“The scientist who has borne the full brunt of attacks by climate change deniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds, is set to hit back.

Michael E. Mann, creator of the “hockey stick” graph that illustrates recent rapid rises in global temperatures, is to publish a book next month detailing the “disingenuous and cynical” methods used by those who have tried to disprove his findings. The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars is a startling depiction of a scientist persecuted for trying to tell the truth.

Among the tactics used against Mann were the theft and publication, in 2009, of emails he had exchanged with climate scientist Professor Phil Jones of East Anglia University. Selected, distorted versions of these emails were then published on the internet in order to undermine UN climate talks due to begin in Copenhagen a few weeks later. These negotiations ended in failure. The use of those emails to kill off the climate talks was “a crime against humanity, a crime against the planet,” says Mann, a scientist at Penn State University.

In his book, Mann warns that “public discourse has been polluted now for decades by corporate-funded disinformation – not just with climate change but with a host of health, environmental and societal threats.” The implications for the planet are grim, he adds.

Mann became a target of climate deniers’ hate because his research revealed there has been a recent increase of almost 1°C across the globe, a rise that was unprecedented “during at least the last 1,000 years” and which has been linked to rising emissions of carbon dioxide from cars, factories and power plants. Many other studies have since supported this finding although climate change deniers still reject his conclusions.

Mann’s research particularly infuriated deniers after it was used prominently by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in one of its assessment reports, making him a target of right-wing denial campaigners. But as the 46-year-old scientist told the Observer, he only entered this research field by accident. “I was interested in variations in temperatures of the oceans over the past millennium. But there are no records of these changes so I had to find proxy measures: coral growth, ice cores and tree rings.”“

The Guardian

revkin:

Here’s reaction to #COP17 from @bjornlomborg: “The final outcome is a classic climate negotiation outcome. At the brink of negotiation collapse, COP17 comes up with a text that can arguably be seen as a solution but won’t really do anything.

The final deal decided to extend the Kyoto Protocol, but it will be little more than symbolic with mainly the EU participating (where the EU has already promised to cut carbon emissions 20% below 1990-levels) along with a few other, small countries like New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

The brokered deal decided to set up a legal structure for the Green Fund, but there is still no money.

Read More

COP17 agreement text:

revkin:

No surprise there are holes in #cop17 docs big enough to drive a Hummer through. “Platform” pdf:

The World Bank published an easy to read guide to climate adaptation. The primary focus is to explain what adaptation is, and how city managers can adapt and lower risks to people, their homes, and businesses.

“Building resilience and adapting to climate change is increasingly a high priority for cities. Besides mitigation, on which efforts have largely focused in the past, cities should today play a larger role in adaptation. The World Bank and various other development institutions are working with cities to strengthen their capacity to assess vulnerability to climate change impacts and to identify corresponding plans and investments to increase their resilience.

This guide on climate change adaptation in cities is intended to offer mayors and other city officials, in developing countries, practical guidance on how to respond to the challenges of climate change adaptation in their cities. It provides a comprehensive overview of key climate adaptation issues that are relevant to cities, offers examples of good practices and successful experiences, and is a useful guide to other available resources and policy tools on the topic.

The guide focuses on disaster risk management, the urban poor and other vulnerable groups, and access to climate finance.”

World Bank: Guide to Climate Change Adaptation in Cities

George Black scores an interview with the IPCC’s head honcho.

As IPCC Links Extreme Weather to Climate, Its Controversial Chief Braces for Storms of Denial

“What will happen when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period expires at the end of next year?

This paper for the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements analyzes the options going forward, including adoption of a legally-binding second commitment period, a “political” second commitment period, or no new commitment period.

It considers the legal implications of a gap between the end of Kyoto’s first commitment period and the adoption of a new legal regime to limit emissions, the prospects for the Clean Development Mechanism in the absence of a second Kyoto commitment period, and the relationship between the Kyoto Protocol negotiations and the emerging regime under the Cancun Agreements.

It concludes that a transitional regime, involving a second commitment period that is politically but not legally binding, represents a possible middle ground that could complement efforts under the Cancun Agreements to develop a flexible, evolutionary framework of climate governance.”

Source: SSRN

“Farm chiefs have a narrowing chance to diversify vital crops at rising threat from drought, flood and pests brought by climate change, food researchers warned on Monday.

