Page images
PDF
EPUB

mate changes. Do you believe human-induced global warming, Dr. Watson, caused that blizzard and how many scientists believe that? Mr. WATSON. I think I answered that one that last question. That is no single flood, no single heatwave, no single blizzard can be directly attributed to global warming.

Chairman CALVERT. Okay, carrying that on, Dr. Watson

Mr. WATSON. But, if you want to hear the end of the answer, but, in a warmer world, where you would have more evaporation, you could conceivably expect more blizzards, more floods. It sounds inconsistent but it's not. All theoretical models tend to show exactly that phenomena. So, that blizzard cannot be attributed to global warming, specifically. It's the type of phenomena that would become more prevalent.

GLACIERS AND GLOBAL WARMING

Chairman CALVERT. Just a second, Dr. Michaels, I have a question that we can-you can add into this also. Dr. Watson, both— this will be my last question. Dr. Watson, both Vice President Gore and Secretary of Interior Babbitt have used Glacier National Park as evidence that they are right on global warming. Can you state here today that human-induced global warming has caused glaciers to melt in Montana?

Mr. WATSON. What I can say is we see a warmer world that we cannot explain on natural phenomena alone and a warmer world would cause glaciers to recede and, indeed, we're seeing glaciers recede around the world. So, it's totally self-consistent with the observed global warming.

Chairman CALVERT. Dr. Michaels, do you have any comment on that?

Mr. MICHAELS. I wish Ms. McGinty had checked the history of the upper Midwest because she would find, and this may surprise everybody in this room, that the warmer it is in the winter, the less it snows. There is a highly significant relationship between the two. And every atmospheric scientist, especially Bob, understands that global warming created by the greenhouse-effect changes will result primarily in an enhancement warming of the driest, coldest air masses on the planet. For what it's worth, Grand Forks, North Dakota has warmed up. It's mean December through March temperature used to be a frigid 8.8 degrees Fahrenheit. It is now a balmy 12 degrees Fahrenheit.

EXTREME PRECIPITATION EVENTS AND GLOBAL WARMING

I have to address something else here because I think Bob created an impression that's wrong. When he talked, he said that heavy precipitation events are increasing, especially in the United States. That scares everybody. It would be nice if we would look at what the numbers are.

This is from a paper by Thomas Karl, the National Climatic Data Center. Karl looked at rainfall of between 2 and 3 inches in 24 hours in the United States and asked if there has been a change. He could find no change in rainfall of above 3 inches in 24 hours. I submit that a 2 to 3 inch rainfall is hardly, as the Vice President referred to in his Earth Day speech 2 years ago as, "torrential." But, let me finish. In the United States, we average 30 inches of

rain a year. At the turn of the century, on the average, 9 percent of that rain, 2.7 inches per year, came from rainstorms of 2 inches or more in 24 hours. By 1990, that percentage has risen, not the 20 percent the government says, but 2 percent to 11 percent. We now get 3.3 inches of rain on the average per year from these storms. That's a change of six-tenths of an inch of rain. Mr. Chairman, six-tenths of an inch of rain never ever caused a flood. Chairman CALVERT. Thank you and Mr. Roemer.

PEER REVIEW

Mr. ROEMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, it's certainly an interesting debate that we're having here between Dr. Michaels and Dr. Watson and I want to continue this debate and dialog. I enjoyed Dr. Michaels' show here, his slide show, with the graphs and the satellite data and the laser pen and everything that is interesting to watch and learn from.

I have to admit that my background certainly is not either academically or politically in this area so I will rely on the expertise of our witnesses. But, I would just be curious to know, in terms of the very fancy and interesting presentation that we just saw, Dr. Watson, how much of that presentation has been published or peerreviewed in open and reviewed literature?

Mr. WATSON. Mr. Chairman, I can't answer that. I would imagine

Mr. ROEMER. I wish I was Chairman, I'm not. But

Mr. WATSON. I actually don't

Mr. ROEMER. We've got a good Chairman here.

