Chairman CALVERT. Would the Chairman of the Committee like to ask some questions? INCONCLUSIVE SCIENCE Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I would. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. One of the things that I've learned since becoming Chairman of the Full Committee is that science is accepted by the public only when the public support what the conclusions are. And, I am really worried that the inconclusive nature of the science in this area will erode public support for doing something about this problem. And, I'm also worried that some of the solutions that have been proposed to be debated and perhaps adopted at the Kyoto Conference are going to have some significant dislocations of the American economy and a change in our standard of living without really being able to back them up with convincing science. Yesterday, there was an article that appeared in The Investor's Business Daily. And I know that two of the members of the panel are familiar with that article because they were interviewed for it, Dr. Spencer and Dr. Robock. But what The Investor's Business Daily article says is that the models have shown that the projected temperature increase has been cut in almost half from 6 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit over a 5-year period of time and the sea-level change has gone from about 300 inches to perhaps a few inches between 1979 and 1997. Now, we're policymakers here and if we support some of the recommendations of the that are being proposed at the Kyoto conference, you know, how do we go and justify to our constituents increases in the prices of gasoline, increases in the price of heating oil and natural gas, when the scientific consensus seems to have eluded us and the projections and models seem to be all over the map? Mr. ROBOCK. Although I was interviewed for the article, I haven't seen the article so I'm not familiar with what it says. But I think that's misrepresentation of what's actually happened in the science. The climate response to human actions changes in different models for two reasons; one, if the model changes, so it's sensitivity to the change changes, but also if you put in different types of forcing, different ask it different questions. As I showed in my testimony, you get less warming if you ask the model to consider CO2 and aerosols and dust than if you ask it just to consider CO2. And, so what I think they're portraying is that these more complete studies which include not only CO2 but aerosols give less warming, that doesn't mean that the science is wrong. In fact, that gives stronger support for the science because these models, which include more factors, do a better job at representing the past climate. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I'd like to ask unanimous consent that this article be placed in the record at this time. Chairman CALVERT. Without objection, so ordered. [The article referred to follows:] NATIONAL ISSUE GLOBAL WARMING'S COOLING OFF As Science Improves, Gloomy Forecasts Fade By John Merline Investor's Business Daily The White House summit on global warming Monday no doubt will parrot the usual predictions. from superhot summers to flooded coastal cities to massive droughts. But as the science improves, those glooms forecasts are looking more and more like, well, a lot of hot air, Many of the forecasts were formed in the late '8, when climate experts were using fairly crude computer models to study the greenhouse effect. Sometime down the road, the experts warned. the quick buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would cause huge jump in global tempera '79 '85 '89 '92 97 Sources: George C. Marshall institute, IPCC allow this to happen without change,” Vice President Al Gore said last week. "then what the mainstream scientists from every country in the world are telling us is that it's going to have profound changes in the pattern of climate and in the effects on people." In less than three months, leaders from around the world will try to hammer out a treaty to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to prevent these disasters. But even assuming the models are right and hot days are ahead, the treaty. though costly to implement, won't prevent anything. It will only push the day of reckoning back a few years. The trend toward cooler forecasts is noted in "Climate Change 1995," the official report of the U.N.'s Intergo vernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. The panel's "best estimate" for warming by the year 2100: the average global temperature will rise about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That's about a third lower than the best estimate the group made back in '90. What about the dreaded sea-level rise? Some scientists in the late '70s were forecasting a 25-foot rise, enough to swamp coastal cities and bury islands. Today's projection? Only about a foot and a half. The IPCC's latest forecast has dropped by a quarter since '90. Other studies show a sea-level rise of only inches over the next 100 years. Why the change in forecasts? According to some researchers, the computer models used to predict global warming are getting better at accounting for what's actually in the air, and for how the Earth will react to a hike in greenhouse gases. These gases trap the sun's heat. keeping the planet warm. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is expected to double sometime in the next century, thanks largely to industry. Flip this section over NATIONAL ISSUE: Global Warming's Cooling Off Continued from front "Typically, the more we learn about a problem, the less we find we really understand," said Roy Spencer, a senior NASA scientist for climate studies. "The fact that the magnitude of global warming projections has steadily been revised downward over the past 10 years is some evidence for this." All global warming forecasts are based on simulations run through computer models. The models need vast sums of data to reflect the complex climate system. Even today, the models are just rough reflections of what's going on, simply because computing power is limited. So how good are they? The IPCC report rates them as "fair to good." It goes on to admit the **presence of significant errors in current models." And many of these models can't even represent today's climate without add. ing fudge factors, or "flux adjustments." Without these fudges, the simulated climate tends to drift off from reality. As the IPCC noted, flux adjustment "is strictly justified only when the corrections are relatively small." But in some climate models, the adjustment is "comparatively large," it added. "Tuning" the models "has been controversial." Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University professor of biological sciences. told a Senate panel this summer. Improving the models, he said. "is a high priority for climate research ers. "The fact that you need the adjust ments," said Alan Robock, a meteorolopst at the University of Maryland, "shows that the models aren't perfect. But it doesn't introduce a bias in the results."