Background Information

  • The full original video and all testimonies can exist plant here
  • Boosted documentation
  • Opening statement past Lamar Smith (text available here)
  • Opening argument by Environment Subcommittee Chairman Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) ( text available here )

Transcript of some noteworthy, scientifically verifiable statements

From the opening statements and testimonies

  • Fundamental statements from Eddie Bernice Johnson opening statement ( text bachelor here ).

"The existence of the 'greenhouse effect' was start proposed in the early 1800's. By the late 1800'southward scientists began to theorize that increases in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere could lead to global warming. By 1960 scientists had shown that carbon dioxide was in fact increasing in the temper and humans were at least in part responsible for the increase. Scientific evidence for homo induced climatic change rapidly increased throughout the 1970's.

Since the early on 1980'due south when Exxon internally best-selling the reality of climatic change, the scientific show confirming man caused climate change has piled upward at an incredible rate. The current scientific consensus on human being caused climate change is based on thousands of scientific studies conducted by thousands of scientists all across the globe."

  • Primal statements from Dr. Judith Curry testimony ( full text bachelor here ).

"It is an empirical fact that the World's climate has warmed overall for at to the lowest degree the past century. However, we do non know how much humans have contributed to this warming and there is disagreement amongst scientists as to whether human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases is the dominant cause of recent warming, relative to natural causes"

"Electric current global climate models are not fit for the purpose of attributing the causes of contempo warming or for predicting global or regional climatic change on timescales of  decades to centuries, with any high level of confidence.

Concerns near the utility of climate models include:

  • Predictions of the touch on of increasing CO2 on climate cannot be rigorously evaluated for order of a century.
  • Failure of climate models to provide a consistent explanation of the early on 20th century warming and the mid-century cooling.
  • Inability of climate models to simulate the magnitude and phasing of large-calibration ocean oscillations on decadal to century timescales
  • …"

" The climate community  has  worked for more than two  decades to found a scientific consensus  on human-caused climate  change, prematurely elevating a hypothesis  to  a ruling  theory. The IPCC's consensus-seeking process and its  links to the UNFCCC emissions reduction policies accept had the unintended outcome of hyper-politicizing the science and introducing bias into both the scientific discipline and related decision making processes. "

  • Fundamental statements from Dr. John Christy testimony ( full text available hither ).

"When the "scientific method" is applied to the output from climate models of the IPCC AR5, specifically the bulk atmospheric temperature trends since 1979 (a fundamental variable with a potent and obvious theoretical response to increasing GHGs in this period), I demonstrate that the consensus of the models fails the test to match the real-world observations by a significant margin"

"In the adjacent figure, I show the temperature progression from 32 model groups with their average in red of that tropical section. Nosotros are interested in the red bend, because that is the consensus upon which claims of hereafter climate modify are based. But don't overlook the wide spread in the dashed lines—they're all over the identify. There is no clear certainty on what the climate might do in the future. I also show observations on this chart of the majority atmospheric trend […] What is obvious is that the warming hypothesized and claimed past climate models to have already occurred has not. The warming is clearly overstated. When these trends are formally tested, the scientific conclusion is that the consensus of the climate models fails to correspond the reality of the actual changes in the bulk temper."

"the average model trend fails to correspond the bodily trend of the past 38 years by a highly pregnant amount" … "the models are simply too sensitive to the extra GHGs that are being added to both the model and the existent world."
"Indeed, I am a co-writer of a report in which we used a statistical model to reproduce, to a large degree, the atmospheric temperature trends without the demand for extra greenhouse gases. In other words, it seems that Mother Nature tin cause such temperature trends on her own, which should be of no surprise."

  • Key statements from Dr. Michael Mann testimony ( full text available here ).

"human activity is essentially or entirely responsible for the large-scale warming we have seen over the past century"

"the models take been tested vigorously and rigorously in numerous means, and have passed a number of impressive tests in the past, such equally James Hansen's famous successful predictions from the 1980s and 1990s. Let me take the opportunity to bring your attention to ane particular analysis that appears in the latest outcome of Nature Climate Alter. Back in 1989, legendary climate scientists Ron Stouffer (a graduate of our program at Penn State I'm proud to say) and Suki Manabe made a prediction not just of the average warming of the globe, only of the precise global pattern of that warming. That pattern matches the observed pattern of warming that has ensued remarkably well."

