Scientific Reticence and Sea Level Rise - Essay Example

Article The article “Scientific reticence and sea level rise” explores about the scientific aspects of climate change and its ways of reporting by the scientists. The writer goes on to cite his personal experiences and reported some in incidences of scientific community silence over the climate change issues and its affects. Basically he is concerned with human induced climate changes as an international policy concern and natural science has been at the forefront of the debate with climatologists leading due to their role in Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC, 2001) and its four assessment Reports. The main concern of the writer in his article is about the scientists community who remained silent and just not putting the whole picture of human induced climate change and issues like global warming and sea level increase in front of the people. Their deliberate silence bring them good fortunes in the form of more research grants. There are pressures from certain quarters on scientists not to report actual situation and affects of climate change on ice sheets and sea level. This article goes on to discuss the climate changes and its affect on ice, ice sheet of Greenland and Western Antarctica, different models of non-linear and linear types to establish scientifically that what is and will be the actual situation if the human induced greenhouse gases emissions goes on. The writer goes on to discuss IPCC business as usual scenarios and different studies and literature on the climate changes to establish scientifically that the concern about ice sheet melting and sea level rise is not a hoax but it’s a reality and it is actually not as reported by scientific community but even the more bigger issue. Article goes on to discuss the writer’s personal experiences and his problems of real/ actual situations presentation. Article even goes on to discuss the difference between normal people and scientists and put some moral questions that scientists must have more responsibility to put across the actual pictures of any catastrophies, which will likely to happen in future. In reporting, scientists must take utmost care and their findings should be based on some scientific evidences. Article even goes on to say that for some governmental agencies like IPCC, reticence may be proper but as an individual scientists, they have to more responsible in reporting the effects of greenhouse gases on climate and must come out from their comfort zone and say something based on pure research and evidences. Doing so they may find it difficult and face resistance from most quarters. This topic has a greater significance as we know that Regulations of various emissions and the whole topic of climate change and its broader effects has moved into political agenda so economists and others have entered the debate more prominently. As will be seen, serious addressing the enhanced greenhouse effect challenges the approach to resource allocation of mainstream economic. A range of subjects arise including; the objectivity of scientific information, asymmetry of costs and benefits over space and time, differentiation between risk and uncertainty, institutional power, over information and policy and the role of ethical judgment in decision process. Each is a major requiring research and posing serious challenges to the current conceptualization of pollution as a technical and scientific problem, which requires an engineered optimal solution. Similar problems have been and continue to oppose by other pollution “ externalities”. The difference in the case of the enhanced greenhouse effect is, how the issue confront the analyst simultaneously, are non separable and arise on a global scale. So in this way the article ignited the scientific community to come forward, leaving their own interests for the purpose of actual situational appraising in the larger interest of the people who are going to be affected by these climate changes more. The concerns depicted by the author in his topic are widely covered in the topics related to climate change and its affects on ice sheets and sea level rise. The greenhouse effect is one of the better-understood features of the atmosphere; the science having been established in the 1800’s by the likes of Arrhenius, Fourier and Tyndall. Arrhenius (1896) estimated that a doubling of CO2 would cause 4.90C -6.10C increase in continental surface are temperature depending upon latitude and reason, which is at the upper end of current predictions (1.40C-5.8oC under the Third AR). Overall the variability in climate and precipitation predicted from simulation models at the regional level is for grater than that at the global scale. In their review for the second AR, Kattenberg et al (1996: 344) concluded: considering all models, at the 104-106 Km2 scale, temperature changes due to CO2 doubling varied between +0.60C and +70C and precipitation changes varied between -35% and +50% of control run values, with a market interregional variability”. An increase in the rate of sea level rise, storm surges and precipitation can clearly be identified as threatening populations and capital in low lying areas both in developing and developed economic. For several centuries, after the stabilization of green house gases, global mean surface temperature and sea level will continue to rise [IPCC 2001 a]. The expected consequences suggest substantial and widespread negative impacts by the time a 2oC increase in average global temperature is achieved. A number of independent analyses have identified tropospheric changes that appear to be associated with solar cycle (Van Loon and Shea, 2000; Gleisner & Thejll, 2003; Haigh, 2003; White et al., 2003; Coughlin & Tung, 2004; Labitzke, 2004; Crooks and Gray, 2005), suggesting an overall warmer and moisture troposphere during solar maximum. The arguments presented by the writer in the article are sound and clearly based on scientific researches conducted by various climatologists and their literature reporting taking into account all the variations and uncertainties. But detailed impact estimation requires such factors as regional temperature patterns, alterations in precipitation, the frequency and severity of climatic events changes in cloud cover and wind speeds, atmospheric pollutants formation and deposition and so on. It this kind of information were available the impact prediction might proceed to relate these parameters to specific ecosystems, their development and physical alternations in their structure and functioning. During the arguments in the article, writer assessments based on scientific and research based knowledge, which includes some assumptions on uncertain factors and abrupt climate changes. Clearly, complex environmental problems, such as enhanced greenhouse effect i. e. global warming, melting of ice sheets and sea level rise which extend over long periods of time, are shrouded in uncertainty and challenge the idea of an objective consequential approach to impact assessment. This leaves us with a rough sketch of many possible events