by Pierre Darriulat
My interest, or rather curiosity, in climate science has taken me into landscapes that I had never seriously explored before and has opened my eyes and mind on unexpected topics.
The main discovery is the fascinating and incredibly rich world of the related blog literature. I met there all kinds of people. A minority use personal attacks and insults as main argumentation or limit their ambition to entertaining us (mostly successfully) with pleasant posts. Among the majority, I find climate science academics, citizen scientists, politically or sociologically motivated people and people who are simply curious to better understand climate science. The public exposure of their interactions, which Internet has made possible, is an amazing experience.
Climate Science academics
Climate Science, like astrophysics, has recently attracted scientists from many different fields contributing to unprecedented progress. They include mathematicians (in particular for the proper statistical treatment of available data and the conduct of complicated computer simulations), physicists (to understand the Sun contribution in its various forms and the basic phenomena of thermodynamical exchanges in the atmosphere and in the oceans), chemists, geophysicists, etc. and are usually specialized in fields such as oceanography, paleoclimatology, physics of the atmosphere, glaciology, polar ice packs, hydrology, meteorology, clouds, etc. This diversity implies that a particular climate scientist cannot be expected to be fluent in all domains of climate science and may occasionally be quite ignorant of some. The ambiguity of the IPCC terms of reference (a body of scientists addressing politicians) and the resulting controversy (their mixing scientific arguments with statements aimed at conveying what they “consensually” think to be the right message) have thrown much discredit on the community of climate science academics, which is identified with that of IPCC members by the general public. Many climate science academics, as most academics from other branches of natural sciences, do not feel at ease in the blog world, where they avoid expressing themselves. Many of those who do express themselves share the desire of rationalizing a debate that has become notoriously irrational: the role of the influence on the climate of a significant anthropogenic injection of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, this highly respectable motivation, recognized as such by a majority of bloggers, may follow on two different kinds of frustrations: some are frustrated to see the large quantity of work that they have done in full integrity and seriousness for the IPCC review be unjustly criticized and devalorized, others are frustrated to see IPCC having departed from basic scientific ethical practices in writing their report, specifically in the way this report can easily be used (and is being used), even at the price of some distortion, by those who have interests in promoting an alarmist view of the situation. Yet, what seems to me most encouraging, in a domain where the reasons for optimism are rather rare, is the feeling I have that both families aim at a same intellectual and moral integrity and are able to listen to each other and to change their views when necessary. The existence of climate science academics having such an attitude is, in my opinion, the only chance for unscrambling a situation that has reached an embarrassing deadlock. One must recognize, unfortunately, that there exist an important fraction of academic climate scientists who make it difficult for them to make their case and use instead authoritative arguments to impose their own views.
As a particle physicist, and later an astrophysicist, I have a long experience in communicating with people who believe that Maxwell or Einstein were wrong and propose a new theory meant to replace electromagnetism or relativity. Communication was not via Internet but by normal mail or, later, simple emails. It has always been a matter of personal pride for me to answer them and take the time to read their theories and explain what was wrong. It was often frustrating when they did not have the basic knowledge necessary for understanding the arguments and stubbornly insisted on the validity of their theory. Such was the picture I had of “citizen scientists” (in spite of the existence of counter-examples, such as Christofilos, the elevator engineer who invented strong focusing, and a host of amateur astronomers who contribute useful observations to astronomy).
In climate science, the exposure of the data to the public and the possibility to address some of the problems without too broad a knowledge of the context, but simply with a good command of basic science, encourages participation from anyone who is willing to contribute. This in itself is remarkable and inspires respect toward all these people who are yearning for a better understanding of nature and are prepared to make an effort to give a contribution; and so much more, as is often the case, when they do so in full humility and awareness of their own limitations. What is even more remarkable, however, is the existence among such citizen scientists of a small minority who are indeed able to contribute usefully either by bringing new original contributions or by shedding new light on questions that had been kept in the shade. Not recognizing the value of their contributions would simply be a demonstration of unacceptable arrogance.
Sociologically or politically motivated people
A third category of posts found in the climate science blogs is from people interested in the economical and political dimension of the debate and from people interested in its social and human dimension. Those having financial, economical or political interests are among the most passionate and biased participants and their contributions are not very constructive – except in a few instances – and usually do not help much in raising the level of the debate.
Those who find an interest in the sociological dimension of the debate are much more interesting to me. It is indeed something new, and likely to be of unprecedented importance, to have a public debate on science-related questions that are of major relevance to our future on such a large scale. It seems to me to be overlooked – or at least insufficiently appreciated – by the establishment, such as academies of sciences, learned societies, editorial boards of major science journals, mass media, etc. The so-called “skeptics” often claim that they are better scientifically minded, meaning having a better sense of scientific ethic than the so-called “warmists” and I think that any neutral observer must recognize that they have a point there.
After having sorted the wheat from the chaff – which is relatively easy but obviously considered as criminal by the chaff – one is left with a very respectable and informative set of statements, which simply cannot be ignored. The politization of the debate has undeniably resulted in unscientific practices. The difficulty to publish a case that dissents from orthodoxy is real. I have refereed many articles for several journals and I know that there is always some unconscious subjectivity in our judgement, well-known authors obviously enjoying a favourable prejudice.
I have also experienced myself, when having changed field from a domain where I was well known to a new one where I was unknown, that it takes time to be accepted by the new community and by the referee who evaluates your article – one to two years. The present machinery of our system of social interactions is not prepared to properly handle the new situation. How to depart from the black and white segregation of clans such as warmists, activists, alarmists, deniers, skeptics, etc, some publishing in Internet, some in traditional scientific journals, some in popular mass media? Sociologists are rightly delighted to witness what is happening and to see there a very rich ground for their investigations.
