[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A FACTUAL LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN CLIMATE AND WEATHER
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
December 11, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-58
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
86-896PDF WASHINGTON : 2013
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SCOTT PETERS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana DEREK KILMER, Washington
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming MARC VEASEY, Texas
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JULIA BROWNLEY, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARK TAKANO, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
------
Subcommittee on Environment
HON. CHRIS STEWART, Utah, Chair
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., JULIA BROWNLEY, California
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
DANA ROHRABACHER, California MARK TAKANO, California
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RANDY WEBER, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
December 11, 2013
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 18
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Dr. John R. Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science
Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Dr. David Titley, Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and
Climate Risk, Pennsylvania State University
Oral Statement............................................... 31
Written Statement............................................ 33
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor and Director, Center for Science
and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado
Oral Statement............................................... 50
Written Statement............................................ 52
Discussion....................................................... 66
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. John R. Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science
Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville............. 78
Dr. David Titley, Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and
Climate Risk, Pennsylvania State University.................... 88
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor and Director, Center for Science
and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado......... 95
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Letter submitted by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking
Minority Member, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 104
A FACTUAL LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN CLIMATE AND WEATHER
----------
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar
Smith [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. The Subcommittee on the Environment will
come to order.
Welcome, everyone, to today's hearing titled ``A Factual
Look at the Relationship between Climate and Weather,'' and let
me also say that we have a little bit of a sparse attendance
today for two reasons. One, there are Members of the Republican
Caucus who are still hearing what the budget deal is all about.
I expect them to trickle in shortly, and we have lost both
Republican and Democrat Members to a Nelson Mandela memorial
service, so we are down in numbers a little bit but not down in
interest or in making a record, thanks to the expertise from
our witnesses today. I am going to recognize myself for an
opening statement, then the Ranking Member.
Administration officials and the national media regularly
use the impacts from hurricanes, tornados, droughts, and floods
to justify the need for costly climate change regulations.
President Obama stated in his 2013 State of the Union Address
that, ``We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the
most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some
states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we
can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science
and act before it is too late.''
However, the ``overwhelming judgment of science'' does not
support the President's claims. According to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is high
agreement among leading experts that long-term trends in
weather disasters are not due to human-caused climate change.
The story is the same when we look at each type of extreme
weather event. Hurricanes have not increased in the United
States in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at
least 1900. It has been seven years since a Category 3 or
stronger hurricane made landfall in the United States.
Government data also indicates no association between
climate change and tornado activity. Whether measured by the
number of strong tornados, tornado-related fatalities or
economic losses associated with tornados, the latter half of
the 20th century shows no climate-related trend.
The data on droughts yields similar results. For example,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded
that climate change was not a significant part of the recent
drought in Texas. And the IPCC found that ``in some regions
droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter.
IPCC's latest report also states there is low confidence in any
climate-related trends for flood magnitude or frequency on a
global scale.
The science is clear and overwhelming but not in the way
the President said. The fact is, there is little evidence that
climate change causes extreme weather events. Instead of trying
to scare the American people and promote a political agenda,
the Administration should try to protect the lives and property
of our Nation's residents from extreme weather by better
weather forecasting.
This Committee last week passed bipartisan legislation to
do just that. The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013
strengthens our Nation's ability to save lives and property
through advanced research and implementation of next-generation
weather forecasting abilities.
I hope this hearing will make clear that the impact of
climate change is often exaggerated. Politicians and others
should rely on good science, not science fiction, when they
discuss extreme weather. Otherwise, they will lack credibility
when advocating new policy changes.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Full Committee Chairman Lamar S. Smith
Administration officials and the national media regularly use the
impacts from hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and floods to justify the
need for costly climate change regulations. President Obama stated in
his 2013 State of the Union Address that, ``We can choose to believe
that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the
worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak
coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment
of science and act before it's too late.''
However, the ``overwhelming judgment of science'' does not support
the President's claims. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), there is ``high agreement'' among leading
experts that long-term trends in weather disasters are not due to
human-caused climate change.
The story is the same when we look at each type of extreme weather
event.
Hurricanes have not increased in the US in frequency, intensity or
normalized damage since at least 1900. It has been seven years since a
Category 3 or stronger hurricane made landfall in the US. Government
data also indicates no association between climate change and tornado
activity. Whether measured by the number of strong tornadoes, tornado-
related fatalities or economic losses associated with tornadoes, the
latter half of the 20th century shows no climate-related trend.
The data on droughts yields similar results. For example, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that
``climate change was not a significant part'' of the recent drought in
Texas. And the IPCC found that ``in some regions droughts have become
less frequent, less intense, or shorter.''
The IPCC's latest report also states there is ``low confidence'' in
any climate-related trends for flood magnitude or frequency on a global
scale. The science is clear and ``overwhelming,'' but not in the way
the president said. The fact is there is little evidence that climate
change causes extreme weather events.
Instead of trying to scare the American people and promote a
political agenda, the administration should try to protect the lives
and property of our nation's residents from extreme weather by better
weather forecasting.
This Committee last week passed bipartisan legislation to do just
that. The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013 strengthens our
nation's ability to save lives and property through advanced research
and implementation of next generation weather forecasting abilities.
I hope this hearing will make clear that the impact of climate
change is often exaggerated. Politicians and others should rely on good
science, not science fiction, when they discuss extreme weather.
Otherwise, they will lack credibility when advocating new policy
changes.
Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized for
her statement.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today we continue what has been a popular topic for this
Subcommittee and indeed the Committee at large: what impacts,
if any, the changing climate is having on our daily life and
the lives of our constituents. It is not likely that the
Committee will reach consensus on this question anytime soon,
but nonetheless I welcome and appreciate the witnesses who are
here today.
Dr. Titley, I am interested not just in your experiences at
NOAA, but also in your work for the Navy, where you rose to the
rank of Rear Admiral. And I know I speak for the entire
Subcommittee when I say that we are very grateful to you for
your service to the Nation.
