Scientists are angry with both the incoming conservative Liberal-National government and Australia’s national newspaper, The Australian in the latter case for its reporting of an upcoming United Nations climate report.
There has been widespread concern about the fact that the Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott’s decision to not appoint a Science Minister in his new ministry, just announced.
It would seem that Mr Abbott believes the Science Minister role can be adequately handled within other ministries in his government, primarily the Industry portfolio.
Professor Les Field, secretary for science policy at the Australian Academy of Science, said “The Academy is surprised and disappointed that Prime Minister Abbott has not announced a minister for science.
“We hope that he might make such an announcement within the next few days.
“Science reaches into so many areas of our lives and is so important to informing and shaping the world in which we live and work, it is integral to health, industry, food and water security, transport, defence, IT and much more.
“A scientifically literate society is a society which is equipped to hold informed debate and make intelligent decisions about big issues that affect us all.
“We would be heartened to hear that Ian Macfarlane has charge of a broader science portfolio, not just the CSIRO.
“Mr Macfarlane has long been interested in and engaged with science,” Professor Field added.
Even stronger criticism came from Catriona Jackson CEO of Science and Technology Australia.
“Scientists around the nation are asking: Where’s the Science Minister?” Ms Jackson asked.
“The nation’s scientists are confused and disappointed by today’s announcement of the new federal government ministry.
“Science and technology are central to virtually everything government does, from industry to universities to agriculture to health to creating the kind of jobs that will ensure a prosperous future.
“We await the release of the Government’s administrative arrangement documents which will hopefully give further clarity about who is responsible for science.”
Mr Abbott’s new ministry also does away with the Climate Change portfolio, rolling most of its functions into the Environment Ministry held by Greg Hunt.
Scientists have also reacted strongly to a front-page story published in News Limited newspaper The Australian that criticised a coming UN report on climate change, with one describing it as “riddled with errors.”
The article, by environmental editor Graham Lloyd and entitled ‘We got it wrong on warming, says IPCC’, sourced content from stories published in the UK tabloid press over the weekend and said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had “drastically overestimated” rising temperatures, and that the yet-to-be-released IPCC Fifth Assessment Report confirmed that the world has only been warming at “half the rate” claimed in the IPCC’s previous report in 2007.
“The 2007 assessment report said the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2°C every decade, but according to Britain’s The Daily Mail the draft update report says the true figure since 1951 has been 0.12°C,” The Australian reported.
Professor David Karoly, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Melbourne and a review editor of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, said that The Australian should publish a correction entitled “The Australian gets it wrong on global warming and the IPCC, again”.
“The first sentence of the article states ‘The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest assessment reportedly admits its computers drastically overestimated rising temperatures, and over the past 60 years the world has in fact been warming at half the rate claimed in the previous IPCC report in 2007’
“First, the latest assessment report has not been finalised, so no conclusions are final.
“Second, the observed global average warming of surface air temperature over the last 60 years of 0.12°C per decade is almost identical to the value reported in the IPCC report in 2007 of 0.13°C per decade (likely range 0.10 to 0.16°C per decade) for the period 1956 – 2005.
“The Australian got it wrong again on what the IPCC reported in 2007 and what is happening to global average temperatures.”
Dr John Cook, research fellow in climate communication at the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and creator of skepticalscience.com, said that The Australian had misrepresented the IPCC.
“The Australian article ‘We got it wrong on warming, says IPCC” demonstrates the inherent dangers in sourcing scientific information from a UK tabloid rather than climate scientists,” Dr Cook said.
“The Australian misrepresents the IPCC, claiming “The 2007 assessment report said the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2°C every decade, but according to Britain’s The Daily Mail the draft update report says the true figure since 1951 has been 0.12°C”. In actuality, the trend reported in the IPCC report was 0.13°C per decade (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-direct-observations.html).
“The Australian discusses a slowdown in surface temperature but fails to consider that the planet as a whole continues to build up heat at an accelerating rate, currently at a rate of four Hiroshima bombs-worth of heat every second.
The Australian also fails to report the growing body of research indicating that the slowdown in surface temperature is due to more heat accumulating in the ocean, indicated by direct ocean heat measurements.
“Discussion of ocean heat up-take is expected to be included in the upcoming IPCC report.”
Professor Steven Sherwood, professor of physical meteorology and atmospheric climate dynamics at the University of New South Wales, said The Australian’s article was “riddled with errors”.
“The IPCC does not do climate forecasts on its own “computer,” as stated in the lead paragraph of the article, but analyses forecasts submitted to them by two dozen or so research organisations worldwide, including NASA and CSIRO.
“The lead paragraph also claims that the rate of observed surface warming over the previous 60 years is half that reported in 2007, when the real difference is much smaller and, according to several published studies, is balanced by stronger than expected recent warming below the ocean surface.
The article also confuses a quantity called “transient climate response” with the projected future warming.
“If we continued on a business-as-usual path, the eventual global warming would be several times larger than the “transient climate response,” not equal to it as implied in the story.
“The quote from Matt Ridley, that most experts believe warming of under 2°C will be beneficial, may have been stated by Mr Ridley, but is also incorrect.
“Instead, 2°C is often taken to be the maximum “safe” warming before which dangerous thresholds, such as the warming needed to guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet, may be crossed.
“Past assessments have projected that business-as-usual warming must almost certainly exceed 2°C (IPCC 2007 set a range of about 3-6°C above preindustrial by 2100), and no new results have emerged that could cause a significant revision to that assessment.
Finally, the story positions a legitimate statement by Judith Curry so as to seemingly undercut IPCC conclusions about climate change, but contrary to this implication, it is possible for a report on this or any similar topic to reach firm conclusions about important questions even when some aspects of the science are well known to be “unsettled” or in a “state of flux.”
“Just as it is possible to know that a cancer patient is likely to die without treatment, even if the date or particular symptoms cannot be predicted accurately,” Professor Sherwood concluded.
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