photo: Creative Commons / Genghiskhanviet

Given the UK’s commitment to carbon dioxide emission reductions and the global agreement to limit warming to 2°C, do we need to spend time, money and energy exploring for more oil and gas to extract from the North Sea? If the limits imposed by the Earth system and our political system’s response establish a total amount of future emissions, isn’t it quite likely that existing, already discovered reserves of fossil fuels are more than sufficient? If in fact it would be very unwise to burn all the current reserves, why bother looking for more? George Monbiot made a similar point as the Government were approving new coal mines: Leave It In The Ground

It strikes me as odd, that neither the press release nor any of the other documentation associated with this new licensing phase even mentions the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the production and inevitable combustion of the newly discovered oil and gas they are hoping for. This omission leaves DECC looking schizophrenic, with one hand attempting to meet onerous emission reductions whilst the other simultaneously desperately scratches out the last remaining fossil fuels available.

According to the university’s page it consists of:

• 1008 Intel Nehalem compute nodes with two 4-core processors;
• 8064 processor-cores providing over 72 TFlops;
• Standard compute nodes have 22 GB of RAM per node;
• 32 high-memory nodes with 45 GB of RAM per node;
• All nodes are connected to a high speed disk system with 110 TB of storage;

In the video Dr Oz Parchment suggests that in the world supercomputer ranking this new system would place around 83rd, interestingly he also notes that 5-6 years ago it could have been number 1. That’s the pace of computer improvement. Let’s compare with the basic office PC I’m writing this on, it cost around £600. It’s based around Intel’s Core i5-750 CPU, running at 2.66GHz. The Intel specification sheet give this CPU a floating point performance of 42.56 GFlops (billion floating point operations per second). This sounds reasonable when we consider the supercomputer with its 2016 CPUs is reported to have 72 TFlops suggesting 36 GFlops per processor. After all, Supercomputers are just large numbers of regular processors (and memory) connected together with a fast bus.

We can run Parchment’s rough calculation for my computer. How far back in time do we have to go for my standard desktop PC to be considered a supercomputer?

Since 1993 a list of the world’s fastest supercomputers has been maintained, Top 500. Going back to the beginning, we see that in 1993 a CM-5/1024 developed by Thinking Machines Corporation and owned by Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US held the top spot. This was also the computer used in the control room in the Jurassic Park film. Here’s what just a few nodes looked like, the Los Alamos system was far larger:

Thinking Machines' CM-5 Supercomputer

Being the fastest computer of it’s day it would have cost millions, been staffed by a team of engineers and scientists and been employed on the most computationally taxing investigations being carried out anywhere in the world. I expect it spent most of its time working on nuclear weapons. According to this the CM-5 cost $46k per node in 1993, which would price the Los Alamos National Laboratory system at $47 million, or around $70 million in today’s money. It’s performance? A theoretical peak of 131 GFlops, with a benchmark achieved performance of 59.7 GFlops. The same ball park as my run of the mill office computer today. It was also twice as fast as number two and ten times the power of the 20th ranked system.

What this means is that the computational resources available at the cutting edge just 17 years ago, now sit on everyone’s desk running Office 2010.

In 1997 I was lucky enough to visit the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (EMCWF). They had recently taken delivery of a new Fujitsu VPP700/116 and had claimed the 8th spot in the Top 500 ranking with a theoretical peak of 255.2 GFlops. The system was used for 10-day weather forecasts. This image shows a 56 node VPP700 system, the EMCWF system was ~twice the size:

Fujitsu VPP700 Supercomputer

Using off the shelf components, a similarly powerful desktop computer could be built for a few thousand pounds using four Intel Xeon processors.

State of the art computer performance from a little over a decade ago, is now available to everyone able to afford a modern PC. We’re all using supercomputers. Could we be doing more with our computers than playing games and Microsoft Office 2010?

Today I’ve come across Coalition of the Willing, a fantastic little film about addressing climate change without the illusive unanimous agreement between governments.

Coalition Of The Willing from coalitionfilm on Vimeo.

‘Coalition of the Willing’ is a collaborative animated film and web-based event about an online war against global warming in a ‘post Copenhagen’ world.

‘Coalition of the Willing’ has been Directed and produced by Knife Party, written by Tim Rayner and crafted by a network of 24 artists from around the world using varied and eclectic film making techniques. Collaborators include some of the world’s top moving image talent, such as Decoy, World Leaders and Parasol Island.

