> It only made me quite angry that nearly every headline said: "It gets warmer
> by up to 11.5 degrees." Noone, but one newspaper told about probabilities. I
> think the blame for that is partly on the press release posted by the CPDN
> team, which also only focus on the maximum value. In my opinion posting such
> stuff is not responsible. At least the article in Nature gives a proper
> dicussion of the result.

We've been trying to emphasise that it's the wide range that matters, and that it has expanded at the top end. We have found physically plausible models with much higher sensitivities than people believed possible. We can't give odds on different sub-ranges (2-3 degrees vs 10-11) but that's ultimately what we hope to do in the coupled experiment. The problem is that this basic story (wide range, increased upper bounds, no probabilities) is very easily taken as alarmist. We have tried pretty hard to explain that the results, though disturbing in some senses, need to be seen as part of a bigger picture, but that tends to get lost in the soundbytes. Or the phone goes and I forget what I was saying.

Dave

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crandles wrote:
> If the results show a larger range than the IPCC have suggested is it
> irresponsible to include this or suppress this in the paper?
>
> If you do include it, then it seems to me inevitable that the press in looking
> for a news story (as opposed to scientific advance) will concentrate on the
> major difference to the IPCC range which is clearly at the top end of the
> range. It is just the way the press is.

The deadline for the AR4 (successor to the IPCC TAR) is sometime in spring (seems to vary a bit with who you talk to). We want these results to feed in to the AR4 as a part of an increased focus on uncertainty and the quantification of risk. It's kind of natural to surpass previous IPCC work in the run up to each new report. [I imagine there might be quite a flood of climate stories in the next few months as people try to get stuff in print so it can feed into the AR4.]

Dave

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> If you see any other stories about the project in the media, please do let us
> know. Either post to this forum about it, or email Sylvia
> (sknight[at]atm[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk.

There's a very good article in the breaking news section at <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6934">New Scientist</a>.

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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It and Dave get a mention in this Guardian article entitled <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1399383,00.html">Oil firms fund climate change 'denial' </a>
Also an article on the meeting yesterday at the royal institution of the 'climate sceptics' but I can't
see anything on the CPDN Nature article. Hopefully they're saving it up for the Sundays.

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_________________________________

Another BBC article:

Climate warning: Your reaction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4212283.stm

You can leave a comment there if you wish.

---

Visit BOINC WIKI for help

And join BOINC Synergy for all the news in one place.

The front page Thursday Guardian article, which Marj mentioned, quotes Dave Frame as saying, 'If the real world response were anywhere near the upper end of our range, even today's levels of greenhouse gases could already be dangerously high'.

This makes it quite clear that the forecasts are a range, with different probabilities.

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__________________________________________________

Hi,

The belgian newspaper "Le Soir" talks about the Nature paper and CPDN here:
http://www.lesoir.be/rubriques/sens/page_5328_295993.shtml

French Magazine "Le Nouvel Observateur" talks about it too:
http://permanent.nouvelobs.com/sciences/20050127.OBS7312.html

Edit Sunday:
An article in the French newspaper:<a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3238,36-396154,0.html"> Le Monde</a>
Cheers...

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Arnaud

It is encouraging to see so much prominent media coverage in so many countries.

One thing that disappointed me yesterday, however, was reading the following in the Guardian about Davos. 'Tony Blair yesterday softened his stance on climate change.........Giving the keynote address at the World Economic Forum, Mr Blair said climate change was not universally accepted. With chief executives of many US firms in the audience, he said: 'The evidence is still disputed.' Evidence of climate change dangers had been 'clearly and persuasively advocated' by a very large number of 'entirely independent voices.....they are the majority, the majority is not always right but they deserve to be listened to'.

Does he not trust the government's own chief scientific officer, David King? Or is he just desperate to feel popular and accepted?

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__________________________________________________

&gt; Does he not trust the government's own chief scientific officer, David King?
&gt; Or is he just desperate to feel popular and accepted?

Hectoring people in a speech isn't always the way to persuade people, though. King speaks as a scientist who has made up his mind, the politician's job is to say that 'our scientists tell us this, we need to respect their views'.

Asserting policies on climate change as a political doctrine gets us into exactly the problems we face with the opponents, who are basing their case largely on the view that it is a political matter and therefore their position is as valid as any other. Or even that it is part of a conspiracy against America.

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One thing for sure... after this press release, and the controversies it is causing around the world in the political scene... CPDN has had a SURGE of members.

Here is one of the graphs from my stats site... displays it beautifully...

<img src="http://www.setisynergy.com/stats/graph-project.php?project=cpdn">

More people crunching, more results, and in time more press and evidence. All good things.

Zain
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Teamless? Drop by BOINC Synergy and look around
Also checkout our famous BOINC World Stats

&gt;Climate change is becoming and indeed is now a political doctrine, a new
&gt; challenge for any would be statesman in the international arena.

It is important to keep the distinction between the questions of whether there are significant changes happening to the climate, and the mechanisms driving that, on the one hand, and the questions about how we respond to the risks on the other. The first group are essentially matters of fact, even though we must deal in the uncertain world of prediction, and are in principle capable of resolution by scientific analysis. The second group are very much ones of political ideology, and personal values.

I am sure that we need to keep this distinction. The confusion between them is one of the most disturbing aspects of the campaign by the 'climate change sceptics' referred to earlier, and whom I do see as 'opponents' in the sense that they are trying to undermine the attempt at scientific analysis that CPDN stands for, but for reasons that appear to me to be ideological.

Whether scientists should themselves risk confusing the issues by engaging in political debate is another matter. It was pointed out to me that Sir Richard Doll, who first established the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, deliberately left it over 40 years before allowing himself to be associated with the anti-smoking campaign, but that may be thought to be a little extreme. He did make his findings known.

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After reading the Nature article, I went to Miles' first pre-cpdn article where he outlined the vision in Nature, Oct 1999 - the publication at the top of the list. That was 5 years and 4 months ago, and it now reads like a historical document. It is astonishing how much the team has done in this time.

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__________________________________________________

The science should inform the political debate, but there should be very little feedback from politics into the science. There will be some feedback as what research gets funded is governed by what is considered important. Its important to make the science as watertight and definite as possible, the policy implications of a 2C rise over 100 years and a 4C rise over 20 are very different. By its nature the political debate revolves around policy.

Unfortunately, the initial cpdn results have the effect of making the science seem less definite. This uncertanty was always present but was hidden, now not only the range of climate sensitivities has been increased, but perhaps more importantly the non-linearity results (fig 2c of the Nature paper) call into question results published from other climate groups, in the sense that their pdf climate sensitivities and anthropogenic forcing forecasts are based on a linear assumption. All(?) published results should be considered less accurate than stated as they have not used big enough ensembles.

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____________________________<br>
<a href="http://www.boincforum.info/boinc/">boinc forum</a> and <a href="http://www.uk4cp.co.uk/">United Kindom</a> team, my climate change <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/mike_atkinson/">blog</a>.