a reduced spawn size, per-
haps a less favorable environment, a lower recruitment, and you
have a decline of salmonid populations. You are talking steelhead
and Pacific salmon.
ADAPTATION OF ANIMAL SPECIES TO A CHANGING CLIMATE
Chairman BAIRD. What you have hit upon seems so important to
me. Because when we talk about this issue sometimes people say
to themselves—I hear it a lot—wait a second, you are talking one
degree, two degrees. My understanding of the biology of many spe-
cies is that many of them live fairly near the upper bounds of their
temperature tolerance. And a one degree change in water tempera-
ture over a period of time can be lethal. A change in pH level can
be lethal. Integrated, they can have a terribly negative synergy.
And now you are adding in all the of the other variables about
stream flow, other habitat issues, nutrition supplies, et cetera.
Even small changes can produce those impacts?
Mr. GEER. Depending on where they are on the tolerance curve.
If you have something, for example, like rainbow trout, that, if you
are looking Fahrenheit, that have an optimal temperature of 55 de-
grees Fahrenheit, you have some wiggle room on either side where
you can still have either good growth or slower growth and a viable
population. But when you get up five degrees or something, you are
getting to smallmouth bass range. Suddenly, you have physiologi-
cally less adaptable fish, you have lower reproductive success, and
you have the opportunity for what we are calling invasive species,
species that don’t normally belong there intruding on their terri-
tory, which is what’s happening in the Yellowstone River, the Clark
Fork River, the Bitterroot River, and some other areas. You have
species that are more competitive, that operate in a higher tem-
perature range. When you get on the upper edge of their thermal
tolerance, that’s when you get the higher level of risk.
One of the things I have noted over the years as sort of a general
observation, though, that as humans we tend to think as the center
of the universe, and we tend to think that what we understand is
really what’s important. We confuse lack of understanding with
lack of importance. We don’t understand how a small temperature
difference can make a large difference to something else where it
may not to us.
We are in an insulated environment. We are in a comfortable
room, thermostat controlled, comfortable. Well, if you are outside
living in the environment without a thermostat, things are a little
bit different, and they don’t respond to the same stimuli that we
respond to.
188
And one of the things that we work on in animals, we can de-

bate, for example, whether or not the science is exactly right,
whether or not they are at the upper ends of the thermal tolerance
or whatever. We can debate the policy outcomes that come out of
this and even the range of the economy. But the animals don’t get
that vote.
Chairman BAIRD. They don’t get to turn the thermostat up.
Mr. GEER. They go where the environment is within their life
history and their tolerance. If their habitat’s not here, if they are
mobile enough, they will go to where it is. And some of them will
not enjoy that advantage. They are already at the limits of their
tolerance, and there is nowhere else to go. If you are a mountain
goat, where do you go? You are already at the high end. So they
go to where the habitat suits them. If it no longer suits them, then
we have a decline in the species.
Chairman BAIRD. And they don’t have time to evolve to adapt at
the pace of change.
Mr. GEER. No, at the pace that we are changing things right
now, we are talking evolutionary changes, maybe a hundred years
or perhaps thousands of years. But we are talking things that are
going to change much more rapidly, and they simply haven’t got
time to physiologically adapt in many cases to the environment
that we predict may occur. And I hope that we are all wrong, actu-
ally, and that we have overestimated that. But the odds aren’t
looking good.
Chairman BAIRD. Yeah.
COMBINED FACTORS AFFECTING CLIMATE
Dr. Curry, I was intrigued by one of your observations I thought
was very telling and I think important. It’s not just CO2. There are
other factors. I caught at least two of them, population and land
use. Those are also integrated, however, with CO2 output. Can you
elaborate? I mean, there is—they combine to have combined effects.
Can you elaborate on that somewhat?
Dr. CURRY. Well, our vulnerability to global warming is largely
associated with ever-increasing population, where we choose to
build and what we do to our ecosystems and how we engineer our,
you know, we get rid of some of our barriers. At the same time,
as population increases this is, you know, a big part of the carbon
dioxide problem. So it’s a big, complex, wicked problem that’s cou-
pled in very complicated ways.
And, again, I tried to make the point that there is no silver bul-
let solution. And there is all these intersecting problems. I mean,
the climate problem doesn’t stand alone. It’s coupled to population,
it’s coupled to energy, increasingly to ocean acidification. And we
need to look at the broad solution space, possible solution space for
all these issues and try to figure out what makes sense.
Chairman BAIRD. This population issue seems so important to
me. Because if each individual has their own personal carbon foot-
print, if you will, the popular term, but basically what it takes for
you to live your lifestyle, add a lot more people wanting a more car-
bon-intensive lifestyle, you just magnify the impact.
Dr. CURRY. Okay. And the population—where the population is
growing is in central and south Asia. That’s where the rapid, rapid,
189
rapid population is growing. This is where economic development

is huge. And what’s going on there is going to totally dominate—
well, it’s already dominating the CO2 story, and it’s going to ex-
plode really in terms of dominating the carbon dioxide situation.
And so that becomes a whole political issue about, you know, what
India and China does and how we deal with risks.
And the whole issue of who is a winner and loser, again, north
China looks a lot more favorable in a warmer climate potentially,
okay, with more water and a nicer climate, you know, during part
of the year. And so what is going to be their motivation?
You know, we haven’t really looked at, you know, the winners
and losers part of this story in the way that we should and really
understood vulnerabilities. I mean, in the United States we have
a fairly good of it. But in a lot of the developing world that are ei-
ther very vulnerable, or like India and China, South Asia, that are
going to be the big powerhouses in terms of emissions and popu-
lations, we just really haven’t done a lot of the analysis that we
need to do to really sort this out.
Chairman BAIRD. What about the argument that, well, you know,
there are so many Chinese, so many people in India and Indonesia,
et cetera, they are going to pump out so much CO2 that what we
do here doesn’t matter?
Dr. CURRY. Well, superficially, it doesn’t, but the Chinese have
already poisoned their environment in pretty serious ways. So their
big motivation for doing something about it is really trying to stop
the poisoning of their soil, water, and air. Okay. So that’s their mo-
tivation.
And on one hand it doesn’t. But everybody’s going to need—there
is no way that the developing world is going to be able to compete
for, like, petroleum, you know, in terms of dollars, especially when
we see peak oil or whatever. So there is going to have to be alter-
native energy sources of some sort. And the people who take the
leadership in that area is going to be less vulnerable to price
swings and global security issues and whatever. So there is a lot
of motivation for being out there in front and taking a leadership
position on all these alternative energy strategies.
BLOGGING, SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY, AND PUBLIC
INFORMATION
Chairman BAIRD. One final question for you, and then we will
bring it to a close, I suppose.
I had the opportunity in almost every case here to look online at
other things that you had done. And you mentioned the
blogosphere. I will tell you I was pretty troubled by—I went on a
few climate sites on both sides, and it was not the scientific dia-
logue that I am trained in. It was snarky, it was nonsubstantive,
it was ad hominem, it was juvenile, and it was unconstructive.
Dr. CURRY. A lot of it is. Okay. But there is what I would call
the technical climate blogs that have spun up, and these are people
who have an interest in analyzing the data and looking into the
science, and people from both sides of the debate show up. So some
of the more high-profile ones are very snarky and polarizing. But
the blogosphere has sort of developed this sort of lukewarmer tech-
nical blogging community where people are actually looking at the
190
data, debating scientific papers, people from both sides in a fairly

