dated diagnosis of the climate system and our relation to it to clarify options for the future and leave then that as input to a broader set of discussions, much like this hearing. Thank you.

Mr. UDALL. It sounds like a very exhaustive process. And to your credit, you don't allow filibusters, like our friends across the capital do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Chair of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Mr. Rohrabacher.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First, let me note one of my colleagues has suggested when she visited Antarctica that the scientists kept their mouth shut. Perhaps that is because not because they agreed with one position or the other, but had observed the 8-year phenomena that scientists supporting global warming get research contracts and, those who oppose global warming theory, generally get fired, which seems to have been the policy of our government for the last 8 years, starting with the firing of Will Harper, who was the head scientist at the Department of Energy, who Vice President Gore made it a point to fire immediately upon entering office because he was an agnostic on the global warming theory.

Gentlemen, I have some specific questions and I only have 5 minutes, so I would like to get answers from you, if I can. What percentage of the CO2 gases that are going into the atmosphere are put in the atmosphere by natural sources? Just one, two, three, please.

Dr. ALBRITTON. A very large fraction of that that resides in the atmosphere is placed there by the burning of

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What would you suggest? What is your guess?

Dr. ALBRITTON. Eighty to 90 percent of the

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Eighty to 90 percent. Yes, sir.

Dr. MOORE.

distinguish

The same. But I think what you have to

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Eighty to 90 percent.

Dr. MOORE. -is the change. There are large fluxes to and from the atmosphere from terrestrial systems

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Correct. From volcanoes, etcetera. And I am going to have-follow-up with a question. Eighty to 90 percent. Do you agree with that assessment?

Dr. KENNEL. Yeah. I would agree with their assessments, but I wanted to make another point. As you look through the climateyou know, the

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I—listen, I have only got 5 minutes. I need the answer to the question.

Dr. KENNEL. A natural balance has been reached in

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I am not-I am asking you to answer the question.

Dr. KENNEL. Eighty to 90 percent.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Eighty to 90 percent. Okay. Now, that, by the way, is an underestimate by other estimates I have heard. I have heard up to 25 percent-excuse me-up to 95 percent, but there is a margin of error there that we can talk about. I noticed that in your chart, Dr. Albritton, that you have here that these are exam

ples from the northern hemisphere. Do the examples from the southern hemisphere have the same result?

Dr. ALBRITTON. They do have a similar shape. They are sparser in number because of the lack of observing systems in the southern hemisphere.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So you are saying that the southern hemisphere that the tree rings and the things that you have shown and studied in the southern hemisphere, shows the same as the northern hemisphere.

Dr. ALBRITTON. It isn't identical because of the difference between land masses and water

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.

Dr. ALBRITTON. -but the idea of a variation that is on the order of maybe a plus or minus of degree Celsius—

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.

Dr. ALBRITTON. —looks typical in the southern hemisphere.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay.

Dr. ALBRITTON. But the uncertainty bars, which is the gray

area

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Now, I have heard different than that. Let me just say, for the record, that there are some scientists that have suggested that there is a difference in the northern and southern hemisphere in terms of this these observations. The and I have noticed even in your own observations here that in 1175 you have almost the same amount of, I guess it is, the global temperature as you have at a year ago. Is there some reason for that? I mean, is this a global warming trend when it is a your tree rings seem to indicate in 1175 it is the same temperature?

Dr. ALBRITTON. Yeah. The message I take away from the blue curves in those figures is that over the 850 years of this millennium at the beginning, temperature varied on the order of a of a degree Celsius.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Uh-huh.

Dr. ALBRITTON. The first 400 years were relatively warm compared to the second 400 years, but the last 150 years have been warmer than all of the preceding 850-

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But there were spikes here, you know, and that brings me to one thing. There are natural-of course, we just talked about 80 to 90 percent of all of this is natural. For example, volcanoes certainly-it would cause a spike. Would they not?

Dr. ALBRITTON. Volcanoes certainly do alter temperature-
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. But I had one-

Dr. ALBRITTON. -but they cause a cooling

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.

Dr. ALBRITTON. —and it only lasts for a year or two because the particles

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. But they also-it also adds a lot of CO2 in the environment. Doesn't it?

Dr. ALBRITTON. The amount of CO2 from volcanoes is very small compared to the

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Okay.

Dr. ALBRITTON. -burning of fossil fuels.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is good. I just learned something. What about tree rot?

Dr. ALBRITTON. The input of CO2 to the atmosphere

Mr. ROHRABACHER. From tree rot.

Dr. ALBRITTON. Yes. Comes from either burning biomass or the decay of biomass.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. So

Dr. ALBRITTON. It is the way it is

Mr. ROHRABACHER. -rotting trees in the forest, in our-whatthe rain forests throughout the world, what percentage-how would you relate that to, for example, automobiles?

Dr. ÅLBRITTON. I don't know that comparison quantitatively, but I could say that the uptake by the biosphere and then the release when it dies is observed in the annual record of CO2.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.

Dr. ALBRITTON. The steady of change of the amount of trees growing in the world also has been observed to—

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, sure. But trees-new trees growing, obviously, help in this problem.

Dr. ALBRITTON. They do.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But old trees rotting in the

Dr. ALBRITTON. They do.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So according to what you-some people in your position are some people who are global warming advocates-let us put it that way-would be-the best thing would be to clear away all the rain forests and then plant new trees rather than having all those rotten trees out there. Isn't that right? Dr. ALBRITTON. I can't comment that

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, that is what seems consistent with me. And then one last thing-one last question, if you will indulge me, Mr. Chairman. We have here some observed changes consistent with warming theory. It says glaciers are retreating, the amount of snow is decreasing, and sea level is going up. Now, and this— have we ever had that in the history of this planet before? I mean, I seem to remember when I was taking my very first class in geology, that they talked about the retreating glaciers and the expanding glaciers that happened over millions of years, even before we got on this planet. Aren't all of those things-weren't those observable even before mankind lit the first fire?