Dr. Titley's work has been at the interface of weather and
climate through his long career with the U.S. Navy and now, at
the Pennsylvania State University. There is a long list of good
scientists who would be capable of appearing before us to shed
light on the facts of the relationship between climate and
weather. Actually I would like to see more of them come before
this Subcommittee and the Committee in the whole because
whatever our diverse views on climate change, there is
absolutely no disagreement that severe weather events can
devastate our constituents, deprive them of their livelihoods,
and sometimes even take their lives. Ruling out research into a
potential link between climate change and severe weather events
would be burying our heads in the sand.
Recently, I worked with Members of the Subcommittee on what
is now bipartisan legislation to address the Federal weather
enterprise and how it might be improved to provide our
constituents with better warning of severe weather events. I
know my constituents on the coast of Oregon rely on weather
forecasting information that can tell them when it is safe to
go out fishing, and my constituents in Yamhill County need
information on weather patterns to help make decisions about
the grapes they grow to make world-famous Oregon pinot noir,
and if we are here to learn that it is erroneous to associate
any given day's weather or any particular storm with climate
change, then that is fine. However, climate change challenges
us to think in terms of decades of accumulated change. Making
comments on today's weather is easy. Learning what factors
might influence long-term climate patterns is significantly
more difficult. Our constituents should be able to count on
their elected leaders to take a difficult look at a complicated
subject. The lesson of this hearing cannot be that a potential
link between climate change and severe weather is too difficult
to determine or understand, and therefore we should stop
trying.
It should not be controversial to examine if the weather
will change as a consequence of global warming. Scientific
projections from the IPCC make it apparent that we will live in
a hotter world. We already have a warmer world than that of our
grandparents. In many of our districts, residents will
experience drier environments with more drought. Those of us
who represent particularly wet areas may find that
precipitation arrives in more intense storms. The oceans will
be warmer and that may well produce stronger or more frequent
tropical storms. To focus only on the question of whether there
will be more extreme events misses the point that by the end of
this century much of the world as we know it, in our districts
and in the States and across the world will be considerably
altered by the weather effects of climate change.
We need to face up to the risks of global warming and do
more to reduce carbon emissions. Americans have always boldly
faced risks and challenges. Our own armed services have already
begun taking climate change seriously. The Navy, as Rear
Admiral Dave Titley could attest, has been struggling with the
strategic implication of year-round open seas in the Arctic.
In summary: anthropogenic climate change is real. There is
a strong consensus that we are already seeing climactic
consequences from warming. The continued warming of the globe
will have profound effects on our country and the world. This
situation creates an opportunity for the United States to show
leadership in reducing carbon emissions, as well as in adapting
and mitigating the effects of climate change.
Finally, I want to join the chairman in noting that I do
not want the absence of more Members on my side of the aisle to
be perceived as a lack of interest in this important topic. As
the Chairman noted, this morning there is a memorial service
for Nelson Mandela at the National Cathedral, and many Members
are attending that service.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my
time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Environment Ranking Minority
Member Suzanne Bonamici
Mr. Chairman, today we continue what has been a popular topic for
this Subcommittee and indeed the Committee at large: what impacts, if
any, the changing climate is having on our daily life and the lives of
our constituents. It is not likely that the Committee will reach
consensus on this question anytime soon, but nonetheless I welcome and
appreciate the witnesses who are here today. Dr. Titley, I am
interested not just in your experiences at NOAA, but in your work for
the Navy, where you rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. And I know I
speak for the entire Subcommittee when I say that we are very grateful
to you for your service to the nation.
Dr. Titley's work has been at the interface of weather and climate
through his long career with the U.S. Navy and, now, at Pennsylvania
State University. There is a long list of good scientists who would be
capable of appearing before us to shed light on the ``facts'' of the
relationship between climate and weather. Actually I would like to see
more of them come before this committee, because whatever our diverse
views on climate change, there is absolutely no disagreement that
severe weather events can devastate our constituents, deprive them of
their livelihoods, and sometimes even take their lives. Ruling out
research into a potential link between climate change and severe
weather events would be burying our heads in the sand.
Recently, I worked with Members of the Subcommittee on what is now
bipartisan legislation to address the federal weather enterprise and
how it might be improved to provide our constituents with better
warning of severe weather events. My constituents on the coast of
Oregon rely on weather forecasting information that can tell them when
it is safe to go out fishing, and my constituents in Yamhill County
need information on weather patterns to help make decisions about the
grapes they grow to make world-famous Oregon pinot noir.
If we are here to learn that it is erroneous to associate any given
day's weather or any particular storm with climate change, then that is
fine. However, climate change challenges us to think in terms of
decades of accumulated change. Making comments on today's weather is
easy. Learning what factors might influence long-term climate patterns
is significantly more difficult. Our constituents should be able to
count on their elected leaders to take a difficult look at a
complicated subject. The lesson of this hearing cannot be that a
potential link between climate change and severe weather is too
difficult to determine or understand, and therefore we should stop
trying.
It should not be controversial to examine if the weather will
change as a consequence of global warming. Scientific projections from
the IPCC make it apparent that we will live in a hotter world--we
already have a warmer world than that of our grandparents. In many of
our districts, residents will experience drier environments with more
drought. Those of us who represent particularly wet areas may find that
precipitation arriving in more intense storms. The oceans will be
warmer and that may well produce stronger or more frequent tropical
storms. To focus only on the question of whether there will be more
extreme events misses the point that by the end of this century much of
the world as we know it, in our districts and states, will be
considerably altered by the weather effects of climate change.
We need to face up to the risks of global warming and do more to
reduce carbon emissions. Americans have always boldly faced risks and
challenges. Our own Armed Services have already begun taking climate
change seriously. The Navy, as retired Rear Admiral Dave Titley could
attest, has been struggling with the strategic implication of year-
round open seas in the Arctic.
In summary: anthropogenic climate change is real; there is a strong
consensus that we are already seeing climactic consequences from
warming; the continued warming of the globe will have profound effects
on our country and the world. This situation creates an opportunity for
the United States to show leadership in reducing carbon emissions, as
well as in adapting and mitigating the effects of climate change.
Finally I would like to note that I do not want the absence of
Members on my side of the aisle to be perceived as a lack of interest
in this important topic. This morning there is a memorial service for
Nelson Mandela at the National Cathedral, and many Members are
attending that service.
Thank you, I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
And let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness today
is Dr. John Christy, Professor and Director of the Earth System
Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Since November 2000, he has been Alabama's State Climatologist.