civilized way. And so I view this as something that it’s important
to tap into and acknowledge this interest, and there is potential for
reducing polarization.
Chairman BAIRD. Somehow there has got to be. And I mentioned
at the outset—and I know you have written on this. I mentioned
at the outset this issue of science integrity. We literally wrote it
into the America COMPETES bill. Now you can’t get a NSF grant.
But you can blog with nothing. It’s an important point. And the
reason it’s so important and the reason we are having this hearing
is to try to say, look, this idea of science by ad hominem attack,
by politicization, by false accusations, by conspiratorial theories, by
labeling things hoaxes, that ain’t science.
Dr. CURRY. I know it’s not. But it’s going to happen whether the
blogosphere is there or not.
I am just saying by engagement, a lot of it—so many people dis-
trust climate scientists and climate science. I mean, they view
them as arrogant and whatever, and they were worried about U.N.
policies taking over everything, and they were sort of scared. And
then when Climategate struck with the e-mails, you know, then
people really had more of a concrete reason that they felt not to
trust scientists.
Chairman BAIRD. Would you say that that, though, obliterates all
the legitimate data——
Dr. CURRY. Not at all. But it is an issue of the public trust, and
a lot of the things like the IPCC assessment report is a heavy dose
of expert judgment in those conclusions. And if you don’t trust the
experts, you know, what are we to make of their judgment? So the
data and the fundamental research is there. It is how it is as-
sessed, communicated, and by whom it becomes an issue.
Chairman BAIRD. This is helpful.
You know, I thank you all.
AN ANECDOTE ON RISK MANAGEMENT
I will share an anecdote that occurs to me. Some years ago, I was
climbing Mount Rainier. We were going up in the springtime. It
was early and these wicked whiteouts happened. And if you have
never been in a whiteout, it is really quite an experience. You lit-
erally have no sense of vertical, up or down. And we were walking
with ski poles in front of us so we don’t walk off. We are literally
sort of probing because you can’t see the earth. It is bizarre. And
I had had the good fortune and maybe good sense to actually when
we left this hut at Camp Muir to actually take my compass out and
take a compass reading. And so we follow this compass reading.
Everybody else was just walking the way they think we should
walk, and I had the compass reading. And at some point I said, I
just don’t like the feel of this. We haven’t come back across the
trail I thought we should have and our intuition says we should go
this way. If we are wrong, I knew from many climbs previously,
there is about a 1,500 foot drop down to the Nisqually Glacier.
Now, I said, you know, maybe what we ought to do is gather to-
gether and check our instruments. I happened to have an altimeter
with me and a top map. It was mighty handy. So I had the top
191
map. I had the topographic map, I had the altimeter, and I had the
compass reading from where we had gone.
Everybody else in the party pretty much was saying we are going
to go this way. We are sure it is this way. And I said, well, here
is the point on the map where my instruments tell me we are. If
we walk another 200 meters this way, I think we walk off a 1,500
foot cliff as many others have done in equal conditions. The alter-
native, unfortunately—because we had gone this way this far—was
unpleasant. We had to actually go uphill. And when you have
climbed all day and you have got a heavy backpack on and it is
deep snow and it is spooky and it is—you don’t want to go back
uphill. You hate it. It is hard work. You are tired. It is not what
you want. Relative to a 1,500 foot downhill——
Well, we trusted the instruments because I had them, and we
walked back. And I have never been so happy as I have in my life
to see some spilled Gatorade on the snow about a half hour later.
We had to literally change direction and walk uphill. The instru-
ments gave us the data. And we could have gone where we wanted
to go, where it seemed easy to go, where our intuition and our ex-
perience seemed to suggest it would go, but the data suggested
something otherwise and we followed the data. And I probably
wouldn’t be here today because I was on the lead of the sharp end
of the rope.
The point of our hearing today—and I think the point of this
committee I hope, which I am loath and sad to leave—is that we
have an obligation to approach decision making in a constitutional
democratic republic with rationale, empirical judgment and infor-
mation, imperfect and uncertain but the best we can do. And the
hope today was we had a model of how that can happen. We won’t
reach any conclusions.
I don’t think anybody is going to say, well, dang, I was a com-
plete skeptic before, now it has turned. Maybe some will go the
other way. But the process that we try to follow and the process
of science is what is going to get us there. And I would hope that
that process, that legacy on this committee, if no other, is one
based on empirical decision making, mutual respect, critical anal-
ysis, objective analysis.
I am grateful for the witnesses on all sides that have helped us
put this forward, and I hope for the sake of the two 5-1/2-year-old
boys on which I make every fundamental decision in my life and
countless others that are near and dear to you that we will weigh
the consequences of inaction or inaccurate action against the con-
sequences of acting in responsible, reasonable, rational ways for
the broader good of not only our society but the globe itself. And
the stakes are pretty darn high, and we have really got to get it
right.
I thank all of you for being here today and all of you who are—
the audience for your perseverance and your patience and your ex-
pert input.
Customarily, there will be two weeks allowed for anyone who
wishes to enter additional extraneous comments into the record.
And with that—thanks. And I would like finally to thank the
staff on both the Majority side and Minority side for their partici-
192
pation in making this hearing in this last session of Congress so

successful.
With that, the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix:
ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
(193)
194
Responses by Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences
Questions submitted by Chairman Brian Baird
Human actions and climate change

In your testimony you describe the basic energy balance of the Earth. In that expla-
nation you state that the Earth’s calculated temperature is lower than the measured
temperature. You then state something must be missing in the calculated temperature
of the Earth.
Q1. Does this mean that global warming due to anthropogenic effects is the missing
factor and that the increase in Earth’s temperature is due to human activity?
A1. The big gap that I referred to is that the temperature which we calculate for
the surface of the Earth by balancing the incoming energy from the Sun, with that
which is emitted by the Earth, is about 30°C lower than our actual temperature and
this is due to the natural greenhouse effect. It does not include a human impact.
The gap illustrates the fact that the greenhouse effect is a natural force and that
if we calculate the temperature of Earth’s surface or the temperature of Venus’s sur-
face without the greenhouse effect, we obtain answers which are far lower tempera-
tures than are actually measured. The cause of this discrepancy is that we have ig-
nored the greenhouse effect of gases in the atmospheres of Earth and Venus and
of clouds in those atmospheres. The reason that we can calculate the correct tem-
perature for Mars in this simple way is that Mars has such a thin atmosphere with
so little carbon dioxide and water. This evidence for the existence of a natural
greenhouse effect is one indication of why the human-enhanced greenhouse effect
is also capable of changing Earth’s climate.
Q2. It is important to understand what the human contribution to the greenhouse
effect means. Your testimony states that human’s direct influence is small but
we must consider all human energy usage (i.e. nuclear power, the burning of all
fossil fuels, the burning of wood, etc). What sort of human impact does this
translate into for the greenhouse effect and global warming?
A2. I hope that I did not confuse the issue by mentioning the fact that all of human
energy usage today on Earth that is due to all fossil-fuel burning, coal, petroleum,
and natural gas added to all the energy used from nuclear power plants,
hydroelectricity, all renewable sources of energy together, add up to only about 1/
100th, that is one percent, of the extra energy trapped near the surface of the Earth
by the human enhanced greenhouse effect. I mention this comparison to show how
powerful the greenhouse effect is as leverage over Earth’s physical climate. I also
mentioned it because sometimes I encounter people who when they hear ‘‘fossil-fuel
burning’’ think that it is the waste heat from all of that fossil-fuel burning to which
we refer as a possible cause of planetary climate change. Instead, of course, it is
the extra greenhouse effect caused by the growth in atmospheric concentrations of
the byproducts of fossil fuel usage such as carbon dioxide and methane which rep-
resents human leverage over the climate. Just to provide one more comparison, I
note that all of human energy usage today is approximately 1/9000th of the energy
Earth receives from the Sun while the human-enhanced greenhouse effect is ap-
proximately 1/90th of the solar energy received by the planet.
Questions submitted by Representative Ralph M. Hall

