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The night before the day that would make him famous, James E. Hansen listened to a baseball game on the radio. But his mind kept wandering: What would he say to Congress the next day to convey that humans were endangering the planet?
He had long been trying to raise the alarm without success, and so had other scientists. But then, on June 23, 1988 — 30 years ago Saturday — a Colorado senator named Tim Wirth convened yet another hearing on the topic. Dr. Hansen was one of several scientists on the witness list.
Few people had ever heard of him, nor of the obscure NASA unit that he headed. He and a small group of colleagues studied the Earth’s climate, working in a suite of offices above the Manhattan diner that “Seinfeld” would later make famous.
He had conducted rigorous studies of historical temperatures, concluding that the planet was warming sharply. He had helped to pioneer computer modeling of the climate, and the results predicted further warming if people kept pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
A Prophet of Doom Was Right About the Climate, Opinion by Justin Gillis, Sunday Review, New York Times, June 23, 2018
Instead of using this anniversary to lament the failures of climate scientists, I’d like to propose that we use it to celebrate—well, “celebrate” probably isn’t quite the right word, but maybe recognize—their successes. Three decades ago, led by Hansen, they made a series of predictions; for the most part these have proved to be spectacularly accurate. That we, the general public, have failed to act on these predictions says a lot more about us than it does about them.
I happened to interview Hansen last year, for a video project. I asked him if he had a message for young people. “The simple thing is, I’m sorry we’re leaving such a fucking mess,” he said. Could the message be any clearer than that?
Listening to James Hansen on Climate Change, Thirty Years Ago and Now by Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker Magazine, June 20, 2018
Global Forest Watch (GFW) is an online platform that provides data and tools for monitoring forests. By harnessing cutting-edge technology, GFW allows anyone to access near real-time information about where and how forests are changing around the world.
Hundreds of thousands of homes are at risk of chronic flooding due to sea level rise over the coming decades. The implications for coastal residents, communities, and the economy are profound.
Sea levels are rising. Tides are inching higher. High-tide floods are becoming more frequent and reaching farther inland. And hundreds of US coastal communities will soon face chronic, disruptive flooding that directly affects people's homes, lives, and properties.
Yet property values in most coastal real estate markets do not currently reflect this risk. And most homeowners, communities, and investors are not aware of the financial losses they may soon face.
This analysis looks at what's at risk for US coastal real estate from sea level rise—and the challenges and choices we face now and in the decades to come.
Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018), Union of Concerned Scientists, June, 2018
Climate Feedback asked a team of scientists to review the article, Ross McKitrick: All those warming-climate predictions suddenly have a big, new problem, Opinion by McKitrick, Financial Post, June 20, 2018
Five scientists analyzed the article and estimate its overall scientific credibility to be 'low'.
A majority of reviewers tagged the article as: Cherry-picking, Misleading.
Review Summary
This opinion published by the Financial Post, written by economist Ross McKitrick, claims that Earth’s climate is much less sensitive to additions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide than climate scientists think. The article further claims that global warming is, therefore, not an important problem—and may even be beneficial.
Scientists who reviewed the article found that this argument is misleading, and relies on ignoring all but a select few of the many studies that exist on this topic. These studies use a particular method for estimating this “equilibrium climate sensitivity” that other research has shown to be problematic. An informed opinion should consider all the scientific lines of evidence available instead of picking the ones that agree with the author’s predetermined conclusion. Taken together, that evidence does not support the article’s argument.
For a detailed summary of what we know about Earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity, see this article at Carbon Brief.
Financial Post commentary misleads about warming effect of greenhouse gas emissions by cherry-picking studies, Edited by Emmanuel A Vincent, Climate Feedback, June 22, 2018
Posted by John Hartz on Sunday, 24 June, 2018
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