* The climate science is pocked with other uncertainties. What will the planet do when it starts to warm? These responses are called feedbacks, and they can work either to enhance warming or cut it. Computer models generally assume "The correct answer depends on correctly simu lating feedbacks, which, at present, are only poorly known and mod eled," said Richard Lindzen. a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts In stitute of Technology. Take this example, based on a warming. The computers also have trouble "predicting" past climate changes —the only way to test their accuracy. the slight warming over the past 100 Older models tended to overpredict years. That means they likely exaggerated future warming, too. Then, modelers started including calculations of pollution. Smoke, dust and other pollutants could help cool the What about dreaded sea level rise? Some scientists forecasting a 25-foot rise, enough to swamp coastal climate model at the British Meteorological Office's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research. A few years ago, the model said the Earth would warm by a devastating 9.4 degrees if carbon dioxide levels doubled. But then the center made two key improvements in its treatment of clouds, and the forecast dropped down to 3.4 degrees, reports the journal Science. "I believe there is still great uncertainty about the climate system response to increasing levels of greenhouse gases," said NASA's Spencer. Spencer says the Earth might have a way to shed excess heat that could prevent catastrophic warming. "Weather systems are always acting to rid the Earth of excess heat," he said. He says the climate models still don't adequately depict all the negative feed. perhaps exaggerating global backs planet, masking some of the greenhouse effect the models said should be there. Voila! The models started matching the climate record. But now the ef fect of this baze is in doubt, too, according to more recent studies. "We are arguing about everything." said one scientist. What isn't in doubt, though, is that the treaty getting readied for the global summit in Kyoto. Japan, would do little to change the climate picture. The reason? The treaty would trim global emissions of carbon dioxide back to 1990 levels by the year 2100. That's been widely advertised as a move that will stop global warming. As the IPCC report notes, however, that won't stop the buildup of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Once there, the gas can stay as long as 100 years. As a result, the treaty, if implemented, would "merely defer the dates when the higher levels are reached by, at most, a few decades," said Frederick Rueter, a vice president of Consad Research Corp., a Pittsburgh research firm. DECREASING PROJECTIONS OF GLOBAL WARMING Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The article's headline says, "Global Warming's Cooling Off as Science Improves Gloomy Forecasts Fade." And they've got a couple of graph charts here that show that the projection of global warming and the projection of the increased sea-level have gone way down as the science has improved and also all of the people who were interviewed have been quoted as saying that a little bit of change in the model can result in a big change in what the result is. I guess, you know, really what I am saying is if you want public support for what you're recommending, you've got to start putting yourselves in our shoes and facing a crowd at a town hall meeting. Now, I come from a pretty cold part of the country and it's going to be pretty hard for me to justify supporting the policy that's going to increase the price of natural gas or fuel oil by one-third to one-half for the sake of curtailing global warming when I'm sitting in front of 200 people in Port Washington, Wisconsin in the middle of January when it's 20 below zero outside. Mr. ROBOCK. Indeed, this is a much more complicated problem than ozone depletion because there can be winners and losers. Different places could have benefits or problems for global climate change and we don't have a good understanding right now who those winners and losers will be, exactly what the specific patterns are. But we do have confidence that there will be rapid change in the climate. WINNERS VS. LOSERS Chairman SENSENBRENNER. But don't you think if the elected parliaments representing people in countries around the world are supposed to deal with this issue next year following Kyoto, we ought to have a model that gives us an assessment of who the winners and losers are, and if we don't have that, we shouldn't do anything? Mr. ROBOCK. The scientists are doing the best job they can to tell you how well they can look into this clouded crystal ball and tell you what the future is. And, in the future, we'll be able to do that in a better. We're doing the best that we can and we're not telling you what the policy should be or how much the gasoline tax should be, we're just telling you that if we continue business as usual, this will be the change in the climate. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, you know, perhaps- SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Perhaps my answer to that is that perhaps the scientific community should, you know, really speed up, attempting to develop a model that can reach a little bit more conclusive consensus than what's happened. And, you know, the conclusion that the reporter who wrote this article, who quoted two of you, reached was that as the science gets better, the prediction of doom and gloom becomes modified. And, if that's the case Mr. ROBOCK. I think that's a misrepresentation. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, that is your problem with the reporter; I'm just reading what he reported. Mr. ROBOCK. Okay. Mr. PATRINOS. I'd like to defend the process by which we have reached the scientific consensus on the issue on climate change. I believe, in fact, this process is unprecedented in the history of science. Science, as you know, advances with fits and starts, with a lot of dead ends and a lot of surprises. However, in this particular case, the need to reach scientific consensus about things that happen in the future is extremely important because of the threat of global climate change. Other aspects of science that Mr. Coburn is familiar with, and I am also, from the work in the Department of Energy, for example, in medicine-if you have some new idea about a new drug, you go through clinical trials and you wait for the results and you adopt or you reject that pharmaceutical that's being proposed. In the case of a better catalyst, or a better chemical, you let that sort itself in the marketplace, ultimately whether its successful or not. In this particular case, we have to look into this clouded crystal ball, that Dr. Robock spoke of, and come up with the very best estimate of how the climate will change. And, I think, scientists around the world have done something unprecedented in reaching this conclusion. I agree that the process is imperfect, like every human institution or every human endeavor is imperfect. However, its success in reaching consensus is remarkable. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, with all due respect, I think that the article that appeared in this respected journal indicates that there is not a scientific conclusion in consensus that has been reached because the bottom line has changed so drastically both in terms of what the extent of the warming will be as well as its impact on sea-level. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Johnson. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thanks for having this hearing. I'm listening with a great deal of interest and being from Texas, there is a lot of question about the science as relates to the findings and global warming, but also, being from the most polluted State and from a very urban area where we really are experiencing a number of problems. First, I'm concerned about the scientists and their description of their science because people, it's like the Chairman, I think it was the Chairman who said, that if people agree with the findings, it's good science. If they disagree, then it's questionable science, and that's, if you want to know the real definition of how that's manifested, come to Texas because we don't like what we're experiencing, we don't believe in the science. But somehow we do have to come up with a technology and the findings to do something about the clearing of much of our environment. We know that many of our problems are due to emissions and there are a lot of other mixtures, but that's the main concern. What I would like to know is how much research is going on and with searching and looking for technology that would bring some relief over and above just the routine finding. I know we have natural gas-running cars and we are trying to convert to that. We are |