Dr. Christy has served as a lead author, contributor and expert
reviewer for the UN reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, which included satellite temperatures as well
as other climate data sets he constructed. Dr. Christy is also
a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. He has served
on five National Research Council panels or committees and has
performed research funded by NASA, NOAA, DOE, DOT and the State
of Alabama. Dr. Christy received his master's and doctoral
degrees in atmospheric sciences from the University of
Illinois.
Our next witness is Dr. David Titley, Director of the
Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at
Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Titley served as a Naval
Office for 32 years and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Dr.
Titley's career included duties as Commander, Naval Meteorology
and Oceanography Command, Oceanographer and Navigator of the
Navy, and Deputy Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for
Information Dominance. After retiring from the Navy, Dr. Titley
served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for
Operations, the Chief Operating Officer position at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dr. Titley
holds a master's degree in science and meteorology and physical
oceanography, and a Ph.D. in meteorology from the Naval Post
Graduate School.
Our third witness today is Dr. Richard Pielke, Professor of
Environmental Studies and Director for the Center for Science
and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado.
Before joining the faculty of the University of Colorado from
1993 to 2001, Dr. Pielke was a Scientist at the National Center
for Atmospheric Research. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Pielke
has collaborated with researchers around the world to publish
dozens of peer-reviewed papers on extreme weather events and
climate change. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Breakthrough
Institute and holds academic appointments at Macquarie
University in Sydney, Australia, and the London School of
Economics. Dr. Pielke holds degrees in mathematics, public
policy and political science, all from the University of
Colorado.
We welcome you all and look forward to your testimony, and
Dr. Christy, we will begin with you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN R. CHRISTY,
PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR,
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE CENTER, NSSTC,
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA IN HUNTSVILLE
Dr. Christy. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member
Bonamici, for the privilege it is to offer my views on climate
change. I am John Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science at
the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Alabama State
Climatologist. I served as a lead author of the IPCC years ago.
My research might best be described as building data sets from
scratch to advance our understanding of what the climate is
doing and why.
Have climate extremes of the past 50 years been
unprecedented? To answer that question statistically, one needs
1,500 to 2,000 years of data with which to compare. Only then
can one determine if the characteristic is unusual. For a few
extremes such as drought, we have long data sets. In the 12th
century, there were megadroughts, far worse than any we have
seen in the past century. As noted in more detail in my written
testimony, when the comparison is done properly, to label
today's events as extreme usually fails the test of time.
Now to the IPCC climate models. On the screen, the figure
you will see, a 35-year record of atmospheric temperature in
the tropics, the key region in which climate models respond to
greenhouse gas warming with a large and distinct signal and was
used by the EPA as a fingerprint of climate change. This shows
that the very latest climate model simulations are on average
warming the tropics two to five times greater than the real
world, as shown by the symbols. In other words, the models
cannot tell us why the temperature did what it did in the past
35 years.
Now, regarding the IPCC now, please note that the IPCC was
written by IPCC select scientists and that the document
represents their opinions. Many of the conclusions are fine but
some of the key ones do not represent the views of the broader
climate science community. For example, the headline statement
from the summary for policymakers baffles me. It reads: ``It is
extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant
cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.''
First, the IPCC relies on climate models to distinguish
natural from human caused climate change. However, as
demonstrated in the chart, these same models fail to represent
the climate of the past 35 years by a significant amount. But
in its conclusion, the IPCC now claims more confidence that the
models can distinguish natural from human change in correct
proportions over a period of time during which the models fail.
So if the models can't tell us what has happened, how can they
tell us why it happened? It just doesn't make sense to me.
I see two things here. One, we need to go back to the
drawing board on climate modeling with a rigorously independent
validation program or red-team approach, and two, the world
community needs to be exposed to the real debates of climate
science rather than the statements of a carefully selected few.
Seventeen years ago in March 1996, I testified before this
Committee about climate change and new data sets my colleague,
Roy Spencer, and I pioneered. Using these data, Richard
McKnight, also at UA Huntsville, and I wrote a paper in Nature
magazine that indicated climate model simulations were warming
the planet about four times too fast. Now over 17 years later,
we still see the latest climate models warming the key region
of the tropical atmosphere about four times too fast. In a
paper published last week, Swanson demonstrated that these
latest models are actually getting worse.
It was clear at that time and agreed to by nearly everyone
that our understanding of how the climate system works was poor
and we needed more observations to better understand natural
variability. One of my concluding statements 17 years ago was,
and I quote: ``Without a continuing program of research that
places climate variations in proper perspective and reports
with improving confidence on their causes, we will be
vulnerable to calls for knee-jerk remedies to combat climate
change which likely will be unproductive and economically
damaging.''
Regulations have been put forward based upon those climate
model projections. I have shown in previous testimony that
these regulations will be unproductive in terms of climate
effects, and I will let economists answer the question about
whether the economic effects of higher energy prices will be
damaging, especially for the poorest among us.
In summary, we have a lot of work to do to understand why
the climate is not changing according to proper projections,
projections that unfortunately have been used to create policy.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Christy follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Christy.
Dr. Titley.
TESTIMONY OF DR. DAVID TITLEY, DIRECTOR,
CENTER FOR SOLUTIONS TO WEATHER
AND CLIMATE RISK,
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Admiral Titley. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking
Member Bonamici, distinguished Members for the opportunity and
privilege to present to you today on this very, very important
topic.
As mentioned, I am Dave Titley and I currently am a
Professor of Practice at Meteorology at the Pennsylvania State
University and the Founding Director of the Center for
Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. I am here in my personal
capacity today, and the views that I represent are mine.
When--in the Navy, we have--I am just going to talk. It is
much, much easier.
In the Navy, we have a saying called the ``bottom line up
front,'' and it is like just tell me what I really, really need
to know. So here, sir, is the way that I see the salient points
for today's hearing.
The first is, is that the climate change is very real. I
was very, very encouraged, sir, to hear from your opening
statement your numerous quotes from the IPCC. The IPCC shows
that the climate is in fact warming. We see that in the
temperature record in both the air and the ocean, and as you I
am sure know, 90 percent of the heat is in fact in the ocean.