Of the many revealing aspects of the ClimateGate email scandal, perhaps none are
as disappointing as the great lengths at which scientists worked to block other re-
searchers from gaining access to scientific data associated with key global warming
findings.
Climate scientist Phil Jones exemplified this attitude when he responded to a fel-
low researcher’s request by saying ‘‘Why should I make the data available to you,
when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?’’
This behavior is, at its core, unscientific. The National Academy of Sciences’ Guide
to Responsible Conduct in Research states that ‘‘When a scientific paper or book is
published, other researchers must have access to the data and research materials
needed to support the conclusions stated in the publication if they are to verify and
build on that research . . . [G]iven the expectation that data will be accessible, re-
searchers who refuse to share the evidentiary basis behind their conclusions, or the
195
materials needed to replicate published experiments, fail to maintain the standards
of science.’’
As President of the National Academies, you are obviously very influential in how
scientists apply this basic principle of openness and data sharing. In an interview
after ClimateGate, however, you said some climate scientists ‘‘are now receiving re-
quests that are bordering on harassment. They’re being asked for all the data that
went into a publication, sometimes in addition to all data analyses, all equations,
used in interpretations, detailed descriptions of all statistical techniques, all com-
puter programs used—even access to any physical samples. These are fishing expedi-
tions.’’
Q1. Please help us reconcile your statement calling these requests ‘‘fishing expedi-
tions’’ with the Academies’ guidance stating that researchers who refuse to share
materials needed to replicate published experiments fail to maintain the stand-
ards of science.
Q2. Do you think the Federal government should withhold funding from researchers
that refuse to make their data and materials available for public scrutiny?
Should such research be excluded from use in policy debates and scientific as-
sessments such as those by the National Academies or IPCC?
A1, 2. I will address this array of questions and observations by outlining to you
some of the things that the National Academy of Sciences and I have been doing
in the last several years. First, we published in late 2009 a new report authored
by a superb committee of academic scientists, people from corporations and legal ex-
perts, entitled Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research
Data in the Digital Age. This ‘‘data integrity’’ report dealt with a very large array
of questions about the form, volume, and value of various kinds of research data.
One of the findings was very similar to the statement which you quoted from the
National Academy of Sciences’ Guide to Responsible Conduct and Research, namely,
that ‘‘research data, methods, and other information integral to publicly reported re-
sults should be publicly accessible.’’ Implementing this principle would encourage
scientific research to proceed more efficiently and openly, which is a goal that we
all share. The report notes that in many fields of science, especially those which are
of practical importance such as pharmaceutical development, intellectual property
and software and manufacturing, many kinds of medical research, and environ-
mental issues where there are sometimes competing forces at work, there are also
specific factors which make it difficult for all data to be provided to all parties at
all times. For example, there are proprietary restrictions on research that has been
supported by industry. Similarly, there are issues of personal privacy in some kinds
of medical and social research. Third, for example in climate change, there are
datasets which are now the property of individual governments due to a move that
began two or three decades ago to nationalize meteorological services so that the
data and the weather forecasts can be sold to recover the costs of the government
in establishing meteorological stations and meteorological satellites and models.
Each of these limitations is potentially serious and they must be dealt with in ways
which are appropriate for each field.
Our ‘‘data integrity’’ 2009 report noted that in some scientific fields the individ-
uals most knowledgeable in that particular field of research have created uniform
standards to be employed by researchers in each specific field and in the journals
where they publish. The report provides examples from a number of fields including
space research, crystallography, and in molecular biology and genetic databases. In
some cases, these field-by-field standards are promulgated and enforced through re-
search journals, in other cases by Federal funding agencies, and in still further
cases, by leading scientists in the field who have created a supportive culture for
those standards. In several examples, Federal agencies have provided funds to cre-
ate and maintain data repositories which accept data from scientists who are pub-
lishing results and the data repositories provide professional and permanent
archiving of data. The National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council
data integrity report of 2009 also noted that in the digital age, forms of data are
becoming more varied and numerous, and data storage now involves the mainte-
nance of supporting data (metadata) required to interpret the data such as statis-
tical techniques, computer programs to maintain metadata or housekeeping data,
for example, on the position of an Earth-orbiting satellite or other features of the
research protocol that went into obtaining the data in the first place.
I also note that it was in 2007 when the NAS and the NRC decided to launch
the study that led to our 2009 data-integrity report. The study was funded by our-
selves, several journals and scientific societies and private foundations, with about
one third of the funding from Federal agencies.
196
In the last couple of years I have focused my own efforts on how to create the
most uniform set of standards we can in the field of climate science. For example,
in February 2010, I made a special trip to the annual meeting of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, to propose the need for such
standards and to stimulate discussion among scientists from different disciplines. I
also spoke at public meetings in San Diego on how and why these standards must
be achieved. Just before that San Diego meeting, I wrote the enclosed editorial for
SCIENCE magazine where I addressed these issues.
In my 2010 annual address to the members of the National Academy of Sciences,
I focused on the issue of the need for standards for data access across fields of
science, again in our desire to advance science and also to be as responsible as pos-
sible to members of the public, to people with commercial and proprietary interests
as well as to protect scientists from potential harassment. Also early in 2010, I met
with the editors-in-chief of three of the world’s major scientific journals to describe
these issues to the journal editors and to learn what they were already doing to help
to promulgate and maintain standards for access to data on which research publica-
tions are based. Following that meeting, I wrote to and telephoned the elected offi-
cers of two strong American scientific societies who publish important climate re-
search papers, namely, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteoro-
logical Society.
In these meetings and contacts, it has become clear that climate science is an es-
pecially challenging field for which to create standards of data access because the
field is comprised of many subfields such as remote sensing by Earth-orbiting sat-
ellites, by observations of the Sun, by observations of oceanography, of meteorology
both on continents and ocean, and by observations from paleo objects such as fos-
silized biological specimens at the bottoms of lakes, oceans, and soil. The field of
climate also includes mathematical modeling of Earth’s climate which in turn gen-
erates enormous datasets, certainly of the order of a few terabytes per computer
run. The field also includes records from sea-level changes from glaciology and iso-
topic data from biological and physical specimens worldwide. Accordingly, climate
research is published in many, many different journals, some of which are owned
by the private sector and are commercial enterprises, other journals of which are
published by scientific societies which are nonprofit. And the rules governing these
publications vary.
In the fall of 2010, I have arranged for more meetings between myself and offi-
cials of the AGU and the AMS to continue to pursue these questions, and I have
begun to reach out to individual leading scientists to ask them to identify best prac-
tices in their field and the potentials for creating more uniform standards for data
access along with learning from them the pitfalls of trying to implement what might
be seen as simple solutions of a one-size-fits-all nature but which would be counter-
productive and extremely difficult to implement. I mentioned earlier that there are
some kinds of requests for data, which appear to be harassing because the authors
and the scientific researchers in question have provided reasonable amounts of data
to requestors but have not been able to give away access to individual physical sam-
ples when, for example, the conditions under which the samples were obtained miti-
gates against the free distribution of the samples (as does their scarcity) and ex-
pense of distributing the samples intervenes.
Some of our Federal agencies that conduct research and sponsor research
extramurally, have already put in place standards and data repositories which are
enabling some climate data to be archived, maintained, and made available in ways
which are exemplary. For example, two of the leading providers of global tempera-
ture records, NASA and NOAA in the United States, have documented very well in
a public way the sources of all of their data, the numbers involved, and any mathe-
matical operations that they have applied to the data, including data which have
been omitted or otherwise altered before being used in the dataset. These records
are easily available through NASA and NOAA websites, and I think they have en-
couraged research by other people as well as making the results easily visible to
anyone who will take the time to look. Similarly, there are procedures in place for
certain NASA missions which have long time latency, that is, times during which
satellite instruments are being conceived, being built before they can be flown, and
then after the initial flight until the results can be presented in geophysically mean-
ingful ways. There are rules promulgated and enforced by NASA on how to make
those data accessible to the public as soon as possible. There are other rules in place
at the National Institutes of Health on molecular, biological, and genetic data, so-
called genebanks, as well as databanks for protein structures and crystallographic
information on the crystals of proteins. There are additional rules and processes im-
plemented by the National Science Foundation in certain fields, and these develop-
ments, some of which were summarized in our 2009 data integrity report, are very
197
impressive and very encouraging. On the other hand, there is certainly additional
financial cost associated with the curating, archiving, maintaining, and distributing
these datasets, some of which are quite large and heterogeneous in nature.
Accordingly, in response to your question as to whether the Federal government
should withhold funding in various ways, I think the reply would be more that the
Federal government should help to pay for constructive ways to provide better ac-
cess to data which were generated with public funds especially those data which
have appeared publicly in publications, in ways that are compatible with field-by-
field standards that are now being developed. I worry that a one-size-fits-all solution
could turn out to be clumsy and counterproductive. Instead, we require standards
as specific as possible to be applied field-by-field in recognition of the different
kinds, types, values, restrictions, and volumes of data in each research field.
Thank you for attention to this important issue.
198
Responses by Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, De-
partment of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology

Q1a. What is the contribution of clouds to global warming compared with the con-
tribution of greenhouse gases to global warming?
A1a. Global warming refers to the response to external forcing. Thus, one doesn’t
usually refer to clouds as causing global warming. Clouds, however, can act as
feedbacks that could amplify or reduce global warming. In models, clouds amplify
the response, but explicit measurements suggest that they actually reduce the re-
sponse.
Q1b. Are the uncertainties in the effects of clouds large enough to upset model re-
sults?
A1b. Doubling CO2 is associated with a 2% change in the earth’s energy budget.
Clouds are associated with a 40% contribution to the earth’s energy budget. Thus,
small changes in cloud distribution can easily swamp the contribution of CO2, and
uncertainties as well as identifiable errors in model simulated cloudiness are large.
Q2a. Approximately what percentage of current and expected future warming is an-
thropogenic, and what percentage is natural? Is it 50%? 75%?
A2a. At this point, we don’t know, but as I noted in my testimony, even if the an-
swer were 100%, it would still be consistent with small warming. Remember, we are
talking about tenths of a degree. My own work suggests that about 33% of current
warming is anthropogenic. For the future, this implies that the contribution of
added CO2 will be much less than 1C. No percentages can be offered because the
natural internal climate variability is, itself, not currently predictable.
Q2b. And how much are estimates on this question based on actual climate observa-
tions versus computer modeling?
A2b. High estimates are based on models. Low estimates are based on observations.
All estimates for future are based on either models or theory.
Q2c. If we don’t know the answer to this question with any precision, how can we
have any idea whether policies aimed at addressing projected warming will
have any impact?
A2c. Actually, almost all proposed policies will have so little impact on levels of
CO2, that it is widely acknowledged that they will have no discernible impact on
climate regardless of what one believes about climate. Only policies that involve al-
most complete elimination of fossil fuels will have significant impacts on CO2 levels
so that they might have some impact on climate if sensitive climate models are cor-
rect, but this too seems doubtful.
Q3. Some members of the scientific community seem to discount the affects clouds
and aerosols have on global warming. In fact, the IPCC states that ‘‘Confidence,
in attributing some climate change phenomena to anthropogenic influences is
currently limited by uncertainties in radiative forcing, as well as uncertainties
in feedbacks and in observations.’’
a. Can you explain what is currently known and what is not known about the
effect of clouds and aerosols on climate change?
A3a. The uncertainty in both the nature of aerosols and their distribution is on the
order of a factor of 10. This means that sensitivity cannot be derived from observed
temperature time series. It also means that there is enough scope for arbitrary ad-
justment in aerosols to permit any model to be consistent with any observations.
As to clouds, there is enough known to be confident that all models badly misrepre-
sent clouds, and that the misrepresentation is sufficient to swamp anthropogenic in-
fluences. Observations of clouds and aerosols are improving and strongly suggest
that many models are exaggerating the influence of aerosols and that clouds are,
indeed, constituting a negative rather than a positive feedback, and that this nega-
tive feedback is sufficient to dominate the response of the climate system to anthro-
pogenic forcing..
Q3b. Can you describe the level of uncertainty related to radiative forcing and
feedbacks?
199
A3b. There is, by now, ample evidence that feedbacks in nature are negative rather
than positive (which is what they are in models). Radiative forcing by greenhouse
gases is reasonably well determined, but the contribution of aerosols to radiative
forcing is poorly constrained (see previous answer).
Q4. It has been reported that global average temperatures have increased 0.6°C in
the last century.
a. How much of that increase is attributable to each of the following: natural
variability, land-use change, and emissions of greenhouse gases?
A4a. Precise attribution is currently impossible. What can be said is that it is pos-
sible to simulate the observed change in global mean temperature anomaly by nat-
ural internal variability (ie El Nino, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation), and it is also possible to simulate it with anthropogenic
effects—provided that one is allowed to adjust unknowns like aerosol forcing and
solar forcing arbitrarily. With respect to land use change, it is entirely possible that
it is a significant contributor to the small observed change in global mean tempera-
ture anomaly—as are changes in instruments and changes in instrument placement.
Q4b. What is the level of uncertainty in each of these answers?
A4b. The commonly stated uncertainty in the temperature record, itself, is +/- 0.2C.
This is probably an underestimate, and already constitutes a significant part of the
total change. As concerns attribution, the presence of large adjustable factors makes
attributions totally unreliable, though, at least, the attempts to simulate the past
with natural internal variability do not need the egregious adjustments that the at-
tempts to simulate with anthropogenic forcing need.
Q5a. Do you believe the current IPCC processes are working?
A5a. It depends on what one thinks the purpose of the IPCC is. The stated purpose
is to produce summaries of the research in support of the negotiating process. Given
the intrinsic bias of this purpose, the IPCC is doing what it is supposed to do. That
said, the work of IPCC working groups II and III is pretty useless since it assumes
the worst for the science and proceeds to spin implausible impacts and responses.
The full Working Group I report on the science is not terrible (though an index
would make it vastly more accessible). Unfortunately, for most people, however, the
only science from Working Group I that they hear about comes from the press re-
lease that accompanies the release of the Summary for Policymakers (which gen-
erally precedes the release of the full report). For last three reports, the iconic state-
ments have been that current warming is unprecedented for for 400 years (the infa-
mous hockey stick), that the balance of evidence points to a human role in recent
warming, and that it is highly likely that man has contributed most of the warming
over the past 50 years. None of these statements (whether true or not) is actually
alarming, but the public is made to think otherwise.
Q5b. If so, why?
A5b. See preceding answer.
Q5c. If not, what specific actions can be taken to repair them, and in the meantime,
why should the product of a process that isn’t working be relied upon as the
basis for policy actions that would impose enormous costs on the United States
economy?
A5c. Frankly, the IPCC reports are not the basis for various proposed policies.
Rather, the IPCC is exploited to claim the existence of a scientific argument for the
proposed policies. Thus, the problem is the existence of the IPCC, and its statutory
authority derived from the Rio Framework Convention of 1992 plus the fact that
policymakers never try to understand what is actually in the WG I report or even
to understand how vacuous the iconic statements are.
200
Responses by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Cato
Institute