The world’s nearly 7 billion people are massively dependent on a dozen or so crops that, thanks to modern agriculture, are intensively cultivated in a tiny number of strains, they said.

When climate change gets into higher gear, many of these strains could be crippled by hotter and drier – or conversely wetter – weather and exposed to insects and microbial pests that advance into new habitats.

“Farmers have always adapted, but the pace of change under climate change is going to be much greater than in the past. There’s going to be a real need to move fast,” said Bruce Campbell, head of a research programme called Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)…

“There are two sorts of changes that are going to happen. One is a gradual temperature increase, the other is the extremes, extremes of heat and floods, and I think they are already here. In the meteorological records, there are so many extremes that are being beaten, although it’s very difficult to pin them to climate change.”

The adaptation strategies are being published in a compendium book, Crop Adaptation to Climate Change.”

Source: Eco-Business

The answer will surprise you. (Note I’ve enabled answers, please leave your comments. I’d like to hear from you on this one.) Yale E360 asked 8 renowned climate scientists if the current weather extremes can be traced to anthropogenic climate change. The majority (7-1) gave the qualified answer of “no, but…”.

While they agreed that extremes are occurring, they pointed out that variability is part of the natural processes of climate. There will be mega heat waves, mega snow storms, and mega typhoons irrespective of how much carbon is pumped into the atmosphere. Thus, the fact that climate is already quite unpredictable needs to carry more weight in models that include GHGs.  

Most surprising, at least to me, is that the scientists recognized that human population is skewing the data in ways that make “climate change” a policy emergency. More people are moving to areas that are vulnerable to disasters. We’re moving to the coasts, building bigger homes and infrastructure, and generally concentrating in areas that are vulnerable to disasters.

Scientists in both camps said two physical phenomena — warmer air holds more moisture, and higher temperatures exacerbate naturally occurring heat waves — would almost by definition mean more extremes. But some argued that the growing human toll from hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and heat waves is primarily related to burgeoning human population and the related degradation of the environment.

 Judith Curry, Chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, had what I think is the best answer of the group. Curry responded to the question with a straight forwardness that I appreciate. That climate models are weak, that advocates may be making mistakes by pointing to current events for political gain, and that the IPCC’s data is too oversimplified to make reasonable decisions. 

The substantial interest in attributing extreme weather events to global warming seems rooted in the perceived need for some sort of a disaster to drive public opinion and the political process in the direction of taking action on climate change. However, attempts to attribute individual extreme weather events, or collections of extreme weather events, may be fundamentally ill-posed in the context of the complex climate system, which is characterized by spatiotemporal chaos. There are substantial difficulties and problems associated with attributing changes in the average climate to natural variability versus anthropogenic forcing, which I have argued are oversimplified by the IPCC assessments. Attribution of extreme weather events is further complicated by their dependence on weather regimes and internal multi-decadal oscillations that are simulated poorly by climate models.

I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments that I have seen that attributes a single extreme weather event, a cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme weather events to anthropogenic forcing. 

More field data over longer periods of time are needed in order to make statistically significant correlations between isolated weather events, and anthropogenic change. The answers they give are quite instructive. And I would ask climate advocates to give it a read and consider their opinion about changing policy is soundly informed. What do you think? 

Source: Yale E360

Jim Hansen and Makiko Sato argue (again) that modern climate models are much too generous with respect to predictions of climate impacts. 

One big uncertainty is how fast ice sheets can respond to warming. Our best assessment will probably be from precise measurements of changes in the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which can be monitored via measurements of Earth’s gravitational field by satellites.  

Figure 2 shows that both Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are now losing mass at significant rates, as much as a few hundred cubic kilometers per year.  We suggest that mass loss from disintegrating ice sheets probably can be approximated better by exponential mass loss than by linear mass loss.  If either ice sheet were to lose mass at a rate with doubling time of 10 years or less, multi-meter sea level rise would occur this century.

Source: Revkin: Latest on Lessons from Past Climates for Coming Greenhouse-Heated Century - Jim Hansen & Makiko Sato

Covers UN adaptation projects around the world, including financing, strategies, and case studies. And it’s very short with pretty pictures and datagraphics. Have a look!