It is kind of the Willie Sutton theory. Why do we study it? It
is where the heat is.
The ice is collapsing. We see the ecosystems moving. We see
the sea level rising. If you look at any one of these
individually, you can sometimes try to figure out well, what is
going on here, but when you put it all together, it gets pretty
hard to come up with something other than that the climate is
changing, and we know the basics. We certainly still have
questions on the details like tornados, like typhoons, but we
kind of understand the basics. I mean, this is cutting-edge
19th-century science. Fourier, Tyndall, Arnhus all figured this
stuff out in the 19th century.
If you take a look at Jim Hanson's model that he--climate
model he published in Nature magazine in 1980, it showed the
rise in temperature. In fact, he was too conservative. The
temperature, the global temperature, has actually risen more
than what Hanson projected. And some models are going to be too
slow, some are going to be too aggressive. I think there is a
saying called ``all models are wrong but some are useful.''
So what can we actually tell out of these models? So, I
mean it is--hopefully we are doing more than just like looking
at individual models because, you know, frankly, you don't need
a brain to do that, but we understand the science, we
understand the physics, we understand then what the models can
help us in, and we kind of look at this in a risk framework. I
mean, again, I am a--we are all sort of victims of our past
circumstance, and mine is national security. I spent 32 years
in the Navy. So I kind of look at this as the way that we
looked at security issues in the national defense realm. We did
not necessarily wait for that extreme event.
I mean, imagine if this was a terrorism hearing in the
summer of 2000. What would we say? Well, we would say we have
had a few events, you know, some people in Africa, we had a
bombing in the World Trade Center in the 1990s but we really
haven't see a big signal. Is that where we want to be on
climate? Do we want to wait for that catastrophic signal to
then say oh, my, God, now we need to do things. So I kind of
see the system blinking red here. And why do I say that? Warmer
oceans, moister atmosphere, warmer air temperatures, does it
mean that we have seen that catastrophic signal? No. But the
absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. So we don't
know, and there is a big, big difference between not knowing
versus saying well, since we haven't seen anything, therefore
it is not going to happen.
So I kind of would look for a risk management strategy. I
was very happy, sir, to hear about the Weather Forecasting
Improvement Act. As you may know, the Department of Defense and
Department of Navy have funded, starting with President's
budget FY13, a program called Earth System Prediction
Capability. It is interagency. NOAA is participating. I would
strongly encourage and hope that the Committee can help NOAA
further participate in that along with NASA, Department of
Energy and Department of Defense. The idea is to get better at
everything from zero hours or today's forecast to about 30
years because this is where in the real world we make our
budgets, we make our decisions. It is sort of, you know, our
infrastructure decisions. If you are a city planner, if you are
an emergency manager, you know, seasons, years, that is where
we need to get better, that intersection of weather and
climate.
As Dr. Christy said, there is a lot to learn there, and I
hope we can help out.
Thank you very much, sir.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Titley follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Titley.
Dr. Pielke.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ROGER PIELKE JR.,
PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR,
CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY POLICY RESEARCH,
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
Dr. Pielke. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bonamici, thank
you for hearing my testimony today. I am a Professor of
Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado. Before I
jump into my substance, I do want to say I was an intern on
this Committee in 1991 under George Brown, and I have a lot of
respect for the work of the Members and the staff, and it is
always great to come back.
I have three take-home points, and then underneath that I
will have a few more specifics. Number one, there exists
exceedingly little scientific support for claims found in the
media and political debate that hurricanes, tornados, floods
and drought have increased in frequency or intensity on climate
time scales either in the United States or globally. Two,
similarly, on climate time scales, it is incorrect to link the
increasing cost of disasters with the emissions of greenhouse
gases. Three, these conclusions that I have just reported are
part of a broad scientific consensus including that recently
reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in
its 5th assessment report as well as a special report it did
last year on extreme events.
So here are a few more specifics. Globally, weather-related
losses measured in dollars have not increased since 1990 when
the data starts being good as a proportion of GDP. Insured
catastrophic losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP
since 1960. Hurricane landfalls have not increased in the
United States in frequency, intensity or normalized damage
since at least 1990. The same holds true for tropical cyclones
globally since at least 1970, again when the data is good.
Now, people in New York and New Jersey might not agree with
this, but the United States is actually in an extended period
of relatively good luck with respect to hurricane landfalls. We
haven't seen a category 3 landfall for the longest time period
since 1900, at least. If rates return to the historical
average, we will see much more hurricane damage than we have in
recent years.
Floods have not increased in the United States in frequency
or intensity since at least 1950. Flood losses as a percentage
of U.S. GDP have actually dropped by 75 percent since 1940.
Tornados in the United States have not increased in
frequency, intensity or normalized damage since 1950, and based
on research that we have done, there is some evidence in fact
that they have actually declined, the strongest tornados.
Drought has, and I quote from a U.S. government science
assessment report, ``for the most part become shorter, less
frequent and cover a smaller portion of the United States over
the last century.'' Globally, and I quote from a paper in
Nature, there has been little change in drought over the past
60 years.''
Now, that being the case, it is also true that the absolute
cost of disasters will undoubtedly increase significantly in
coming years due to greater wealth and population and locations
exposed to extreme. So disasters will be an important focus of
policy irrespective of the future course of climate change.
Now, to avoid any confusion, because this issue is so
politicized, I thought I would make a few further statements to
put my testimony into context.
Humans influence the climate system in profound ways
including through the emission of carbon dioxide via the
combustion of fossil fuels, and again, I point you to the IPCC,
which has been mentioned as the authoritative basis for that
statement. Researchers have detected and in some cases
attributed a human influence in other measures of climate
extremes beyond those that I discuss in my testimony including
surface temperatures, specifically, heat waves, and some
measures of precipitation extremes. The inability to detect and
attribute increasing trends and the incidents of hurricanes,
floods, tornados and drought does not mean that human-caused
climate change is not real or of concern. It does mean,
however, that some activists, politicians, journalists,
corporate and government agency representatives, even
scientists who should know better have made claims that are
unsupportable based on evidence and research. Such claims when
they are made could undermine the credibility of arguments for
action on climate change, and to the extent that such false
claims confuse those who make decisions related to extreme
events, they could lead to poor decision-making.
