National Climate Assessment - Climate Science Special Report

[pileus]

This is likely to generate significant news and debate over the coming weeks, so worthy of a new topic vs being lost in the Trump assaults thread (but mods move if desired).

The NY Times has obtained an unreleased draft of the US Climate Science Special Report, and it is sure to create a clash and probable controversy as a result of the findings, the current US govt position on climate change science, and the need for approval by the administration.

A link to the report is within the linked article.

Government Report Finds Drastic Impact of Climate Change on U.S.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/climate/climate-change-drastic-warming-trump.html

WASHINGTON — The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.
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One government scientist who worked on the report, and who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity, said he and others were concerned that it would be suppressed.
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The Environmental Protection Agency is one of 13 agencies that must approve the report by Sunday. The agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, has said he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

“It’s a fraught situation,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international affairs at Princeton University who was not involved in the study. “This is the first case in which an analysis of climate change of this scope has come up in the Trump administration, and scientists will be watching very carefully to see how they handle it.”

[Sigmetnow]

Someone Leaked a Major Federal Climate Change Report Before Trump and Pruitt Can Cook the Books

In early August, Nature received documents suggesting Pruitt was moving ahead with a shamelessly cynical plan to require future EPA research be vetted in a “red team, blue team” format, which would turn its review board into a war between actual scientists and industry flacks. Pruitt had already fired half the EPA board of scientific counselors, seemingly in preparation to hire red team panelists recommended by the fossil fuel industry-backed Heartland Institute.

http://gizmodo.com/someone-leaked-a-major-federal-climate-change-report-be-1797622534

[Daniel B.]

This report seems to echo the recent IPCC report saying, it is "extremely likely that more than half of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 can be linked to human influence." They did add, "With a medium degree of confidence, the authors linked the contribution of human-caused warming to rising temperatures over the Western and Northern United States. It found no direct link in the Southeast."  They also mentioned the precipitation increased linked to warmer temperatures.  It will be intereesting to read the report in its entirety.

[TerryM]

This is good news indeed. Damned if he does suppress the report, damned if he doesn't. Harper here in Canada simply claimed that his government held intellectual rights to all science done using any government funding or facilities, and wouldn't allow scientists to release any of this "proprietary" information. This contributed to the huge loss his party ultimately suffered.
Terry

[Archimid]

That evidence is easier to statistically link in the north than in the south makes perfect sense. If you see a temperature anomaly chart, the fastest rate of global warming is happening in the northern  hemisphere with faster warming the more north you look, with the fastest warming near the North Pole.

[pileus]

A concise summary of key points from the leaked US federal climate assessment.

9 Takeaways From the National Climate Report

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/08/climate/nine-takeaways-climate-report.html?smid=tw-share

[AbruptSLR]

While the report focuses on the findings of consensus climate science, it formally acknowledges that these consensus finding may well significantly underestimate the coming climate impacts this century:

Title: "Denying the Storm: Climate Change Report Findings the Trump Administration Doesn’t Want You to Know About"

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/08/denying-the-storm-climate-change-report-findings-the-trump-administration-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about/

Extract: "Models are notably less able to duplicate higher paleoclimate levels of warming — indicating an increased likelihood that rates of warming will be more intense than expected and a reduced likelihood that warming will be less intense than expected. The study also cautions that there is another limitation to the ultimate accuracy of model predictions in that models themselves are unable to capture what it calls critical threshold and compound events.

Compound events are described as multiple extreme climate change events occurring at the same time to generate an unanticipated level of harmful disruption. A good example of a compound event is extreme heat risking injury or loss of life, extreme drought harming crops and water supplies in the same region, and both coinciding with a severe or unprecedented wildfire outbreak. Critical threshold events occur when the climate system crosses a tipping point and then radically adjusts to a new climate state. A worrisome critical threshold event is crossing a tipping point in which significant carbon feedbacks from the Earth System occur — locking in more extreme warming and generating periods in which global temperatures more rapidly spike. Both of these kinds of events have the potential to produce consequences that are difficult or impossible to manage. And the chance of such catastrophic events occurring increases along with higher rates of fossil fuel burning and coinciding higher levels of warming."

[6roucho]

This report would be a Sword of Damocles for Trump, if only he weren't so ignorant. His only concern will be whether suppressing it makes him look bad.