Q1. Please explain how you get increased levels of black carbon without also having
increased greenhouse gases.
A1. You don’t. Black carbon is a result of incomplete combustion of hydrocarbon
fuels or vegetation. My point was that this is not a greenhouse-gas-induced warming
effect, and my point was in response to EPA’s December, 2009 Endangerment Find-
ing in which it states,
Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th
century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG [green-
house gas] concentrations. [italics added]
Black carbon is not a gas, nor does it cause an ‘‘observed increase in global aver-
age temperature’’ through absorption of upwelling infrared radiation (i.e. an en-
hanced greenhouse effect). Whether or not black carbon is a result of the combustion
of fossil fuels is not germane to this point.
Q2. How is water vapor in the atmosphere not connected to increased greenhouse
gases?
A2. I don’t believe I ever stated that. However, there is an emerging stream of evi-
dence based upon actual observation of what happens in the atmosphere during
major El Nino/La Nina cycles indicating that the carbon dioxide-water vapor-cloud
feedback may have been overestimated, and even possibly of the wrong sign. (Spen-
cer and Braswell, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2010, article D16109).
If you are referring to stratospheric (rather than ‘‘atmospheric’’ water vapor), Sol-
omon states that she sees variations in stratospheric water vapor that are not
monotonic as are changes in carbon dioxide; in fact the sign of the relationship with
sea surface temperature changes with time. (Solomon et al., Science, March 5,
2010).
Q1. There have been claims that the models and observations of average surface
temperature are in agreement and there have been claims that they are not.
Which is it? Can you explain how they are or are not in agreement? How do
you explain a different interpretation of the numbers.
A1. I showed in my written and spoken testimony that the IPCC’s midrange suite
of models predicts that warming should be taking place at a constant rate. Indeed,
if one looks at the East Anglia temperature history since 1975, the rate has been
remarkably constant. Mathematically, any departure from a constant rate is not sta-
tistically significant. So the models have the ‘‘form’’ of the warming right.
However, if you look at the magnitude of the warming it is clearly below the mean
and median values projected by these models going back at least 15 years. So you
might say that we have the form correct, but not the size. This latter should be very
important to policymakers.
Q2. During the hearing, you and Dr. Santer were engaging in a debate regarding
his 1996 paper. Dr. Santer brought up 3 aspects of the criticism laid against
his paper, specifically: the editorial process of the scientific journal Nature had
been interfered with; the selected data analysis that showed an upward trend
in temperature, and; the additional scientific work conducted since then that has
strengthened confidence in the ability of the models to reproduce the temperature
change first characterized in the 1996 paper. Unfortunately, time limitations
prevented you from having a chance to respond to Dr. Santer’s claims: Please
provide the response to these claims that you were unable to testify to at the
hearing.
A2. Dr. Santer claimed that I stated that the editorial process at Nature had been
interfered with.
I have written much on his 1996 Nature paper. The core error was using data
from 1963 through 1987, when data were available from 1957 through 1995. Using
the complete data set completely invalidates his headline-making finding.
201
Either peer-reviewers did in fact note this problem and were ignored, or they sim-
ply did not note it, which would mean that each of the peer-reviewers missed a glar-
ing and obvious error. I can’t tell which it was—perhaps you should ask the appro-
priate editors at Nature for the peer reviews and their response. Whatever hap-
pened, it was the most egregious error I have ever seen in a major climate paper.
Santer’s claim that our criticism was invalid in using all the data at the time is
simply false. I know of no other word to describe this. In fact, as is shown in my
testimony, the behavior of the important warm spot in the Southern Hemisphere
changes in sign when all the data are used!
I should point out that Dr. A. H. Oort, of MIT, who assembled the upper-air
record that began in 1957 was in fact one of the co-authors of the infamous 1996
Santer paper. I think it is impossible to believe that Oort did not know of the prob-
lem. He either mentioned it and was ignored, or chose not to mention it.
With regard to the timing of the paper, I believe its publication just days before
the Geneva UN conference was no accident. Perhaps the peer reviewers wanted it
rushed to print, perhaps the editors ignored negative reviews in order to do so . . .
we will never know until you ask Nature.
Q3. In your testimony, you talk about publication bias. That a substantial number
of the papers published today (at least in Science and Nature) claim that future
climate prospects are worse than previously suggested. How does one regain
some balance in a particular science field’s publication rate?
a. Is it appropriate for scientists to encourage or lobby other-scientists to not
publish in a particular journal because that journal published something that
was contrary to their thinking?
b. Is it appropriate for scientists to conspire to stack editorial boards so that
only one view of a scientific field is accepted for publication?
c. Is it ethical to then refuse to consider papers for larger assessments that were
not published in popular journals with skewed editorial boards because their
content went against the ‘‘consensus’’?
A3. You ask, ‘‘How does one regain some balance in a particular science field’s pub-
lication rate’’?
My thesis is that an additional finding with regard to a previously unbiased pro-
jection has an equal probability of essentially raising or lowering the forecast. This
is clearly true for weather forecasting models; climate models share many of their
characteristics, as was noted by other witnesses at your Hearing.
The problem probably lies in the nature of modern science. It is almost all tax-
payer-funded, and individual ‘‘problems’’ compete for finite resources. As a result,
the ‘‘problems’’ have to be portrayed in increasingly stark and dire terms, and whole
fields are financed upon the premise of disaster. What incentive is there for anyone
to write a paper that would argue otherwise? What incentive is there for Science,
the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to publish
such a result? The Association is the scientific community’s Washington lobby. They
should be expected to be make it very difficult to publish anything counter to the
interests of its supporters.
You ask if it is appropriate for scientists to encourage their colleagues to not pub-
lish in a journal because it published something they disagree with. Of course it is
not appropriate; in fact it is deadly wrong and poisons the free exchange of ideas.
I think it would be appropriate for you to ask Dr. Mann of Penn State University
this question. A counter witness should be Chris deFreitas from Auckland Univer-
sity, whom Mann claimed was inserting papers into the journal Climate Research
that were inappropriate. The two should testify together, despite the problems with
bringing Dr. deFreitas in from New Zealand.
While it is inappropriate to stack editorial boards in favor of the disastrous view
of climate change, that is the natural result of the incentive structure, is it not? We
spend billions of dollars per year on this ‘‘problem’’, which results in promotion, ten-
ure, and honors at major Universities. This will never stop until Congress stops
feeding it. Rather, the distortions of science will grow ever larger and louder.
Of course it is not ethical to bar papers in the peer-reviewed literature from as-
sessments like those of the IPCC. Even if these papers were disproven it is impor-
tant to note their existence, and the subsequent arguments against them. But,
again, is there any incentive to include things that disagree with the hypothesis
that global warming is a terrible problem?
Q4. Do you believe the current IPCC processes are working? If so, why? If not, what
specific actions can be taken to repair them, and in the meantime, why should
the product of a process that isn’t working be relied upon as the basis for policy
actions that would impose enormous costs on the United States economy?
202
A4. In a word, ‘‘no’’; in two words, ‘‘they can’t’’. Again it is the problem of incentives.
Congress has been presented with the disaster that it bought. Corrective action will
take much decades, and will probably impossible to achieve. You will never get a
strong counter-consensus as long as it is professionally dangerous to espouse it. My
profession knows well of the treatment of climate scientists who have not bought
into the apocalyptic view of climate change.
I would not rely on any of these large-scale assessments unless the editorial pan-
els showed some semblance of balance—but again, that is very difficult to achieve
this given that the professional rewards handed out on one side, while punishment
is meted out to the other. .
203
Responses by Dr. Benjamin D. Santer, Atmospheric Scientist, Program for Climate
Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Terminology—climate change versus global warming
Some people are unclear or unhappy about the use of ‘‘climate change’’ instead of
the less-precise term ‘‘global warming.’’
Q1. Can you explain why ‘‘climate change’’ is a more accurate representation of the
phenomenon?
A1. ‘‘Global warming’’ is a potentially misleading term. In my opinion, use of the
term ‘‘global warming’’ implies two different expectations about the ‘‘climate signal’’
arising from human-caused changes in the atmospheric concentrations of green-
house gases. The first is that climate scientists expect every location on Earth’s sur-
face—and every layer of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans—to warm in response to
human-caused changes in greenhouse gases. The second is that climate scientists
expect each year to be successively warmer than the previous year (in some global
average sense).
Neither expectation is correct.
Consider first the ‘‘every location should warm’’ expectation. Since the late 1980s,
climate scientists have known that this expectation is incorrect. Pioneering work at
a number of different research groups around the world (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) helped sci-
entists to understand the complex of effects of sulfate aerosol particles on climate.
The main source of sulfate aerosols is fossil fuel burning (7). Sulfate aerosols af-
fect climate in two ways—by direct scattering of incoming sunlight back to space,
and by influencing the optical properties and lifetime of clouds. In areas where the
atmospheric burdens of sulfate aerosol particles are high, they can cause local or
regional cooling of the Earth’s surface.1 The cooling effects of sulfate aerosols on sur-
face temperatures have been identified in many different ‘‘fingerprint’’ studies,
which involve rigorous statistical comparisons of modeled and observed patterns of
climate change (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).
The local and regional-scale cooling caused by sulfate aerosols is occurring against
the backdrop of the broad, global-scale surface warming arising from human-caused
changes in greenhouse gases.
Other human influences can also have important local or regional effects on cli-
mate. Examples of such influences include human-caused changes in black carbon
aerosols (which cause warming), and in the properties of the land surface (which
can cause either cooling or warming, depending on the nature of the modification
to the land surface) (7).
The bottom line is that human effects on climate are complex over space and time.
The human-caused climate change ‘‘fingerprint’’ is a mixture of climate forcings
which cause global-scale warming of the Earth’s surface (like changes in well-mixed
greenhouse gases) and forcings which cause local to regional-scale surface cooling
(like changes in the atmospheric concentrations of sulfate aerosols). In a global aver-
age sense, the net human-caused forcing of climate is positive. The warming effects
of greenhouse gases and soot aerosols more than compensate for the cooling influ-
ences of sulfate aerosols, other reflective aerosols, and land use changes (7). But at
individual locations—such as in heavily-polluted areas, where atmospheric burdens
of sulfate aerosols are large—the cooling effects associated with negative forcing fac-
tors can predominate. Thus the term ‘‘global warming’’ does not capture the very
complex nature of human effects on climate, and does not convey the message that
even local or regional surface cooling can be human-induced.
As I mentioned above, ‘‘global warming’’ also implies that each year will be inex-
orably warmer than the previous year. This is not what climate scientists expect to
observe.
Climate change is not an either/or proposition—either all due to human factors,
or all due to natural causes. It is due to both human and natural factors. The
human-caused climate change ‘‘signal’’ is embedded in the background ‘‘noise’’ of
1 Because of the dynamic nature of the atmospheric general circulation, sulfate aerosols can
also induce ‘‘far field’’ climate effects, at locations remote from regions where there are high at-
mospheric burdens of sulfate aerosol particles. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (7) con-
cluded that the best current estimate of the radiative forcing associated with the direct scat-
tering effects of sulfate aerosols is ¥0.4 ± 0.2 Wm–2. The indirect effects of sulfate aerosols on
clouds are more uncertain.
204
natural climate variability.2 As has been recognized since the late 1970s, identifying
human effects on climate is a signal-to-noise problem (16), requiring the application
of signal processing techniques similar to those used in electrical engineering.
Because of the effects of climate noise, we do not expect each year to be warmer
than the preceding year. For example, during a year with a large La Niña event,
climate scientists expect global-mean surface temperature to be slightly cooler than
average. One could not infer from a single cool ‘‘La Niña’’ year that the gradual
warming of the Earth’s surface over the past 150+ years had ceased!
This is why climate scientists look at signal-to-noise behavior over many decades
rather than over very short periods (10 years or less). Over longer periods of time
(decades to centuries), there are larger changes in the human-caused factors which
influence climate, leading to larger climate-change ‘‘signals’’. Furthermore, the ‘‘cli-
mate noise’’ in most meteorological and oceanographic time series tends to be largest
on year-to-year timescales, and becomes smaller over longer averaging periods (17,
18). So when analysts search for a human effect on climate, they focus their atten-
tion on long, multi-decadal records, with more favorable signal-to-noise ratios.
If there were more widespread understanding of such basic signal-to-noise con-
cepts, little attention would be paid to invalid claims that a single cool year—or
even a single cool decade—provided ‘‘evidence of absence’’ of a human effect on cli-
mate.
The key point here is that even in the presence of strong human-caused ‘‘forcing’’
of the climate system, natural climate variability will continue. Because of this nat-
ural variability, each of the next 90 years in the 21st century will not be warmer
than the preceding year—which is the expectation that ‘‘global warming’’ conveys.
IPCC reliable information