A considerable body of research projects that various
extremes may in fact become more frequent and/or intense in the
future as a direct consequence of the human emission of carbon
dioxide.
Our research and that of others suggests that even assuming
that these projections are true, it will be many decades,
perhaps longer before that signal of human-caused climate
change can be detected in the statistics of hurricanes, and the
same holds for other phenomena that have the same statistical
properties. If you are looking for evidence of climate change,
don't look at extreme events. Our decisions related to climate
change will take place long before we have certainty on that
topic.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony,
and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pielke follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Pielke, and let me recognize
for questions and then the Ranking Member.
Dr. Christy, let me address my first couple of questions to
you, and the first is this: that some people like the President
and the EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy, have made this
assertion: ``97 percent of climate scientists think climate
change is real, human activities are contributing to it, and
that it presents a big threat to our planet.'' Is that an
accurate statement?
Dr. Christy. No, not at all. That statement came from a
question that was relatively benign about, do humans have some
effect on the climate, and it only used 77 respondents out of
several thousand, so it was highly selective. And the American
Meteorological Society, by the way, did do a survey of its
professional members and found only 52 percent said that
climate change of the past 50 years was due mostly to
humankind. So a 52 percent amount is quite small, I think, in
terms of confidence.
Chairman Smith. You think the 52 percent is much more
credible than the 97 percent?
Dr. Christy. Oh, yeah. It included over a thousand
respondents.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Fifty-two percent I don't think by
anybody's definition is a consensus, by the way, so I would say
that there is not necessarily a consensus.
My second question is this: Some scientists have claimed
that the recent 15-year pause in global warming has been caused
by the additional heat being absorbed by our oceans. Is that
true?
Dr. Christy. Well, that is a speculation at this point
because the data are very imprecise when you go down below 700
meters in the ocean, and so not having real good data, it is
hard to make conclusions about that. However, even if it is
true, what it indicates is that our models cannot express
accurately what is actually happening in the climate system.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Christy.
Dr. Pielke, a couple questions for you. The first is, over
the last half century--and I think you testified to this as
well--the scientific community has not been able to detect any
increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornados,
droughts or floods. So there has been no scientific, I think,
proof that any of these types of extreme weather have increased
over the last number of years. That has been confirmed by the
IPCC, which I quoted in my opening statement. That being the
case, what does that say about any projections as to the future
number of extreme weather events?
Dr. Pielke. We did a study where we asked the question, let
us look at climate model output, assume that it is true, and
then look back and say when would we have detected those
changes, and we looked in the statistics of hurricanes. It is a
little bit like saying you are playing blackjack with a shady
dealer and he puts an extra ace into the deck and you say how
many hands would we have to play before we have some
statistical evidence that there is a change in the composition
of the deck, and the answer is that it is the better part of a
century or longer before we would be able to detect the changes
that are currently projected. So there is no physical basis
actually for expecting that we would be able to detect those
signals today, even assuming that those signals are there but
will emerge deep into the future.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Pielke. One more
question. Recently there was a national TV ad run by the
Natural Resources Defense Council that indicated that ``taking
action against climate change'' would ``reduce extreme weather
events like Hurricanes Katrina, Irene and Sandy.'' Is there
evidence that these storms have been driven by human-caused
climate change?
Dr. Pielke. There is not presently that evidence, and
further, there is not evidence that we have a discernible
impact on the future rates or intensities of those forms. There
is a lot of good policies that can be put in place to deal with
the threats of extreme events including hurricanes, and there
is also a lot of good reasons to discuss energy policy changes
including greenhouse gases but modulating the future rate of
extreme events is probably not high on that list.
Chairman Smith. And particularly with Hurricane Sandy, just
to go back to that hurricane, there was a great deal of damage
in part because it hit highly populated areas, not because the
storm was severely or unusually strong, as we pointed out
today. It is Hurricane Sandy that has been embraced by a lot of
people as an indication of climate change causing extreme
weather like that hurricane but you don't think there is any
truth to that?
Dr. Pielke. Well, actually, Hurricane Sandy was not even a
hurricane-strength storm. It was incredibly intense, had
massive damage, but the main reason it had massive damage was
because it hit one of the most populated, wealthy parts of our
coastline. Had it actually taken that left turn in Nova Scotia,
it would have much less impacts and been much less severe.
Chairman Smith. But again, no correlation between weather
change and Hurricane Sandy as such?
Dr. Pielke. Right.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Pielke.
That concludes my questions. I will recognize the
gentlewoman form Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, for hers.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you to all the witnesses.
Dr. Titley, some people assert, and I have heard this, that
there has been no warming in the global climate temperature
since 1998. Did global warming end in 1998?
Admiral Titley. If only. That would have made everything so
much easier. As we have already heard, the temperatures have
not stopped warming since 1998, and in fact, NOAA's data show
that for the United States, 2012, not 1998, was the warmest
year for the continental United States.
As has already been mentioned, the oceans continue to warm,
and while we would always want better data, and I think I agree
with Dr. Christy, we do agree on that, that a monitoring system
is in all of our interests. Having said that, the Argo floats
and the altimetry data for the ocean unequivocally show that
this is where the heat is going. Now, why it is going there is
an open question but it is going there, and 90 percent of the
heat is in the ocean system. So the Earth continues to warm and
there is some very recent research that shows it might be
warming even faster now. So yes, ma'am, it is warming.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And I have a couple more
questions. Dr. Titley, you have used the term ``all systems are
flashing or blinking red'' in the climate, and could you expand
on that? What do you mean by that? In terms of weather, what
could we anticipate in the coming decades as a result of
climate change?
Admiral Titley. With respect to whether we can tell this to
a, let us say, a 95 percent confidence level, the normal
statistical way, you know, Dr. Pielke is right; it is going to
take a long time. However, do we wait for like hundreds of
terrorist attacks to say you know, there is a statistical
change that something may be going on here. So for the system
to be blinking red simply looking at the amount of additional
moisture and amount of additional heat in the ocean and the
atmosphere, we know hurricanes are basically heat engines. One
of their main factors is how warm and how much heat do you have
in the upper ocean. We know that is increasing.