SATELLITE DATA

Mr. WATSON. I actually don't know the answer. You'd have to ask Pat Michaels. But, what I would say is that literally most of the points he's drawn up were taken into consideration by the very large majority of the scientists that participated in IPCC and I actually look very forward in the future to the third session which I now will chair but I will ask Pat Michaels to participate with all the other scientists to see if he can actually persuade them on many of the points he made, which, in my opinion, also lead to a rather erroneous perspective. He argues about the satellite record not showing any change. He shows that it's consistent with the radiosonde data. If that's true, if we look at the longer radiosonde data, it does show a slight warming. You have to recognize over any short period of time, especially the two he showed you, 1986 to 1996, there's natural variability in the climate system. Every theoretical model shows it. The observational record shows it. You can make no deduction over a short period, especially as short as a 10-year and even a 20-year record. But the basic point is all of these data should be carefully taken into consideration and evaluated as part of an international peer-review system, rather than trying to debate the bumps and wiggles here in Congress.

PEER REVIEW

Mr. ROEMER. And Dr. Michaels?

Mr. MICHAELS. Every slide that I showed was either published by me in the refereed scientific literature or published in another article by someone else in the refereed scientific literature. The

SATELLITE DATA

Mr. ROEMER. Let me I appreciate that. Let me ask you another question and again, I come from the Midwest and we try to-and I guess you're from Chicago. We try to rely both on science and common sense. Certainly, what we have studied is in some of the satellite data, there is some argument that there might have been some problems with calibration. Now, whether it's perfect or whether there was a problem with some of the satellite data, Dr. Watson, I would ask you first and then I would certainly ask Dr. Michaels to answer the question, how do you explain, then, the ground ice problems and the glaciers that are receding and the sealevel rise and some of the things that we see unanimity on from many of the scientists as real problems? How do we try to reconcile these two somewhat conflicting things? Dr. Watson?

Mr. WATSON. I believe the satellite record is too short to make a meaningful statement, especially when one recognizes there is inter-decadal variability just through natural processes. The only way you can recognize-reconcile the sea-level rise, the glacier retreat, etc., is, indeed, to believe the long-term surface temperature of both the ocean temperature and the land surface temperature. There may well be inconsistencies or problems with the calibration of the satellite. There may also be an issue of whether the satellite is really measuring the same thing as the surface record.

Mr. ROEMER. Well, Dr. Watson, let's say that there is no problem with the calibration of the satellites, that it is accurate. How do we then explain what is before our eyes with the sea-level rise, and with the glaciers that Vice President Gore appears in front of? What is the explanation?

Mr. WATSON. I believe there's a total consistency between the glacier record, the temperature record and the sea-level record. Mr. MICHAELS. You bet. Let's go forward a couple of

TEMPERATURE RECORD

Mr. ROEMER. Dr. Michaels?

Mr. MICHAELS (continuing). Slides, if we could. I hate to ask the light to go down, if that's possible.

[Slide.]

This is the northern hemisphere's temperature history. This is measured by the ground-based thermometers, not by the satellites. This is the IPCC record and this record shows-can we go halfway? Is that possible? No, all the way, that's fine. All the way is fine. (Referring to room lights.) It goes back to 1900 and this is the Year 2000. What you see is that there was as rapid warming that occurred before this double bar, which is World War II, before the greenhouse effect could have changed it. This was the escape from the Little Ice Age and it constitutes a substantial fraction of the warming of the 20th Century. So, Mr. Gore was right. Mr. Gore stood in front of the glaciers and said, global warming is, I'm paraphrasing, melting these glaciers. He's right. But it wasn't humaninduced global warming, at least not in the large sense. If you look

at the park's literature, out at Glacier Park, it says these glaciers have been melting for 150 years. There's a reason for that because this temperature was down there about 150 years ago, came up to World War II, fell a little bit and then, in the surface record, rose while the satellite record did not.

The real issue on global warming, by the way, is not whether global warming is real but why is it so darned little? Take a look at the rest of this record after World War II. Thank you.

Mr. WATSON. Actually, there's a thing to say to that. If you actually go back before, which isn't shown on Pat's slide, to 1860, the 1900's, 1910's were particularly cold so this somewhat distorts the increase between 1900 and 1940 and, actually, 1940 was particularly warm. The point is there were greenhouse gas forcing in the period pre-1940 about 30, 35 percent. And so, as you look at the solar effect, the El Nino effect, the models actually can simulate this, and so there is no surprise here. The recent calculations in the U.K. are quite consistent with the greenhouse world that shows this effect.