"Other recent studies have shown the fingerprints of human being-caused climate alter on extreme events like the fires that devastated America's Heartland before this month, burning cattle live […] February's record warmth was made iii times more probable by human-caused climatic change, and that record warmth fueled the drought that set up these fires."

  • Cardinal statements from Dr. Roger Pielke Jr testimony ( full text available here ).

"There is picayune scientific basis in support of claims that farthermost weather events – specifically, hurricanes, floods, drought, tornadoes – and their economic damage have increased in recent decades due to the emission of greenhouse gases. In fact, since 2013 the world and the United states of america have had a remarkable stretch of good fortune with respect to extreme weather, every bit compared to the past."

"That human activities have led to changes in the globe system is broadly accepted. And so too is the possibility that such changes could pb to undesirable outcomes in the futurity."

From the Q&A

  • Dr. Judith Curry

[Asked to list key areas of uncertainty in climate scientific discipline] "Climate models take a big amplifying effect from clouds and water vapor. The magnitude of this amplifying effect, and even the sign, are in dispute. A lot about the oceans that we don't understand, how the body of water transports heat and carbon in the vertical is not well represented in the climate models. We as well have these very large-scale, long-term ocean oscillations, which play a huge office in determining our climate. These are not well simulated and we don't take proficient documentation of the really long time flow oscillations. The furnishings of the Sun on climate, especially the indirect solar furnishings."

  • Dr. John Christy

[Asked to explain reason for model-observation temperature mismatch he showed] "the models tend to be too sensitive to greenhouse gases, likely related to the fact the models tend to compress clouds more than than in reality, so that more sunlight gets in and heats up the Earth more. … The World has a way to release the heat that greenhouse gases try to build upwards."

  • Mr. Brooks:

"What we generally see in the news media is that if at that place is global warming, and it makes sense at first blush, well you're going to see water ice melt and you're going to see the body of water levels ascent, so we are going to have all sorts of damage to our coastal areas as a consequence. But while I was here in Antarctica, I met with a number of National Science Foundations that all contended that there was some degree of global warming but they added that if there was a slight or modest global warming that the sea levels would fall not ascension. Let me emphasize that: that the sea levels if there is slight or modest global warming will fall not rising."

"First that the chief corporeality of water ice on the planet is here in Antarctica. Roughly 85% more than or less of the total corporeality of water ice on the planet. Second that if the temperatures rise a footling bit, it is going to behave more moisture which in Antarctica is going to exist deposited over huge land mass that is larger than the size of the United States of America, by fashion of examples some level of ice I think that the mean is around 6000 feet deep, South Pole is more that and some some places in that location in Antarctica it'south every bit much equally 3 miles thick and that it takes hundred of years for that ice that is fallen in Antarctica to actually reach the coast line. Which ways that if temperatures goes up a little bit because of this effect you are really looking at more snow and water ice existence deposited on in Antarctica and h2o being taken from the oceans more than offsetting whatever melt in that location may exist in Greenland or the Arctic. So what are your thoughts on that theory or argument that they were raising to united states in Antarctica?"

  • Dr. Judith Curry

"The idea of warmer oceans translating into more snowfall seems to be a existent one only then there is glacier dynamics, it's a very complex situation."…

"It's actually only the last decades or and so that have had really really good measurements of glacier topography and we tin really runway the mass balance so nosotros do need the observations from satellites and also field experiments to sort out this event."…

"There is dubiousness but you lot are seeing  the accumulation over East Antarctic whereas on the West Antarctic Ice shelves y'all are seeing net melting and then there is some spatial variability. And in that location is significant uncertainties in our estimates of all this peculiarly the further back you go."

  • Dr. Michael Mann:

"We take widespread measurements now from satellites, directly measurements of the total water ice mass contained in the water ice sail, and in that location is no question that the 2 main potential contributors to global sea level rise, the Greenland ice canvass and the due west Antarctic Ice sheet are losing ice. And we know that that loss of ice means that the ice sail are contributing to sea level rising already. Now we hear and so much about doubt as if doubt is a reason for inaction only in this case the uncertainties are breaking against u.s. considering we are actually seeing more rapid loss of ice from these ice sheets than the climate models that many hither criticize had predicted in the past. That means that nosotros are going to see more sea level rise in the near term than the models had predicted."