So it is a little bit like playing with a loaded gun here.
Now, is it going to go off? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But you
look at the typhoon that went into the Philippines, strongest
winds ever recorded on landfalling, is that climate change? I
don't know but the atmosphere lined up with the ocean to create
one of the most strongest storms we have ever seen.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And Dr. Titley, you previously
served in the Navy as a Rear Admiral and you manage both
weather and climate programs, so people sometimes have a hard
time seeing how changes in climate and changes in weather, how
that matters in their lives. So can you talk a little bit about
the Arctic? Because I think that is a place where you can
really illustrate how these changes have real-world
consequences for the United States, and I know there is
something about that in your written testimony, but could you
expand on that briefly, please?
Admiral Titley. Yes, ma'am. I sometimes tell people that we
plan for climate but we live in weather, and that is really
what it is. It is, you know, climate is the card deck from
which the weather hands are being dealt. So we see that card
deck changing faster in the Arctic than in any other place. So
for the Navy, we see the climate is changing, so from a
security perspective, we need to--the Navy needs to be ready--
one of Chief of Naval Operations three tenets--be ready for a
changing environment, and it is really not a political issue
because we would make sure we have plans for changes in
economics, demographics, political situations, so why wouldn't
we plan for changes in the physical situations?
So one of the things we need is better weather forecasts.
If we are going to work up there, and that is what the Earth
System Prediction Capability is to help us with, ma'am.
Ms. Bonamici. Right. Well, thank you. And I have a follow-
up on that, and I again want to thank the Members of the
Subcommittee for working on the weather forecasting bill with
all of us.
Dr. Titley, from an economic perspective--and you touched
on this briefly when you talked about the analogy to security.
From an economic perspective, isn't it wise to prepare for
severe weather events and save property and perhaps lives
rather than simply responding to them after they happen? I want
to note that the Reinsurance Association of America has begun
to adjust its business model to reflect a rising number of
catastrophic events. They recently sent a letter with
recommendations for policymakers along those same lines. I
would like to include that for the record, and we will submit a
copy.
Chairman Smith. Without objection, that will be made a part
of the record.
[The information appears in Appendix II]
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
So from an economic perspective, isn't it wise to prepare
for these events rather than just responding?
Admiral Titley. Yes, ma'am. Very briefly, as you mentioned,
the insurance industry, the reinsurance industry, sees a number
of weather catastrophes, by their definition, significantly
increasing. The part I find interesting is, they also look at
geophysical like earthquake, tsunami; those aren't going up. So
you can't just say well, there is more people, more wealth,
living by the ocean. The weather part is going up. And of
course, preparation is always better than reaction.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. My time is expired. I
yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. The gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Neugebauer, is recognized.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
calling this important hearing.
Dr. Pielke, you know, when we talk about a lot of these
extreme weather conditions, we tend to talk to them in the
context of cost: what did this event cost, what did that event
cost. And so some have even suggested that when you start to
talk about climate trends that you somehow associate the cost
of these disasters with the cost of these climate changes,
climate trends. Is there a relationship between these financial
damages and extreme weather events and long-term climate
trends?
Dr. Pielke. A lot of care has to be taken in looking at
cost damage because like anything else in the economy, it
changes quickly over time. We have more wealth, which is a good
thing, generally, but that means more property, more exposure
to losses, and so it is--you are setting yourself for errors by
taking, say, the raw Munich Reinsurance data and coming to some
conclusions about the climate system.
There has been a number of studies that have tried to
normalize those economic records to try to say something about
the climate data, and there are several dozen of them now, and
they come to a remarkable consensus, that there is in fact no
signal of human-caused climate change in the economic loss
record really globally but also in individual locations around
the world.
Mr. Neugebauer. You know, Dr. Titley showed a figure in his
testimony that displayed the number of natural catastrophes
worldwide by, I believe, Munich Reinsurance. Is there any basis
for claiming that any part of the increases in disaster losses
can be attributed to human-caused change?
Dr. Pielke. Munich Reinsurance, which is one of the world's
largest reinsurance companies, had that exact same question
several years ago. So they funded a big study at the London
School of Economics to actually go into their data and look at
that, and you will see that is cited in my testimony. They
found that no part of that increase in global disaster losses
could be attributed to human-caused climate change. So that was
their own research submitted to peer-review outlets, which I
think is pretty consistent with what the research community has
concluded. So I think there is a pretty strong answer to that
question.
Mr. Neugebauer. The warning coordination meteorologist at
NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, Greg Carbon,
I believe, stated that ``There really is no scientific
consensus on connection between global warming and tornadic
activity, jumping from a large-scale event like global warming
to relatively small-scale events like tornados, a huge leap
across the varieties of scales.''
Dr. Christy, Dr. Pielke, do you agree with that statement?
Dr. Christy. Yes, that sounds reasonable.
Dr. Pielke. I will say that yes, that statement sounds
reasonable, and we have actually looked at the tornado record,
which is complicated by the fact that there were different ways
to measure tornados that the Weather Service has used over
time, and one of the most interesting features of the tornado
record is that if you look at the damage that has been caused,
which is an independent record from the tornados themselves,
there has actually been a decline over many decades. So that
gives us some reason to think that the evidence that you see,
there is certainly no evidence of an increase in tornadic
activity, especially the most damaging ones, but there is a
slight hint that perhaps even there may be a decrease in recent
decades. I wouldn't put too much weight on that but it is much
stronger on the lack of increase side.
Mr. Neugebauer. And the last question, what is the danger
that we begin to try to tie these two together in the debate
and the discussion that we are having on climate change?
Dr. Pielke. I guess I would say that these are really two
important issues. Climate change, the effect that we have on
the planet is an important issue. Extreme events both
nationally and internationally, as we saw in the Philippines,
are also an important issue. And if we begin using extreme
events as kind of a poster child for energy policy, we are
doing a disservice to both debates. So I think it is important
to understand what the science says, and if the science says
there is no linkage, then, you know, let us not force that. Let
us take these issues apart and have a reasonable policy
discussion rather than a proxy debate through the science.
Mr. Neugebauer. Dr. Christy, do you have a reaction on
that?