Mr. MICHAELS. Let's take a look at the record back to 1860, Bob. Mr. WATSON. Constant.

Mr. MICHAELS. Yes

Mr. WATSON. Constant.

Mr. MICHAELS. It's constant

Mr. WATSON. Exactly.

Mr. MICHAELS. All the way back there. I don't see this at all. This is the IPCC. You know these guys? Sorry.

Mr. ROEMER. Well, that's what I asked for, a nice diplomatic exchange

[Laughter.]

Mr. MICHAELS. Well, I mean, this

Mr. ROEMER (continuing). -Between our scientists.

Mr. MICHAELS. We have heard

Mr. ROEMER. This is very helpful.

Mr. MICHAELS (continuing). -Time and time again that therethat things are being misrepresented and exaggerated and I hope you just saw it.

Mr. ROEMER. Well, I'm not sure what I just saw

[Laughter.]

Mr. MICHAELS. I'm sure we'll have a chance for another

Mr. ROEMER. But I will yield back.

CONSENSUS OF SCIENTISTS

Chairman CALVERT. Dr. Coburn.

Mr. COBURN. Thank you. Well, I want to take it away from the scientists for a minute and ask Mr. Chupkiss, or Chupka, is that correct? In your testimony, you said the overwhelming majority of scientists agree with this position. What does that mean? The overwhelming majority of scientists?

Mr. CHUPKA. What it means reflects the last IPCC assessment which I-Bob can tell you better whether or not that reflects the majority of scientists who are working in this area.

COSTS OF A CLIMATE CHANGE AGREEMENT

Mr. COBURN. I think this is a very careful thing we need to answer. It represents those that were working with IPCC but does not necessarily represent the overwhelming majority of scientists and I think that needs to be clarified because, in fact, two of the three Nobel Laureates for Climatology don't agree with this and, although many Nobel Laureates do agree, it's like me as an obstetrician saying I'm qualified to do heart surgery when, in fact, I'm not. So, you know, I worry about how we're politicizing this. I think it's very important that we be concerned that if, in fact, we're having a temperature rise and it's going to-so, when we talk about the vast majority, I think we need to be real careful about what we're talking about.

One other question. Is there anything lost for us as a Nation by going forward with the President's plan? In other words, is there a job loss for us? Is there somebody that's not going to get healthcare? I mean, has the Administration considered the potential downsides, economic, of movements forward? What is the downside of moving forward with the President's plan?

Mr. CHUPKA. Actually, the Administration has been conducting quite a bit of analysis on climate change proposals over the last 2 to 3 years, some of which resemble the President's plan. In June, I believe, a draft report was made available of the interagency analysis team. Among the models that they ran and among the scenarios that they considered were a, roughly, a stabilization scenario of U.S. emissions, including joint implementation, including emissions trading

Mr. COBURN. I understand that. But the question is, what is it that we lose? Do we give up anything? What do the American public collectively give up if we go forward with this? What is the downside for the American public? That's my question.

Mr. CHUPKA. Let

Mr. COBURN. I understand what the position is. What's the downside

Mr. CHUPKA. No, I'm getting to that because

Mr. COBURN. Well, I have a limited amount of time so I don't want to have it repeated.

Mr. CHUPKA. I understand.

Mr. COBURN. That's why I'm asking.

Mr. CHUPKA. I understand. Well, it might-it probably doesn't surprise anybody in this room that there is a diversity of views among economists and analysts as well as scientists in a lot of these matters. Nevertheless, what-the scenario that most closely resembles the President's plan, when it was run through various economic models, it appeared that the economic losses, and there were some economic losses that could be attributed to this, were in the $50 billion-a-year range or less. I think that's right and I'll be happy to provide that for the record. This is less than one-half of 1 percent of GDP. Another way to look at this would be to say what the economy might lose in about the Year 2010 is possibly 3 to 4 months' worth of economic growth.

« PreviousContinue »