ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE C
limate Change: Are We Changing or Not?
David M. Abbott, Jr., CPG-04570 AAPG Distinguished Lecturer for Ethics 2018–19
Editorial note: this article was published in the 2018 Fall issue of “The Colorado Professional Geologist,” the Colorado Section’s newsletter.
The geologic record demonstrates con-
tinual climate change over time. More specifically, we are coming out of an ice age (or are we?) and are getting warmer. This is something geoscientists have accepted for many years. Recognition of human-caused impact on climate change and resulting global warming is more recent and increasingly compel- ling. Although not everyone agrees, An Earth Scientist’s Perspective on Climate Change by Ray Leonard in the October 2018 issue of the AAPG Explorer sug- gests that even the petroleum industry is coming to accept human-caused global warming. The measurements of sea level rise are unambiguous data demonstrat- ing climate change.
Honesty—Avoiding the Misuse of
Models is the title of one of the lectures I’ve been giving at various universities this fall. The key summary of the lecture is, “All models are wrong. Some are use- ful.” One of the key points on honesty is Richard Feynman’s admonition from his Cargo Cult Science lecture at Cal Tech (1974, available on the web), “…you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.” Uncertainty is a very important aspect of geoscience that is not emphasized the way that it should be. Our estimates (of whatever) are all wrong; they are too high or too low. We should disclose our assumptions and uncertainties and provide error ranges, even if only qualitatively. Unfortunately, I recall only one paper in over 40 years of professional practice that included a descrip- tion of a methodology that didn’t work. Any paper that lacks a discussion of the uncertainties of the conclusions reached is missing a very important section—this means most papers regardless of topic.
Figure 1. Estimated tracks from 18 different hurricane models for Tropical Storm Bonnie at 0600 UTC, 5/29/16;
http://derecho.math.uwm.edu/models/.
One of the attorneys I worked with at the Securities and Exchange Commission observed one day that, “The weather bureau is deserving of great public commendation for daily issuing weather forecasts that are distributed to all and sundry by the news media and which serve as daily reminders that prognostications in general and those of the government in particular are subject to error.”1 Weather forecasting remains uncertain and subject to error. Hurricane forecasters are to be commended for issuing both the American and European models that differ and that are shown on TV along with ever expanding circles of uncertainty around the predicted path. The models give neither unique nor precise forecasts. The hur- ricane forecasters at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee collect numerous hurricane prediction models and publish
1. This remark was made 35 or so years ago when forecasts primarily still came from the US Weather Bureau. 12 TPG •
Apr.May.Jun 2019
www.aipg.org
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