Dr. Christy. Dr. Roger Pielke said it correctly, that
preparing for extreme events is something we should always be
doing. I like the idea of the Weather Service being given extra
resources to do that for forecasting but also in preparation of
our infrastructure and responses and so on. That is good no
matter what the climate might do in the future.
Mr. Neugebauer. But those who try to tie the cost of those
two to kind of impute that into the cost of climate change, are
they doing the debate a disservice?
Dr. Christy. Yes, and I yield to Dr. Pielke on that. He has
done quite a bit of work, and he is exactly right, that that
linkage needs to be broken right there.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Neugebauer. The gentleman
from California, Mr. Takano, is recognized.
Mr. Takano. Dr. Titley, I am interested in this question
about reinsurance. It has been stated here at this hearing that
no costs heretofore can be demonstrated to have been attributed
to climate change, but can you tell me-- you know about
reinsurance models going forward--whether climate change
science has affected their modeling and their understanding of
risk.
Admiral Titley. Just very briefly, sir, what I can tell you
is, the reinsurance industry is intensely interested in how the
climate is changing because it is a business issue for them. It
is not a politics issue; it is business. And when they see the
number of weather catastrophes increasing and increasing
significantly, they have got to wonder how is that impacting
their business. They may or may not be statistically related to
climate but I will tell you, I lived on the Gulf Coast, and
when I watched my hurricane premiums go from about $600 a year
to $6,000 a year, there is real impact. And they are not coming
back down and we don't see them coming back down. So I think
there is a real impact in both the insurance and reinsurance
industry as we price the risk of extreme weather.
Mr. Takano. Do you agree with some of the claims made that
there is no association between climate change and tornadic
activity?
Admiral Titley. Thank you certainly for that question.
Words matter, and you know, I was almost going to start nodding
my head up and down with the other witnesses until I heard that
there was no linkage. There is a tremendous difference between
no linkage and a linkage that is not known. It is only a subtle
word change but there is a really big difference. I think the
scientific consensus is not that there is no linkage. The
scientific consensus is, we don't know. And that is a very,
very important definition, sir, but we do know, we have a
warmer and more moister world and that means that we need to
really be careful because we know both with severe weather,
with big thunderstorms and with hurricanes, those are one of,
not the only, but those are primary important ingredients to
creating big storms.
Mr. Takano. Also, could you comment on the claim that there
have been no increase in extreme weather events?
Admiral Titley. Yes, sir. I think it really matters again,
how do you define extreme weather events. I looked up the
definition of ``extreme'' since I thought we were going to be
talking about that today, and one of the main definitions is
away from the center. Again, just take the basic data. We have
had for the last 36 years since President Ford was in office
above-normal temperatures. That is away from the center. And
they are getting further and further away. Now, if you take
each year as kind of its own thing, imagine like flipping a
coin 36 times and getting heads. I mean, if that is a fair
coin, I want to go to Vegas with you because the odds of that
are about one in 68 billion. To put it another way, there is a
400 times chance, greater chance that you are going to win the
Powerball, which is $400 million, by the way, this week than
getting 36 coins to flip heads in a row. So I would say that is
extreme, and the ice and the Arctic, that is extreme. We have
seen geologic changes in less than ten years. That is pretty
extreme, sir.
Mr. Takano. Moving from the independent assessment of
businesspeople and reinsurance, you come from a military
background, how has climate change science affected the hard-
hatted decisions about what the Navy or other armed forces or
having to do to adjust? Is climate change science having an
impact on those sort of decisions?
Admiral Titley. Yes, sir. It is in the most--the highest-
level strategies of the Department of Defense. It is in what
the DOD calls the Quadrennial Defense Review. Climate change is
talked about there. I could go through very, very quickly just
about three places. The Arctic, it is opening up a whole new
theater of operations. That is being driven by climate.
Infrastructure and sea-level rise, we haven't talked much
about sea-level rise but it is a huge issue, probably up 2, 3,
4 feet. We were just in Norfolk. I have a graph in my testimony
that shows exponentially rising hours of flooding in some
Norfolk neighborhoods. The Department of Defense is worried
about that. The Navy is, and people ask why is the Navy
concerned? It is like it is kind of a ship thing. We have to
put our bases at sea level so it is going to be a big deal.
And then finally, how does climate change potentially
exacerbate conflicts, and there has been a number of peer-
reviewed studies that show both the Arab Spring and Syria
probably have some climate linkages. Thanks.
Mr. Takano. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Takano. The gentleman from
California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is recognized for his questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have
been running back and forth. There is a hearing in Afghanistan
going on, and I am sort of involved in that issue as well.
Just some of the statements that Doctor--pronounce your
name for me. Is it Titley?
Admiral Titley. Yes, sir, Titley.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Doctor, is there any time period in
the last 100 years when there has been a similar de-icing in
the Arctic area?
Admiral Titley. No, sir, not in the last 100 years.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So in the last 100 years, there hasn't
been a thawing out?
Admiral Titley. Not to the degree that we are seeing now.
Mr. Rohrabacher. The degree. Okay. And in the past, of
course, before the 1300s, there was much less ice up there. Is
that correct?
Admiral Titley. As best the paleoclimatologists can tell,
the world today is warmer than it has been probably for about
the last 44,000 years, sir. I think you and I had this
discussion actually at a previous hearing, I remember, and I
quoted the Native Americans, the Inuit, who are riding the
Coast Guard cutter Healey, nothing in their oral history showed
the kind of changes that are happening in the Arctic today.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So Greenland wasn't green, and it was
always icy, and Iceland was always Iceland, and from what I
understand at times that there is lots of evidence to suggest
that there was large communities in Greenland and Iceland that
actually because it got colder disappeared.
Admiral Titley. Yes, sir. We may be talking past each other
slightly. I am talking about sea ice, the Arctic sea ice.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I understand that the sea ice had a
lot to do with the Iceland community disappearing because they
lost their transportation for supplies from Europe.
Admiral Titley. Yes. When you take a look at the Arctic as
a whole, we have not seen the diminishing or the lessening of
the sea ice in thousands and thousands of years. This is
unprecedented.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Do the other two witnesses agree with that
assessment?