[Csnavywx]

The report was not leaked. This is just a narrative. It was publicly available before the article in the NYT and WP went out claiming suppression.

https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/894931484448104448

https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/894932783356891136


Oops.

Moral here: Don't let folks (even on your side) sway you with emotional buzzwords and non-arguments.

The report itself is interesting enough.

[AbruptSLR]

Moral here: Don't let folks (even on your side) sway you with emotional buzzwords and non-arguments.

The report itself is interesting enough.

On the other hand, just because the draft report was publically available before the NY Times, and WP articles, does not mean that the Trump Administration is not actively working towards altering and/or suppressing the findings of the final report.

[pileus]

Moral here: Don't let folks (even on your side) sway you with emotional buzzwords and non-arguments.

The report itself is interesting enough.

On the other hand, just because the draft report was publically available before the NY Times, and WP articles, does not mean that the Trump Administration is not actively working towards altering and/or suppressing the findings of the final report.

Yes, the primary emphasis and point of this thread should be what happens with the report and the administration's actions or non actions, and the implications for climate change science and awareness among the general population. 

[pileus]

Linked article noting the correction wrt sourcing of the report, and more discussion of implications and next steps.

Federal Climate Report Contradicts Trump Administration Stance
Some scientists worry the White House could bury the report of dire consequences

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-climate-report-contradicts-trump-administration-stance/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20170809

Editor’s Note (8/9/17): The story below about a federal report, written by one of our partners, Climatewire, was based on a New York Times article that has since been corrected. Climatewire has issued a correction as well. Several scientists who were report authors have said the report was not "leaked" as the Times claimed, but had been available during a public comment period, and was still available on at least one Web site. They also noted the White House has an August 18 deadline for issuing its review of the report.
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Its pages, numbering more than 500, are filled with contrasts to what President Trump and other administration officials have claimed about global warming. Trump and several members of his Cabinet, including U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, have downplayed the human impact on the climate.

Whether the Trump administration alters or nixes the study remains to be seen. The process for developing the 2018 report started under the Obama administration and has continued quietly during the first months of the Trump presidency.
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Congress requires the report, but the White House greatly influences how much fanfare attends its release, said Paul Bledsoe, a climate adviser under President Clinton who is now a lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy.

[AbruptSLR]

As we are not discussing a court case whether parties are assumed innocent until proven guilty, I think that it is fair to question Team Trump's motives, just as it would have been good to have challenged George W. Bush more in the public forum:

Title: "The Bush team censored climate reports. Some fear Trump more"

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060058554

Extract: "That was just one of several instances when the Bush administration was accused of meddling with government reports to water down or remove discussions about climate change. Now, after a draft federal climate change report surfaced this week, greens who went to war against the Bush administration's environmental policies are watching closely for similar — or even more overt — interference.

"The preliminary signs and the public views of the political actors in 2017 are much worse than they were in 2001 and 2002," Walke said."

[rboyd]

We are in a truly post-modern period, "truth" is whatever those in power can make believed by enough people to maintain their position. Benign neglect can be as good as outright manipulation and obfuscation. They may just quietly release the report late on a Friday, as many previous governments have done with inconvenient facts.

[AbruptSLR]

While the Trump Administration has not blocked the online availability of the subject report; nevertheless, the report's findings run counter to Trump's climate policy:

Title: "Planet marks new highs for heat, pollutants, sea level in 2016: report"

https://phys.org/news/2017-08-planet-highs-pollutants-sea.html

Extract: ""Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity and life on Earth," said the peer-reviewed publication, put together by nearly 500 scientists around the globe and released each year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Meteorological Society.

The entire 280-page report is available online."

[Sigmetnow]

[edited slightly for clarity and ASIF format limitations]

Eric Holthaus:
Just in! A statement from the @usgcrp, on the current status of the CSSR. Looks like the report is still on schedule.  My source in the EPA says:
"my sense is that the report will be published without major changes to the core content."
That's good news.
My source continues:
"I think it will eventually make it through the remaining reviews in a form that accurately reflects the science."
 This source is one of the good guys, so I'm confident that the Trump administration won't succeed in significantly altering this report.

https://twitter.com/ericholthaus/status/898699219376062464