People curious of climate science
No less impressive than the preceding families, the host of people who are simply curious about the climate and who wish to learn about it command respect. They come from various horizons, with very different backgrounds, but share a common awareness of the importance of the issue at stake and a desire to better understand its ins and outs. Never before, to my knowledge, has there been such a vast popular interest for scientific matters, or rather has such a vast popular interest for scientific matters found a ground on which to explicitly express itself. Equally respectable are the time and effort exerted by those who are knowledgeable to answer the questions and explain in simple terms what climate is about. For now decades the scientific community has been encouraged to better communicate with the general public, has been blamed for not doing it enough, or not well enough, so-called outreach initiatives have vigorously been promoted… but it seems to me that what is achieved in these blogs is at a scale that surpasses most of what has been done previously.
The climate science debate is something that matters, it cannot be simply neglected or ignored. Whether or not there are reasons to be alarmed is beyond the point. The point is that many people are getting emotionally alarmed with economical and geopolitical consequences that are enormous. Under such panicking pressure, and the stronger pressure of financial interests, gigantic sums are invested in wind-mill farms and electric cars, just to quote two very controversial initiatives. Decisions are taken on nuclear energy, on fracking, on deep-sea drilling, etc. Not to mention crazy geo-engineering projects that are being contemplated.
I naturally should like to be well informed of the bases on which such decisions are taken. I am prepared to adhere to some precaution principle and accept that we should be careful with injecting CO2 in the atmosphere at the scale of what it already contains when we do not know enough to be sure that it is reasonably harmless; I understand that answering many of the open questions in climate science may require more time than we can afford to wait. But I find it difficult to find a good summary document where I can read what I need. The IPCC report was not written with this in mind and it makes statements on the probability, or level of confidence, of model predictions that are not scientifically acceptable. The way they quantify their ignorance of many parameters and phenomena of relevance, as if they were arguments governed by statistics, or worse by voting, makes no sense to me.
An interesting new fact between AR4 and AR5 is what is usually referred to as the pause. I am not claiming that the pause invalidates the long term model predictions, I do not know, but I expect that it be used to better quantify the uncertainties attached to model predictions. This has not been seriously done. Between AR4 and AR5, our understanding of the complexity of the roles played by clouds and oceans in the regulation of the climate has progressed. I understand how the greenhouse effect works, I understand that CO2 has much less effect than water vapour in this context, I understand how the many interactions between temperatures, at various altitudes and latitudes, and CO2 or water concentrations in the atmosphere imply major correlations that generate important feedbacks, some positive and some negative, a complex system that may amplify the green house effect. I also understand that the thermal capacity of the ocean is enormous at the Earth scale and that small perturbations may play a major role. But I am not an expert to master the details; I need a document that critically discusses all these issues and identifies the major areas of ignorance or insufficient knowledge, either lack of proper understanding or lack of adequate data. AR5 is failing to do so with sufficient clarity.
It seems to me that the IPCC report is the best basis to start from to produce such a document. What is needed is a critical review made by scientists (I do not care whether academics or “citizen scientists” or whatever as long as they accept to adhere to basic scientific ethic and have the necessary competence). A good guide to make such a critical review is the NIPCC report which has the advantage of being structured in a way that parallels that of the IPCC report. The point is not to decide who is wrong and who is right, but to identify the misunderstandings and/or different assumptions that have led to different conclusions, to clarify the issue and to formulate new statements on which one can agree. The scientists who can do so must not be chosen as being advocates of the warmist or skeptic camp, the idea is not to have a debate between warmists and skeptics; instead, they should accept, during the time of their term as reviewers, to forget about which camp they are seen to belong to by outside observers. This excludes explicitly scientists that have been seen to display extreme views or partisan behaviour. Moreover, the participants in such a review should not be asked to address politicians, nor to make new predictions, but to address scientists from other fields and transmit to them the essential elements of their knowledge and ignorance, with particular attention to what may affect the conclusions reached by AR5. I know that many think that this is pure utopia; they may well be right but, reading through the blogs, I got the impression that many climate scientists would be prepared to do such an exercise in good faith.
Something that strikes me is the parallel between the way the climate debate is received by the general public and the way the nuclear debate has been. I am neither pro- nor anti-nuclear but I understand reasonably well the issues that are at stake. In the nuclear case purely emotional and irrational arguments have been exploited by green activists up to a point where several countries have now banned nuclear energy. In the climate case, the green activists are with the establishement rather than being against, as they were in the nuclear case. But this is almost irrelevant.
What I am witnessing is the same arrogance in the establishment, the same irrational and emotional fear in the general public, amplified by a majority of popular media. In both cases, wrong decisions are being taken under the pressure of political and financial interests. What is completely new, however, is the existence, with Internet, of a forum in which the debate is taking place on a very large scale. Obviously, as few people read these blogs as those who read the scientific litterature, the majority relies on newspapers and television for their information. Yet, somehow, it seems to me that the debate that is going on there contains enough popular wisdom to mark a change in our practice of communicating, exerting democracy and taking decisions and deserves serious attention.
Biosketch: Pierre Darriulat is the former Research Director of CERN and currently Professor of Physics at VATLY in Hanoi, Vietnam. In 2008 he was awarded the prestigious Andrew Lagarrigue Prize.