Dr. Christy. Not at all. I think he might have misspoke on
the 44,000 number but the globe, especially the Arctic, has
been much warmer in the past than it is today and there is
plenty of evidence to support that. As well as the sea ice,
that is a bit more murky on how much sea ice was there in any
particular year but it does look like it had receded much
further, especially in the mid-Holocene period, five, six,
seven thousand years ago when Greenland was much warmer than it
is today.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Admiral Titley. The globe, sir, has been warmer in the
past. It has warmed and it has cooled. Climate has changed for
millions of years. It will change for millions of more. The
difference is, is in about the last eight to twelve thousand
years, we have had very stable climate relative to what climate
normally is, and that is when we built human civilization. It
is why we put our cities where we did, it is why the
agriculture is where it is. So if we start changing that for
whatever reason, that becomes a huge issue that humanity as a
whole will have to deal with. So yes, the climate does change.
That is not the issue.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But just in terms of we were talking about
the Arctic, you agree that it has never been warmer in the
Arctic?
Admiral Titley. Overall, it has not been warmer for
thousands of years in the Arctic.
Mr. Rohrabacher. We have one disagreement. Dr. Pielke?
Dr. Pielke. It is not my expertise so I am happy to let
those guys fight.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Thank you very much.
Let me just ask, I sat through Hurricane Hazel when I lived
in North Carolina at the time. I remember the trees. That was a
pretty strong hurricane back in the 1950s. Was that stronger
than Sandy or weaker than Sandy?
Admiral Titley. It depends how you measure the strength. If
you measure by the winds--and I think it has already been
brought up that two of our most destructive hurricanes have
actually been pretty--by the Saffir-Simpson scale, pretty weak
storms. Katrina, not many people realize this, was actually a
category 2 when it made landfall. Sandy was not even
technically a hurricane----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Now, a lot of the damage that we are
talking about is----
Admiral Titley. --is storm surge.
Mr. Rohrabacher. --not based on the climate or the strength
of the wind but instead where the people have built and what
kind of houses.
Admiral Titley. And it is storm surge, sir. And it is the
storm surge with a rising overall----
Mr. Rohrabacher. You mentioned that the sea rates have gone
up, the ocean levels 4, 5 feet. Do our other witnesses agree
with that?
Dr. Christy. I don't think--it was someone's projection, I
think. It has not--and it has not accelerated either. The sea
level has not been accelerating in terms of its rising level.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So over the centuries, you are suggesting
sea levels are rising and you are suggesting that they are not.
Is that correct?
Admiral Titley. The data do show----
Dr. Christy. The sea level is rising. It is just at a rate
that is not accelerating.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I see.
Admiral Titley. It is accelerating. It is right now 3.2
millimeters per year and it is accelerating, and are going to
deal with 2 to 3 feet by the end of this century, at least.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And accelerating from what time period?
Was it accelerating--you know, we see the pictures of the
continents and everything changing. If the continents can
change and the sea level rises and changes then before mankind
is ever around--see, most every time when you are suggesting
that this is due to climate change, we are not really talking
about climate change. We are talking about manmade climate
change because what you are saying is then being used as an
excuse to control the activities of mankind, correct?
Admiral Titley. Okay. Congressman, I don't get into the
politics. When I did this in the Navy, the reason we looked at
this is because the battle space was changing. Now, why the
battle space is changing was not our core interest but we saw
the battle space was changing. But when you then walk back the
physics, if you put in greenhouse gases, it is changing it, so
from a policy perspective, how do we deal with the greenhouse
gases. You can regulate it, you can use market forces, you can
do a number of different things but, you know, again, this is
cutting-edge 19th-century science so whether we are going to
deal with that or not but that is kind of the crux of the
matter. So the sea level----
Mr. Rohrabacher. You are right. It is the crux of the
matter, and if we try to suggest that we know the climate is
always changing, but if we are suggesting that the greenhouse
gases that mankind puts into the air--of course, 90 percent of
the greenhouse gases come from natural sources--but if you are
suggesting then we have an excuse to control human activity,
and quite frankly, controlling human activity is not
necessarily consistent with the founders of this country, who
believed that human beings have rights to control their own
actions.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
I would like to follow up on a subject that Mr. Rohrabacher
brought up and ask Dr. Titley and Dr. Christy this question. As
I understand it, some people point to the decrease in Arctic
sea ice as an indication of a calamity or a red flag. Arctic
sea ice went down for a number of years, actually went up last
year. The Antarctic sea ice has gone up, increased for the last
30 years, and when you combine the two, the amount of sea ice,
Antarctic and Arctic is actually above the average over the
last number of years. So why should we be concerned about some
diminution of Arctic sea ice when the total sea ice is above
average and when Antarctica has been going up? Dr. Titley and
Dr. Christy.
Admiral Titley. Thanks, sir. Just very briefly, when the
Arctic sea ice goes down, it goes down in the summer. That
allows a lot more heat to get into the atmosphere because it is
summertime. The winter ice in the Antarctic is increasing.
There is already no sun down there, so, one, it doesn't matter.
I tell people the difference between the Arctic and the
Antarctic, it is people, not penguins, so the difference in
what is going on in the Arctic profoundly affects human
civilization. The difference going on with the winter sea ice
in the Antarctic really doesn't affect anyone. So it is a
matter of changing the global balance. The Arctic is kind of
the northern hemisphere's refrigerator, and we are kind of
getting rid of the refrigerators.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Titley.
Dr. Christy?
Dr. Christy. Yes, the Arctic is different because it is a
confined space. The Arctic ice cannot grow really much more
than what it is because of the land area. And it is not correct
to say that the Antarctic sea ice doesn't have an effect. In
fact, because it grows without bound to lower latitudes, it
actually increases the albedo of the Earth and so it does have
a profound effect, even more so than the albedo change of the
Arctic ice because of the angles of solar inclination.
So yeah, the global sea ice is above average right now, and
that is something. You know, we really don't--we can't predict.
You can't find a single model that is able to show that result.
Chairman Smith. Okay. I thank you both for answering that
follow-up question. I think we have no other individuals to ask
questions, so thank you all very much for your expertise today,
for the information you have provided us. We very much
appreciate it, and we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:05 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
----------
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. John R. Christy
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
----------
Additional Material for the Record
Submitted by Representative Suzanne Bonamici
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]