  • Ms. Suzanne Bonamici:

"We know that homo contributions to climate change take vast and alarming effects including rising sea levels, body of water acidification, melting glaciers, nosotros only got the alarming study recently most the great bulwark reef, climatic change is damaging our environment, our economy, our food sources and fossil fuels emissions also contribute to higher rates of asthma, lung and center diseases, threatening the lives of our children and grandchildren…"

  • Dr. Michael Isle of man:

"The surface and near surface temperature records (in fact if we could show exhibit A from my written statement here) shows that all the surface and almost surface temperature records agree that there is a steady long term pattern of warming. That's true for the temperatures measured past thermometers at the surface, the balloon measurements in the lower atmosphere, and both John's satellite dataset and other estimates from the same satellite data."

"In global warming the lower part of the atmosphere, including where nosotros live, the troposphere warms, and the stratosphere cools. His [Christy's] satellites estimates actually smear some of that cooling stratosphere into that he is calling the upper troposphere and that is the reason for the discrepancy. If he was correct that it was warming less quickly than the models predict, …, it would imply a higher climate sensitivity."

  • Dr. John Christy:

"The satellites, balloons and reanalyses, ten different measurement systems show the same affair, all include the stratosphere portion which is very tiny in the torrid zone, the models included it every bit well. And then it was an apples to apples comparison. What I showed was a legitimate scientific test. And I would like to but say one other thing, science is not done by polling, it's done past numbers …. Nosotros run across that climate models do fail when compared confronting real data."

  • Mr Higgins:

"Can you lot explain why some would say with such certainty that farthermost weather events will increase given the fact that they take not."

  • Dr Pielke:

"Well they may increase however in the future. And at that place is a number of projections fabricated by the IPCC that advise that they might. And that'south part of the uncertainty associated with science.

"If yous look at the IPCC and mainstream scientific discipline, nosotros shouldn't await to run into the point in human caused climate change in increasing farthermost events for decades, and many decades into the hereafter."

  • Dr Curry:

"My primary indicate is that I remember there are a lot of uncertainties and that the climate models and the data etc. are not fit for the purpose for drawing highly confident conclusions almost what has been causing the recent warming. It's been warming for hundreds of years! And we can't explain all of that, you know, due to human causes."

  • Jerry McNerney

"And these are measurements in the sea, in the atmosphere, all over the whole planet?"

  • Dr. Michael Isle of man

"That is right. And to people who say they don't trust the surface temperature record, well we accept got measurements from the ocean surface, nosotros have measurements from the country, on all the continents, we have got the southern hemisphere, the northern hemisphere. They all point in the aforementioned management. We have got lots of contained data from holes in the basis, diameter holes, an independent way of estimating surface temperatures back in time. Dozens of contained lines of evidence that all come together telling us the same thing. That is how science works. That is why there is a consensus. Not because we are standing effectually belongings hands. Because contained teams of scientists coming at the trouble from unlike angles arriving at the same consistent answer over and over once more."

  • Jerry McNerney

"Give thanks you. This is from testimony. Dr Pielke. He asserts that since 2013 the world and the United States have had a remarkable stretch of good fortune with respect to extreme conditions as compared to the by. Would you respond to that delight?"

  • Dr. Michael Isle of man

"Yeah. And then Roger is pointing to outdated reports, to outdated data. Iii years ago he actually posted the following on his weblog: He said, 'I am no longer conducting research or academic writing related to climate…' That is what he said dorsum in 2015. Well that is three years ago. In that location has been a lot of progress over the past three years. We but published an article in the Journal Scientific Reports a few days agone that reaffirms what scientists are at present finding. In that location are whole teams of scientists at present that when in that location is an farthermost weather event they can employ what is known equally detection and attribution. They can really compare models and observations and judge how much more than likely that event might have been fabricated by human caused climate modify and in many of the extreme droughts and flooding events that nosotros take seen in recent years those groups have positively attributed those events. They have said that those events were sufficiently unlikely to accept happened without human being caused global warming so that we tin say at a relatively loftier level of certainty that climate modify did impact that event. Non that it created the event. Information technology fabricated it worse. It made it bigger.

  • Lamar Smith:

" I will put in the record an oped from The Wall Street Journal chosen "Keeping cool" about hot temperatures which points out that even though it is claimed that 2016 was the hottest year on record and 2015 was the hottest yr on record before that 2014 the hottest twelvemonth earlier that–all iii instances the temperatures were within the margin of error and that in fact in 2014 NASA admitted that they were only 38 percent confident of that temperature. That is less than half."