Q1. Based on your experience as a contributor to four previous IPCC assessments,
do you regard the IPCC as an effective means of providing policymakers with
reliable information on the nature and causes of climate change?
A1. Yes.
First let me explain why I believe I am qualified to answer this question.3 I con-
tributed to all four Scientific Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change. I served as Convening Lead Author of Chapter 8 of the 1995
IPCC Second Assessment Report (19).4 I was also a Contributing Author to the ‘‘De-
tection and Attribution’’ chapters of the IPCC’s First, Third, and Fourth Assessment
Reports.
Since its inception in 1988, the IPCC—and many climate scientists who have
worked in its service—have been the subject of much unjustified criticism. I’d like
to briefly address three areas of criticism. All relate to issues I am directly familiar
with.
‘‘Political interference’’ and ‘‘scientific cleansing’’ allegations

After publication of the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report (SAR), parties critical
of the IPCC’s finding of a ‘‘discernible human influence’’ on global climate alleged
that Chapter 8 of the SAR had been modified for political purposes, and ‘‘cleansed’’
of all scientific uncertainties. Such allegations are baseless. They have been rebut-
ted in many different fora. Chapter 8 was not subjected to ‘‘political tampering’’ or
‘‘scientific cleansing’’. Changes made to Chapter 8 after the November 1995 IPCC
Plenary Meeting in Madrid were made for scientific reasons, not for political rea-
sons. Changes were in response to Government review comments and to the sci-
entific discussions which took place in Madrid.
2 This ‘‘climate noise’’ has both externally-forced and internally-generated components. The ex-
ternally-forced contributions to ‘‘climate noise’’ are caused by natural changes in 1) the Sun’s
energy output; and 2) the amount of volcanic dust in the atmosphere. The internally-generated
component of ‘‘climate noise’’ arises from natural oscillations of the coupled atmosphere-ocean-
sea ice system. Examples of such ‘‘unforced’’ oscillations include El Niños and La Niñas, the Pa-
cific Decadal Oscillation, and the Atlantic Decadal Oscillation.
3 I note that many of the public commentators on the reliability of the scientific information
provided by the IPCC have little or no direct IPCC experience.
4 This chapter was entitled ‘‘Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes’’. Chapter
8 concluded that ‘‘the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human on global climate’’. After
publication of the Second Assessment Report in 1996, I spent over a year of my scientific career
defending the ‘‘discernible human influence’’ finding, and defending the process by which this
finding had been reached.
205
Unfortunately, some individuals have persisted in resurrecting these false ‘‘polit-
ical tampering’’ and ‘‘scientific cleansing’’ allegations. My response to these allega-
tions (and the IPCC’s response) is a matter of public record.5
Accommodation of the ‘‘full range of scientific views’’

Some parties critical of the IPCC have claimed that the IPCC does not accommo-
date the full range of scientific views on the subject of the nature and causes of cli-
mate change. In my opinion, such claims are specious. I would contend that IPCC
Scientific Assessment Reports have dealt with alternative viewpoints in a thorough
and comprehensive way. For example, the IPCC has devoted extraordinary scientific
attention to a number of highly-publicized claims. Examples include the claim that
the tropical lower troposphere cooled over the satellite era; that the water vapor
feedback is zero or negative; that solar irradiance variations explain all observed cli-
mate change. The IPCC and the climate science community have not dismissed
these claims out of hand. Scientists have performed the research necessary to deter-
mine whether these ‘‘alternative viewpoints’’ are scientifically credible. They are not.
Furthermore, I note that holders of these ‘‘alternative viewpoints’’ are often di-
rectly involved in the IPCC process, either as Lead Authors or reviewers.
Openness and data sharing