rather than a detailed picture of the type and timing of exact impacts. The dominant weak uncertainty approach uses a probability density functions to define concepts of normal, say temperature on the basis of observation. Currently, actual global mean temperature has been estimated to increase by 0.6oC from pre industrial times. Things such as overlap with the original probability density function, choice of reference period and measurement errors complicate confirming to such a change. Greater confidence then requires more observation. A focus on shifting means has tended to ignore the fact that temperature, precipitation, sea level and other variables will become more erratic e.g. concern about storm surges. The probability approach requires extreme simplification of uncertainty. This unknown futures are converted to risk and quantification is emphasized (IPCC 2001 a: 17) uncertainty is believed to be reducible by research that allows the use of decision analytic frame works and monetary valuation [IPCC 2001 b: 17; IPCC 2007 c: 11-13]. Generally arguments placed in the article may not place us nearer to actual conditions. Problems in estimating and predicting arise in the application of standard risk assessment and probability theory because of the complexity of climate change, its possible consequences and their characteristics. For example many potential climate change impacts are unique catastrophic occurrences (e.g. disruption of ocean circulation, Melting of west Antarctic sheet) and not the repeatedly observable physically inconsequential events of scientific experimentation and weak uncertainty. In practice scientific and economic approaches concentrate upon stationary states. Impacts are commonly based upon simulations using climatalogists, General Circulation Models (GCM’s) of the atmosphere, which have typically compared an assumed status quo with equilibrium under an equivalent doubling of CO2 (Watson et al, 1997:2). The nature of change between states is unknown. These may be smooth transition a sudden shift or a surprise. The inability of science to provide experimentally derived theories to explain and predict the enhanced greenhouse effect has lead to the development of mathematical models and computer simulations which are essentially un testable. More generally the normal scientific approach has become dominant over all other ways of knowing e.g. Common sense experience, inherited skills of living. In recognizing the need for a new methodology to deal with strong uncertainly Funtowicz and Ravetz (1993, 1994) have put forward the concept of post- normal science based upon assumptions of unpredictability, incomplete control and a plurality of legitimate perspectives. They regard an extended peer review approach as particularly relevant where systems uncertain or decision stakes are high and research goals are issue driven. There is a clear desire to produce calculations which can be regarded as rigorous, scientific and objective while skill maintaining relevance to a subject which is complex, uncertain, politically charged and raises numerous moral questions. Looking at the above-discussed condition, I personally agreed to the article up to certain extent but not completely. The said article only debated that the climate change and its widespread impacts should be brought into the knowledge of all the people. It is the duty of scientist because they are different from general population to come with more scientific researches and told the world about the causes and likely impact on the people. So agreeing to this level, I agree to the writer that scientists must come out openly with more and more objective researches. But looking at the uncertainties involved in the future condition of climate change and its impacts, its social, political economic and cultural as well as its moral aspects also should be brought into the knowledge of the population world over. In my opinion, the whole area is highly influenced by the political and economic aspects and it is one of the reasons for scientific reticence. Basically due to economic and market factors as well as political influences and interests these highly sensitive climate change and its impact could not be brought to open even by the scientific community. References: 1. Arrhenius, S. (1896): “On the influence of the carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground,” Philosophical Magazine and journal of science, 41(251), pp 237-76. 2. IPCC, 2001: Climate Change 2001: The Scientifi c Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Houghton, J.T., et al. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 881 pp. 3. IPCC (2001a): Climate change 2001: Scientific assessment: Summary for policy makers, Working group 1, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, Geneva. 4. IPCC (2001b): Climate change 2001: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability:: Summary for policy makers, Working group 2, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, Geneva. 5. IPCC (2001c): Climate change 2001: Mitigation of climate change: Summary for policy makers, Working group 3, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, Geneva. 6. Kattenberg, A., F. Giorgi, H. Grassl, G.A. Meehl, J. F. B. Mitchell, R.J. Stouffer, T. Tokioka, A.J. Weaver, T.M.L. Wigley (1996): “Climate models: Projections of future climate”, Climate change 1995: The science of climate change, J.T. Houghton, L.G. Meira, B.A. Callander et al. Cambridge university press Cambridge, pp. 285-357. 7. Watson, R.T. M.C. Zinyowera, R.H.Moss and D.J. Dokken (eds) (1997): The regional impacts of climate change: An assessment of vulnerability: summary for policy makers, IPCC special report, IPCC, Geneva. 8. Funtowicz, S.O. and J.R. Ravetz (1993) ‘Science for post-normal age’, Futures, 25(7), pp. 739-55. 9. Funtowicz, S.O. and J.R. Ravetz (1994) ‘The worth of a Songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science’, ecological economics, 10(3), pp. 197-207. 10. Van Loon, H., and D.J. Shea, 2000: The global 11-year solar signal in July- August. Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 2965–2968. 11. Gleisner, H., and P. Thejll, 2003: Patterns of tropospheric response to solar variability. Geophys. Res. Lett., 30, 44–47. 12. Haigh, J.D., 2003: The effects of solar variability on the Earth’s climate. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. A, 361, 95–111. 13. Labitzke, K., 2004: On the signal of the 11-year sunspot cycle in the stratosphere and its modulation by the quasi, biennial oscillation. J. Atmos. Solar Terr. Phys., 66, 1151–1157. 14. Coughlin, K., and K.K. Tung, 2004: Eleven-year solar cycle signal throughout the lower atmosphere. J. Geophys. Res., 109, D21105, doi:10.1029/2004JD004873. 15. White, W.B., M.D. Dettinger, and D.R. Cayan, 2003: Sources of global warming of the upper ocean on decadal period scales. J. Geophys. Res., 108, 3248, doi:10.1029/2002JC001396. 16. Crooks, S.A., and L.J. Gray, 2005: Characterization of the 11-year solar signal using a multiple regression analysis of the ERA-40 dataset. J. Clim., 18(7), 996–1015. Read More