  • Daniel Webster:

"I would like to enquire Dr. Curry, What caused the water ice historic period?"

  • Dr. Judith Back-scratch:

"The large ice ages? Well information technology has to do with the orbital … variation, changes in the tilt of the earth'south axis, and then there are complex feedbacks with the ocean's circulation and the carbon cycle. So are we at a point where nosotros have consummate predictive agreement of the ice ages? The answer is no. But that is our current understanding relates to earth dominicus geometry long-term deep circulations in the ocean and the carbon wheel….If yous look at the climate of the twentieth century you lot saw a pretty steep warming tendency in the early role of the century up until about 1940, 1945. And this was at a time when there was very little human input of carbon dioxide. And so we saw a cooling tendency from the mid-40s to the mid-70s. And this is what I guess triggered concerns nigh the water ice age. And so at that place was a massive reorganization of oceans circulations in the Pacific in the mid-1970s — the so-called great climate shift — and then we saw increasing temperatures following that. And so trying to sort out what caused the early on warming catamenia and then the mid-century cooling period, I take argued that we demand to sympathise this earlier we have highly confident attribution arguments about the warming since the mid-1970s."

  • Donald Southward. Beyer

"If the vast majority of scientists are correct about the homo impact on global warming of yous accept 55 one thousand thousand people in People's republic of bangladesh that will be displaced. Or many countries including the Maldives that disappear from the Planet."

  • Pecker Foster

"And then y'all all agree that it is more than likely than not that this is a big problem if we go on business as usual?

  • Dr. Judith Curry:

"I would say every bit probable equally not."

  • Bill Foster:

Dr. Isle of man?

  • Dr. Michael Mann:

She [Curry] has argued that we might be responsible for less than fifty percent of the warming that we have seen. The IPCC has assessed that. They accept really estimated the likelihood that that could be true. Information technology is one in 10 thousand. 1 in 10 thousand is the likelihood of something she claims to be true. That is a rejection of basic climate scientific discipline.

  • Dr. Judith Curry:

Based on Climate models, I accept argued that the climate models are not fit for that purpose. It is a rejection of a manufactured consensus. That is what I decline….. Our understanding of the ecological impacts of ocean acidification is in its infancy and how this relates to ecosystems. We don't know very much about how tedious rates, highly variable sea acidification impacts ecosystems.

  • Barry Loudermilk

"Practice you believe that the climate is irresolute?"

  • Dr. Judith Curry:

"Absolutely. Climate has ever changed."

  • Barry Loudermilk:

"Exercise you lot believe human activity could be a cause?"

  • Dr. Judith Curry:

"Of course. It is a cause. It does contribute.The question is whether it is the dominant cause. And fifty-fifty the IPCC says more than half. That's from 51 percent to 99 percent. That is a large interval… I just don't know how much is human vs. how much is natural and I think there is a great deal of uncertainty and information technology is very difficult to untangle it…. Our understanding of climate dynamics on decades to century to millennial fourth dimension scales is far from complete.

  • Dr. Michael Mann:

I believe what the IPCC has said about this. That the proposition that nosotros are responsible for less than 50 percent of the warming can exist dismissed every bit a one in ten thousand. I accept the world scientists' consensus… Nosotros understand at a not bad level of detail the workings of the atmosphere the working of the oceans and the ice sheets and the way they collaborate. Thousands of scientists have been studying these things for decades. We understand the science of climate but about also as the scientific discipline of any other field.

  • Dr. John Christy:

I would just like to add that when we understand other fields of science, we can predict the behavior. I have demonstrated that we cannot predict the beliefs of climate.

  • Barry Loudermilk:

The National Academy of Science agrees with you. At to the lowest degree they did in the 1970s when they said, 'We do not accept a proficient quantitative agreement of our climate motorcar and what determines its form. Without the fundamental understanding it does not seem possible to predict the climate." Why did we accept a ban on sulfuric dioxide in the 1970s? Dr. Isle of man?

  • Dr. Michael Mann:

So you are right that more than 40 years ago nosotros did not take nigh the understanding that we have today. In 1975 the National Academy of Science really said they didn't know what was going to win out. They didn't say that global warming isn't caused by greenhouse gasses. What they were saying in that report was that we don't know what is going to win out. The warming effect of increasing greenhouse gasses or the cooling effect of these particulates that nosotros are producing.