Another frequent criticism relates to data sharing, particularly with regard to
model data. This issue is discussed in my written testimony of November 17, 2010.
The database of coupled model output produced in support of the IPCC’s Fourth
Assessment Report (FAR) has transformed the world of climate science. At present,
35 Terabytes of data from the so-called CMIP–3 project are archived at Livermore,
and nearly 1 Petabyte of data has been distributed to well over 4,300 users. To date,
over 560 peer-reviewed publications have used CMIP–3 data. These publications
formed the scientific backbone of the IPCC FAR. There is no substance to the criti-
cism that the IPCC is some kind of ‘‘closed shop’’, and does not open its doors to
detailed scrutiny of the climate model data used in its Assessment Reports.
‘‘Groupthink’’
Several public critics of the IPCC have argued that it engages in ‘‘groupthink’’.
I fundamentally disagree with this criticism.
My own personal experience of the IPCC (obtained during my service as a Con-
vening Lead Author and Contributing Author) is that the IPCC, like other scientific
assessments, brings together a very diverse group of experts, with a diverse set of
skills and knowledge. IPCC Lead Author meetings are the antithesis of ‘‘groupthink’’
encounters. Participants in such meetings do not engage in continuous self-con-
gratulatory behavior. They behave like scientists at any other scientific meeting.
They challenge accepted wisdom and orthodoxy. They revisit old academic debates
and rivalries. They are combatants in an arena of scientific facts and theories. They
argue over the robustness of different analysis methods and findings. They debate
the strengths and weaknesses of simple and complex numerical models. They strug-
gle to quantify and reduce scientific uncertainties. They spend many hours trying
to explain difficult technical issues in plain English, trying to capture what is
known with confidence and what is not.
Anyone who has witnessed such IPCC Lead Author meetings would never use the
word ‘‘groupthink’’ to describe them.
In summary, I believe that the IPCC is the best mechanism we have for providing
policymakers with reliable information on the nature and causes of climate change,
the likely impacts of climate change, and possible mitigation and adaptation strate-
gies. The scope and rigor of IPCC assessments is extraordinary.
Yet the IPCC is not infallible. Inaccurate information can make its way into an
IPCC Report, despite exhaustive review procedures. Several inaccuracies in a 1,000-
page Report do not undermine the entire science of climate change. The IPCC is
working hard to further improve its review procedures, and to guard against the in-
clusion of erroneous information in subsequent Assessment Reports.
Peer review process

You noted in your testimony, ‘‘Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.’’
The scrutiny and study of climate change has been extraordinary.
5 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/close-encounters-of-the-absurd-
kind/
206
Q1. Are most scientific claims subject to the same amount of scientific rigor and re-
view before they are considered affirmed? Less?
A1. The IPCC’s claim that ‘‘most of the observed increase in global average tem-
peratures since the mid-20th century is very likely 6 due to the observed increase
in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’’ (20) has indeed been subjected to
extraordinary scrutiny. In my opinion, most scientific claims are not subject to a
similar degree of review ‘‘before they are considered affirmed’’.
At its core, science is about reproducibility. Findings of a ‘‘discernible human in-
fluence’’ on global climate have been independently reproduced by many research
groups around the world.
As I noted in my testimony of November 17, 2010, climate scientists have now
analyzed changes in many different components of Earth’s climate system. They
have looked at surface and atmospheric temperature, ocean heat content, Atlantic
salinity, sea-level pressure, tropopause height, rainfall patterns, atmospheric mois-
ture, continental river runoff, and Arctic sea-ice extent. The general conclusion is
that for each of these variables, natural causes alone cannot explain the observed
climate changes over the second half of the 20th century. The best statistical expla-
nation of the observed changes invariably involves a large human contribution.
These results are robust to the processing choices made by different groups, and
show a high level of physical consistency across different independently-monitored
climate variables.
Findings of a ‘‘discernible human influence’’ on global climate do not rest on a sin-
gle observational dataset, a single scientific study, or a single scientific assessment,
as some uninformed commentators have claimed. Such findings are subject to mul-
tiple review phases during the course of developing an IPCC report. These review
phases involve literally hundreds of climate scientists.
I would like to contrast this rigorous review of IPCC findings with the apparent
absence of detailed peer review of the material presented to the House Science and
Technology Committee by Professor Patrick Michaels. In his written testimony of
November 17th, 2010, Professor Michaels showed an analysis of the causes of
changes in global-average temperature over 1950 to 2009. He claimed that this anal-
ysis does not support the IPCC’s 2007 finding that ‘‘most of the observed increase
in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the
observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’’ (20). If Professor
Michaels’ claim were correct, and if the analysis he presented were sound, it would
be a very serious matter.
Prior to casting doubt on one of the central findings of the IPCC’s Fourth Assess-
ment Report, most scientists would ensure that their work was subjected to rigorous
review by their peers. They would check that their data, analysis methods, and in-
ferences were sound.
Yet despite the extraordinary nature of the claim made in his testimony, Professor
Michaels provides no information on the source of his analysis of the causes of glob-
al-mean temperature changes. It is unclear where (or even whether) his analysis
has been published. He does not give any description of the method he used in sub-
tracting the effects of four different factors 7 from an observed record of global-aver-
age temperature change. There is no discussion or treatment of uncertainties in his
selected method of removing ‘‘non-CO2’’ warming influences from observational data.
His analysis provides no error bars.
One asymmetry is particularly troubling. Professor Michaels argues that black
carbon aerosols—which cause net warming—are important. The warming effects of
these soot aerosols are included in his analysis of the factors contributing to global-
mean temperature change. However, Professor Michaels does not account for the
cooling effects of sulfate aerosols. These cooling effects have been studied for over
20 years by dozens of research groups around the world (see response to ‘‘Questions
for the Record’’ #1).
Professor Michaels does not provide a rigorous quantitative assessment of the con-
tributions of different forcing factors to observed global-mean temperature changes.
His analysis serves to highlight the differences between the thoroughly reviewed
IPCC claim of a ‘‘discernible human influence’’ on global climate, and Professor Mi-
chaels’ unreviewed claim of a very small human impact on climate.
6 Where the term ‘‘very likely’’ signified >90% probability that the statement is correct.
7 The four factors identified by Professor Michaels were 1) errors in sea-surface temperature
data; 2) ‘‘non-climatic influences; 3) stratospheric water vapor changes; and 4) changes in black
carbon aerosols.
207
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19 Santer, B.D., T.M.L. Wigley, T.P. Barnett, and E. Anyamba, 1996: Detection of
Climate Change, and Attribution of Causes, in Climate Change 1995: The
Science of Climate Change, edited by J.T. Houghton, L.G. Meira Filho, B.A.
208
Callander, N. Harris, A. Kattenberg and K. Maskell, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 407–443.
20 IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical
Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Re-
port of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin,
M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor, and H.L. Miller
(eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New
York, NY, USA.
209
Responses by Dr. Judith A. Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric
Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology

I would like to thank the Committee for this opportunity to expand upon my testi-
mony. I found the questions to be particularly insightful and profound. The answers
to these questions about a very complex situation are not simple or straightforward.
In preparing my answers to these questions, I sought input from participants in my
blog Climate Etc. (at http://judithcurry.com/2010/12/03/testimony-follow-up/),
which received 265 comments from a diverse group of scientists, other professionals
and anonymous citizens, from the U.S. as well as internationally. The diversity of
opinions and ideas regarding these questions is evidenced by the broad range of
thoughtful and insightful viewpoints expressed on the blog, and I acknowledge the
contributions expressed on my blog in preparing this statement.
Q1. It is clear from your public statements that you generally agree with the main-
stream view of global warming and cannot easily be characterized as a climate
change ‘‘denier’’ or ‘‘skeptic.’’ Nonetheless, you have been quite critical of the
process under which climate science is conducted, saying that ‘‘it is difficult to
understand the continued circling of the wagons by some climate researchers
with guns pointed at skeptical researchers by apparently trying to withhold data
and other information of relevance to published research, thwart the peer review
process, and keep papers out of assessment reports.’’
a. Why are so many scientists ‘‘pointing their guns’’ at skeptics when sharing
data and embracing debate seems to be an obvious way for scientists to in-
crease the credibility of their arguments and influence public debate?
A1a. While the majority of climate scientists are not engaged in these adversarial
tactics, the CRU emails revealed a siege mentality adopted by a group of influential
and highly visible climate researchers. Understanding how and why this situation
evolved in the way it did is a topic that should be investigated by historians and
sociologists of science.
My own understanding of this is described in the context of the IPCC/UNFCCC
ideology. What I’m referring to as the IPCC/UNFCCC ideology is described in my
blog post at http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/07/no-ideologues-part-iii/ and is ap-
parent in this interview with Michael Mann http://bos.sagepub.com/content/66/6/
1.full. The basic elements of this ideology are outlined as:
1. Anthropogenic climate change is real.
2. Anthropogenic climate change is dangerous and we need to something about
it.
3. The fossil fuel industry is trying to convince people that climate change is
a hoax.
4. Deniers are attacking climate science and scientists, and their disinformation
is misleading the public.
5. Deniers and the fossil fuel industry are delaying UNFCCC mitigation poli-
cies, providing a political motivation to counter the disinformation from the
deniers.
The book ‘‘Merchants of Doubt’’ by Oreskes and Conway describes ‘‘how a loose-
knit group of high-level scientists, with extensive political connections, ran effective
campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over
four decades. . . showing how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided
by a too-compliant media, has skewed public understanding of some of the most
pressing issues of our era.’’ The ‘‘circling the wagons’’ strategy revealed in the CRU
emails was designed to counter the tactics of the merchants of doubt and other
deniers in delaying the UNFCCC mitigation policies. This strategy was apparently
designed under the tutelage of advocacy groups, learning lessons from the wars with
big tobacco, etc.
While free market fundamentalism and ‘‘big oil’’ may have been a major source
of skepticism in the past, the current dominant group of skeptics, enabled by the
blogosphere, seeks accountability. Many of these skeptics have professional back-
grounds and extensive experience with the practical application of science and regu-
lation, without any particular political motivations and certainly without funding
from ‘‘big oil.’’ Failing to recognize this new breed of climate skeptics, and dis-
210
missing them as politically motivated deniers or merchants of doubt, led to the
events that were revealed by the CRU emails.
An additional motivation for circling the wagons seems to be insecurity and fear
that uncertain or flawed analyses will damage professional reputations, as a result
of this extraordinary scrutiny of their research. This motivation is revealed by Phil
Jones’ email to Warwick Hughes saying: ‘‘Why should I give you my data when you
only want to find fault in it?’’ Scientists who have invested considerable work and
their professional reputations in developing a certain line of research want to be
‘‘right’’, and defend their research against challenges from skeptical researchers. The
normal process of scientific debate eventually sorts things out. However, when the
battle lines were drawn between the ‘‘virtuous’’ scientists and the anti-science
deniers, other scientists lined up in a ‘‘consensus’’ to fight against the forces of anti-
science, without a careful examination of the scientific issue at hand. The end result
is that genuine skeptical arguments were marginalized and ignored, which dimin-
ishes the credibility of science that is being defended.
Another issue is the evolving importance and changing dynamic of climate re-
search. Two decades ago, climate science was conducted in a purely academic envi-
ronment and there were no data quality requirements or regulatory requirements
for models. As climate science has become increasingly policy relevant, demands on
quality and traceability (particularly retrospective ones) could not be met. This pro-
duced defensiveness amongst the scientists, who did not want to provide any ammu-
nition for the merchants of doubt; they sought refuge in the ‘‘consensus’’ and argued
by appealing to their own authority.
In the midst of all this, scientific best practices became compromised.
b. Given the potentially enormous influence of climate science on economic and
environmental policy—which ultimately boils down to jobs—shouldn’t it be
held to a higher standard in the public debate? For example, should Congress
consider blocking funding for researchers that do not make their data and
materials available for public scrutiny?
A1b. The key issue is openness and traceability. Scientists supported by govern-
ment funding should ensure that their data and methods are made available to any
researcher for purposes of replication. However, the practical aspects of wholesale
enforcement of this are not straightforward. U.S. agencies that supervise and fund
climate research (e.g. USGCRP, NSF, NOAA, NASA) already have substantial re-
quirement in place for data archival and full and open access to data. Many journals
also have requirements for archiving data and ensuring that the data and methods
used are made available for purposes of replication. These requirements are not uni-
formly enforced. How to enforce these requirements in a cost effective way is an im-
portant topic to address.
Climate science used for public policy should be held to a higher standard, in a
manner similar to medical/pharmaceutical research that is used in the health mar-
ketplace. There is normal academic peer reviewed medical research, but higher
standards are required in the context of regulated science before a drug or proce-
dure can be marketed. The analogy for climate science is normal academic peer re-
viewed science, versus an accountable assessment process for policy makers. As part
of the assessment process, greater accountability is required, which might consist
of fact checking, statisticians auditing the statistical methods, computer scientists
auditing the algorithms, etc.
With regards to funding, as part of the proposal process, scientists should state
how they will archive their data or otherwise make available data and other infor-
mation to others attempting to reproduce their results. Scientists should be held ac-
countable for actually having made their data available in consideration for future
funding. I am aware of some funding programs and program managers that actually
do this, but overall this does not seem to be enforced.
The principal climate data records should be maintained by government agencies,
with full documentation, quality and version control, complete documentation, and
support to respond to user queries. University research groups are ill equipped to
handle this, and researchers generally find the painstaking work of quality control
to be scientifically boring.
c. Should such research be excluded from use in policy debates and scientific as-
sessments such as those by the National Academies or IPCC?
A1c. There is no prima facie reason to exclude any relevant information from policy
and scientific debates. The ‘‘scientific juries’’ of the IPCC and National Academies
will use their own standards to decide which scientific studies are suitable for inclu-
sion in their assessment reports. However, there is a significant gap between a sci-
entific assessment of research and accountable information for actual policy making
211
and regulatory purposes. Accountability for issuing regulations under the EPA
endangerment finding could demand that all relevant information be independently
assessed for its accuracy and reliability to determine its usefulness. Information
that has not been assessed or cannot be assessed owing to unavailability of data
and other source materials would not be used in this context. Such a requirement
would motivate the science community to ensure that its products are useful in the
context of policy making and government regulations.
Q2. You state in your testimony that the conflict regarding the theory of anthropo-
genic climate change is over the level of our ignorance regarding what is un-
known about natural climate variability. For a long time, the scientific commu-
nity did not consider uncertainty a bad thing. In fact, the word ‘‘certainty’’ was
something that was almost never used (you are not certain the sun will rise to-
morrow morning, but you are reasonably sure that it is very likely to occur).
a. At what point did uncertainty become a bad thing in the climate community?
A2a. Uncertainty became a bad thing in the climate science community with the
creation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Treaty in
1992. The UNFCCC states that future greenhouse gas emissions are uncertain, as
are climate change damages. However, following the precautionary principle, ‘‘lack
of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective
measures to prevent environmental degradation.’’ While lack of full certainty does
not preclude action, the level of certainty needs to reach some sort of threshold be-
fore action is triggered under the precautionary principle. While this threshold of
certainty is vague, reducing the uncertainty makes action more likely.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, climate research programs were aimed explicitly at the
reduction of uncertainties in future climate projections. By the mid 1990’s, climate
modelers were beginning to realize that the increasing complexity of climate models
and the fundamentally chaotic nature of climate system precluded full predictability
of the climate system. Nevertheless, the emphasis from policy makers and funding
agencies was on the reduction of uncertainty. The U.S. Climate Change Science Pro-
gram Science Plan (published in 2003) emphasized reducing uncertainty, using the
phrase in many of its goals.
Classical decision making theory involves reducing uncertainties before acting.
There has been a growing sense of the infeasibility of reducing uncertainties in glob-
al climate models owing to the continued emergence of unforeseen complexities and
sources of uncertainties. While reducing the overall uncertainty isn’t viable, at the
same time not acting could be associated with catastrophic impacts. Since a higher
level of confidence would make decision makers more willing to act, political oppo-
nents to action sold doubt and the scientists countered by selling certainty and con-
sensus. Scientific statements about uncertainty became viewed as political state-
ments.
b. How did this shift within the scientific community occur? How does it shift
back?
A2b. Climate science got caught up in a highly charged political debate: the con-
sequences predicted by the models were dire, and many of the climate scientists
were persuaded by the predictions of the models. Climate science is a relatively
young field, and one that was ill prepared for participation in such a highly charged
political debate. The traditions of science in disclosing all of the weaknesses of their
work were at odds with this adversarial political process.
The actual shift within the community seems to have occurred in the context of
the IPCC process. The entire framing of the IPCC was designed around identifying
sufficient evidence so that the human-induced greenhouse warming could be de-
clared unequivocal, and so providing the rationale for developing the political will
to implement and enforce carbon stabilization targets in the context of the
UNFCCC. National and international science programs were funded to support the
IPCC objectives. Scientists involved in the IPCC advanced their careers, obtained
personal publicity, and some gained a seat at the big policy tables. This career ad-
vancement of IPCC scientists was done with the complicity of the professional soci-
eties and the institutions that fund science. Eager for the publicity, high impact
journals such as Nature, Science, and PNAS frequently publish sensational but du-
bious papers that support the climate alarm narrative. Especially in subfields such
as ecology and public health, these publications and the media attention help steer
money in the direction of these scientists, which buys them loyalty from their insti-
tutions, who appreciate the publicity and the dollars. Further, the institutions that
support science use the publicity to argue for more funding to support climate re-
search and its impacts. And the broader scientific community inadvertently becomes
complicit in all this. When the IPCC consensus is attacked by deniers and the forces
212
of ‘‘anti-science,’’ scientists all join in bemoaning these dark forces fighting a war
against science, and support the IPCC against its critics. The media also bought into
this, by eliminating balance in favor of the IPCC consensus.
The bottom line is that scientists worked within the system to maximize their pro-
fessional reputations, influence, and funding. Rather than blame the scientists for
optimizing their rewards within the system, we need to take a careful look at the
system, most particularly the climate science-policy interface and the federal fund-
ing of climate science.
How does it shift back? Change the system to improve the science-policy interface
and change the funding priorities. A top priority for research funding should be ex-
ploring the significance and characteristics of uncertainty across the range of cli-
mate science, not only the climate models themselves, but also solar forcing, surface
temperature datasets, natural internal modes of climate variability, etc. Change the
decision making framework from the classical ‘‘reduce the uncertainty before acting’’
paradigm to a robust decision making framework that incorporates understanding
of uncertainty as information in the contemplation and management of environ-
mental risks.
Changing the funding priorities is key. We need to reduce reliance on building
ever more complex climate models for being the primary source of reducing uncer-
tainties regarding climate change. Climate researchers need to engage with a broad-
er range of expertise in and build strong links to disciplines experienced in complex
nonlinear modeling and statistical inference, among others. We need a much better
understanding of natural climatic variability. More research is needed on under-
standing abrupt climate change and developing a more extensive archive of
paleoclimate proxies. And finally, greater resources need to be provided to accel-
erating the establishment of definitive climate data records.
Openness and transparency enables critical examination by a broad range of sci-
entists and citizens. Recognition of the extended peer review communities enabled
by the blogosphere is essential, and frank discussions with skeptics are needed. We
need to eliminate the elitism that argues that certain scientists are more ‘‘impor-
tant’’ voices in the debate than others (by virtue of their academic recognitions, cita-
tions, etc), that scientists with expertise outside of the traditional climate disciplines
can be ignored, and that the only valid contributions come in the form of peer re-
viewed journal publications. With regard to the latter point, well-documented anal-
yses/audits of data sets occurring on technical blogs have provided significant con-
tributions to understanding and improving data quality. This elitism is counter to
the traditions of science, characterized by physicist Richard Feynman as ‘‘Science
is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.’’ It is the merits of the scientific argu-
ment that count; not the qualifications of the person making the argument.
c. Are there any efforts within the scientific community to self-correct this para-
digm shift? If there is not, what does this mean for the decision-makers need-
ing objective and unbiased scientific information to inform their policies?
A2c. Science is subject to human fallibility, and such shifts have happened in the
past. Science always manages to correct itself, but the process is not necessary quick
or painless. Scientific professional societies and universities have a key role to play
in setting the standards for scientific research and for establishing a useful interface
between science and policy.
That said, the first reaction of the climate establishment to the release of the
CRU emails and the errors identified in the IPCC reports has generally been one
of defensiveness, and lacking introspection and discussion of correction. Some of the
climate scientists at the center of ‘‘storm’’ seem to be battling a scientific version
of post traumatic stress syndrome, overwhelming their ability to cope with the
issues. Dealing with these issues requires active involvement by the broader climate
research community and particularly by the institutions that include climate re-
searchers but are not dominated by them, including the American Geophysical
Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National
Academies.
If the government wants objective and unbiased scientific information to inform
their policies, then the guidelines and incentives need to be changed. Stop asking
for scientists to reduce the uncertainties; rather, ask for our understanding of the
range of risks that we might be facing from climate change (both natural and an-
thropogenic). Fund climate research that is much broader, not just studies designed
to support the IPCC/UNFCCC. Support the development of improved connections
with disciplines that conduct research into complex nonlinear systems, statistical in-
ference, and decision making under uncertainty. Change the nature of the ‘‘carrot’’
and the scientific community will respond.
213
Finally, I have to state that my own efforts to stimulate such a correction have
been highly controversial within the field of climate research, and relatively few cli-
mate researchers are speaking out publicly in support of what I am trying to do.
I regard my own scientific reputation as secure, as well as my research funding, so
I don’t feel that I am risking anything that I can’t afford to lose by speaking out.
But other scientists feel much more vulnerable if they were to attempt to rock the
boat in some way, and I have received many emails from scientists expressing this
kind of concern. This culture that has developed in climate science that greatly con-
cerns me, particularly in the context of university departments and government
labs. Ten years ago, I used to think that university tenure was irrelevant in my
field. Right now, the controversy surrounding climate science makes tenure seem es-
sential. Scientific debate should be the spice of academic life; climate research lost
this in the midst of the politicization of the subject.
Q3. Do you believe the current IPCC processes are working? If so, why? If not, what
specific actions can be taken to repair them, and in the meantime, why should
the product of a process that isn’t working be relied upon as the basis for policy
actions that would impose enormous costs on the United States economy?
A3. A number of people have put forth arguments that the IPCC is structurally un-
sound and fatally flawed, owing to its connection with the UNFCCC. Some people
who have been supportive of the IPCC view its work as being finished. I view the
major flaws of the IPCC to be:
• A focus on providing scientific information on anthropogenic climate change
for use as justification of a Treaty, at the expense of a thorough assessment
of natural climate variability, the limitations and uncertainties associated
with climate model projections, etc.
• The requirement for broad based international participation in the IPCC as-
sessment, resulting in a heavy emphasis on participation by scientists that
are merely industrious rather than those that are exceptionally qualified, ex-
perienced and insightful. Compare the list of authors on the IPCC AR4 report
with those involved in the 1979 Charney Report on Carbon Dioxide and Cli-
mate, which included the premier U.S. scientists of the time. The broad geo-
graphical and international distribution of authors, some with relatively mea-
ger qualifications and experience, seems motivated more by political reasons
to gain support for the Treaty rather than by the needs of the scientific as-
sessment itself.
• Working Groups II and III on impacts and mitigation have produced reports
that are judged by many to be inaccurate and misleading. The emphasis of
these reports seems to be to convince policy makers that anthropogenic cli-
mate change is dangerous and the problem of carbon mitigation can be ad-
dressed feasibly and without economic damage.
So in one sense, the IPCC process is ‘‘working’’ in terms of garnering support for
the UNFCCC treaty. But as a scientific assessment of climate variability and
change and the vulnerabilities to climate change, I would judge the IPCC process
not to be working. I don’t think that the IPCC can be repaired without a major over-
haul of its justification and organization. For an IPCC under the auspices of the
UN, I would recommend that the WG I assessment be undertaken under the aus-
pices of the WMO/WCRP (and not the UNEP and UNFCCC).
Many other initiatives with international implications are undertaken without the
involvement of the UN. An approach whereby disparate organizations conduct as-
sessments would be beneficial, producing new ideas and new directions and a more
diverse scientific and policy debate. An alternative to the IPCC is to conduct assess-
ments within individual nations or a group of nations who share a common interest.
However, the recent U.S. assessment reports seem to mostly parrot the IPCC as-
sessment, with many of the people participating in the U.S. assessments having also
participated in the IPCC. A broader base of scientists should participate in the as-
sessments, including those whose scientific reputations and funding aren’t tied to
climate change. Skeptical perspectives should be sought and included.
Regarding use of the scientific assessments as a basis for policy actions, I argue
that an intermediate step is required, analogous to that for regulated science such
as pharmaceuticals, food safety, human genetic manipulation, etc. Independent as-
sessment, auditing, due diligence, whatever you want to call it, can insure that
quality standards are met and that the assessment addresses the wider interests
of the public.
214
There are no simple answers to addressing the complex and wicked problem of
climate change, but a rethinking of our broader strategies is needed.