Dr. ALBRITTON. Yes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right.

Dr. ALBRITTON. All of these changes are natural changes that have been observed to be faster or larger in the last 50 to 100 years

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Well, I—

Dr. ALBRITTON. -than the preceding 1,000 years.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, I thank you for saying they were all observable before research

Chairman BOEHLERT. The Chair will indulge the gentleman and extend the time so the witnesses would have an opportunity to answer the question.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I know. But I have got a few questions and one question could be answering the whole thing. I appreciateChairman BOEHLERT. No. I understand.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I appreciate your answers. And let me just say your answers have convinced me more research is necessary, which was the position of the Chair. Thank you very much.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman is on record supporting more research. The Chair recognizes Mr. Etheridge.

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Chairman, thank you for yielding. Let me also thank you for having this hearing on what I consider a very important issue and trust that we can have some bipartisan work together to deal with this very difficult issue. I think it affects us all. But let me bring you to an issue, back to the original issue, you talked about-I think that is how people understand it, how it impacts them and how it hits home. I have the privilege of representing North Carolina and we have seen the deadly forces of hurricanes and tropical storms in recent years. And Hurricane Floyd hit a little over almost 2 years ago now. It was the most costly natural event in the history of our state and one of the largest in this country. We lost 50 lives and, in the process, people in North Carolina have a much better appreciation of El Niño and La Niña phenomena. They don't understand what it is, but when you start talking about weather, they pay attention. And you mention The Weather Channel, and it is probably more commonly watched now, for those who have cable, than ever before in history.

I don't remember who it was who mentioned the educational aspect of it. But I would say that we-I was a state superintendent of schools, incidentally, for 8 years, and we do hurricane drills, we do tornado drills. I think we need to expand that and do a much better job of helping children understand the need. Because what we are dealing with here is the effect and not the cause, and we need to get beyond that.

There seems to be a considerable consensus that there is an issue we need to deal with, and let me get to my question very quickly. What does science tell us about the effects of climate change on tropical storms, their strength and intensity, and where they may have landfall? And I know we are working on that. But, you know, so long we think about hurricanes and-hitting the coastal counties. Well, Hurricane Floyd was 150 miles inland and we have had others who do that. So it is a broader issue now and we need to pay attention to it and I would appreciate having each one of you comment on that, if you would, please.

Dr. ALBRITTON. Yes. A very good point. It is in that class of extreme climate variations which, indeed, have been occurring throughout our history and past records. But we question naturally whether this is to be different in the future or has it already changed. And to go straight to the point, science cannot yet state, with certainty, what will happen to hurricanes and their strength and their infrequency in a warmer world. One may hear from other source's comments, but the scientific community says that this is too difficult a problem to make a statement on at present, and, therefore, comments about increased cost of hurricane disasters is not part of any trend that scientists can point to at the present. Mr. ETHERIDGE. Dr. Moore.

Dr. MOORE. Let me just elaborate on that. And using the language that I requested my colleagues and myself use, we think we know that the hydrologic cycle will be intensified. That is, there

will be more evaporation, more precipitation. What we don't know is will there be a change in severe storms associated with the intensification of the hydrologic cycle.

Dr. KENNEL. The there is evidence, which is not conclusive, that wave action from storms in the Pacific and Atlantic, have increased over the last few tens of years. So there is some evidence, but I don't think there is a conclusive story.

The most recent snowstorm that occurred around here, sort of a case in point-do you know one of the triumphs was that we knew it was coming 5 to 7 days in advance. The problem was, we didn't predict exactly where it was going to come and when it was going to come. And part of the problem had been that there was a weather system out there in the Pacific that went underobserved until it hit landfall in on the west coast, and, at that point, it started getting ingested into the models. But until that time, you couldn't you know, the prediction that people had, based on the information they had, was not accurate enough.

And the final comment I would make is, is it is my understanding that the Weather Service was extremely careful in predicting showing its uncertainty about this storm, but, nonetheless, people got attracted to the extreme characterization of it.

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you. I am going to try to get one more in before my time runs out because

Chairman BOEHLERT. It had better be a quickie, because you have got 15 seconds.

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Well, I will just make a statement in that regard. Because each one has talked about research. It is important to have it. Sometimes we forget the fact of what it costs us not to do it. And in North Carolina, we-the Federal Government invested billions. The state has invested hundreds of millions. That is true all across America. If we look at the cost after, we would probably be a little more prudent and put it into dollars up front for prevention. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. And I appreciate the Committee's indulgence of the Chair, but we are trying to give everyone an opportunity to get their questions. Mr. Calvert.

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing and to update what we know about the state of global climate. I would like to say, first off, that I still remain skeptical that climate change is being driven by manmade pollutants-that what is occurring isn't simply natural variability. I will become convinced when someone answers the following persistent questions about climate change science and can persuade me that our understanding is being driven by good consensus science, not just consensus politics. First, I am concerned about the quality of the climate models. While they are improving, they do not even begin to capture the complexity of our atmosphere. Last time I was briefed on this subject and I know I have been briefed on this subject by Dr. Albritton several times-last time I was briefed on this subject, I was informed that there is no way to adequately assess the effect of clouds in the models. I hope we will continue to improve our models and that we will be gaining-gain an accurate idea of what is actually happening, not a bunch of guesstimates based on these incomplete models and data.