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A RATIONAL DISCUSSION OF CLIMATE CHANGE:

THE SCIENCE, THE EVIDENCE, THE RESPONSE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

Serial No. 111–114

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

Statement by Representative Brian Baird, Chairman, Subcommittee on En-

Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences

Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Cato Insti-

Rear Admiral David W. Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator of the U.S.

Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences ....................... 194

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2010

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

A Rational Discussion of Climate Change:

Climate and Weather

1 Meteorological elements such as temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rain-

The Scientific Process: Uncertainty, Consensus, and Peer Review

mentation Problems, 36 GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS (2009).

at all, insist that our witnesses adhere to the highest standards of

sional approval. The Secretary of Energy testified before this Com-

pects from their government. Above all, we cannot afford to enact

STATEMENT OF RALPH J. CICERONE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL

The specific molecular properties of greenhouse gases have been

Dr. CICERONE. The heat content of the oceans have increased

Climate Change in the Past

Earth’s Energy Balance and Climate Change Today

BIOGRAPHY FOR RALPH J. CICERONE

an attempt to measure these fluxes from the surface. Now, you

BIOGRAPHY FOR RICHARD S. LINDZEN

about 150,000 daily record-low minimum temperatures set, a ratio

Many climate change impacts will be experienced through changes in

A small change in average climate produces a disproportionately large

The physical processes involved in changes in daily temperature and pre-

Have we already seen a change in daily temperature and precipitation ex-

BIOGRAPHY FOR GERALD A. MEEHL

He basically said it all, which is, ‘‘Climate is what we expect,

The gentleman in the oil painting is Svante Arrhenius. He got

Charles David Keeling, another giant in the field of climate

Essentially, Mark Twain’s quote can now be rewritten, which is

The Basic Science and Physics of Climate Change

- The discovery of the greenhouse effect

- The discovery of global warming

- the chemical fingerprint of human activity

- the causes and production of anthropogenic greenhouse gases

- the expected impacts on the climate

BIOGRAPHY FOR HEIDI M. CULLEN

Dr. Meehl, Dr. Cullen, Dr. Cicerone, is it generally accepted sci-

But the other thing is the data are——

Mr. INGLIS. Thank you.

Mr. BARTLETT. If the goal you want to accomplish is a national

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The fact is CO2 is a minor, minuscule part

munities stronger and safer. And it’s sort of as simple as that as

STATEMENT OF PATRICK J. MICHAELS, SENIOR FELLOW IN

The important thing about climate change to remember is that

Another way to look at this issue is to look at the frequency dis-

This particular paper right here is probably the most famous