The film offers a response to the major problem of our time: how to galvanize and enlist the global publics in the fight against global warming. This optimistic and principled film explores how we could use new Internet technologies to leverage the powers of activists, experts, and ordinary citizens in collaborative ventures to combat climate change. Through analyses of swarm activity and social revolution, ‘Coalition of the Willing’ makes a compelling case for the new online activism and explains how to hand the fight against global warming to the people.

To find out all about the project and to join our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, or get the iPhone App visit:
http://coalitionofthewilling.org.uk/

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published their quarterly Energy Trends document last week. It covers up to the first quarter 2010. The key points:

• Total energy production in Q1 2010 was 6.5% lower than in the first quarter of 2009.
• Oil production fell by 6% compared to the first quarter of 2009.
• Natural gas production was 9% lower compared with the first quarter of 2009. The UK was a net importer of gas in the first quarter of 2010 by 155 TWh compared with 106 TWh in the first quarter of 2009.
• Coal production was 12.5% lower than a year earlier.
• Nuclear’s supply increased by 1% on the first quarter of 2009.
• Wind, hydro and other renewables supplied 6.5% less electricity than in the same period last year, with hydro down 44% as a result of less rainfall.
• Final energy consumption rose by 4% between the first quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010, with rises in all sectors except transport which fell mainly due to the adverse weather conditions.
• Gas demand was 13% higher than a year earlier.
• Electricity consumption was 2.5% higher in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period last year.

It’s a familiar story: every year the UK’s primary energy production declines significantly. Today, primary energy production is almost half what it was at the peak just a decade ago. Has any other country, let alone major economy experienced such a speed and magnitude shift in its energy system outside wartime?

The rises in the demand data above are largely due to the colder winter and a degree of recovery from the recession. One could argue the decline in indigenous production played a role in the recession. If it did, I suggest it was a small role.

Data from DUKES 1.1-1.3.

The annual energy deficit in 2008 was 57.5 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe). That’s a lot of energy to import. The breakdown of this deficit in 2008 was 42% coal, 36% gas and 19% oil. Let’s just make a quick estimation on how much this is costing:

In 2008 the gap cost the UK approximately £10 bn. Fuel prices were a little lower in 2009 (especially coal and gas at -17% and -15% respectively) and the recession closed the gap from 57.5 to 53 mtoe. A few years ago the energy sector was a net source of income for the UK. No longer. The government deficit and the growing debt is receiving the media attention, this energy deficit, now it its fifth year remains largely ignored.

Following the May election, the UK now has a new Energy Minister:

Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

On the 24 June 2010, Huhne gave a speech to the Economist UK Energy Summit, it can be watched here: VIDEO

Did he address the chart above, our energy deficit in the same way chancellor George Osborne had addressed the fiscal deficit in his emergency budget earlier in the week? Well no, not directly. Economic recovery, energy security and climate stabilisation were identified as the key challenges. He isn’t a politician to question growth but did address the type of growth. “…dependence on fossil fuel would be folly. It would make us vulnerable to oil price spikes and volatility.” He called for a decarbonised economy stimulating growth and delivering on climate change and energy security. Sounds good but surely it is having one’s cake and eating it?

After stressing the urgency and seriousness of climate change Huhne addressed energy security. “It is vital we make the most of our domestic oil and gas assets…” indicating at least 20 billion barrels oil equivalent remain in UK waters and that we must continue to invest in exploration. His first mutually exclusive objective of delivering growth through decarbonising is now joined by his second of addressing climate change whist continuing to explore for new fossil fuel resources.

£200 bn of energy investment was said to be needed over the next decade, largely to replace existing assets. On new nuclear, Huhne stressed it will go ahead, but only if it can do so with no public subsidy. In my opinion this all but rules out nuclear as there is little precedent for wholly privately funded nuclear, but we shall have to wait and see. Whatever happens, it will be late with respect to the decommissioning schedule of the existing fleet of nuclear power stations.

Efficiency was described as the fourth energy resource (relegating nuclear and renewables to 5th and 6th?)–the cheapest way of closing the energy gap between demand and supply – “the Cinderella of the energy ball”. Smart meters and grids received a nod but he focused mainly on the existing aged housing stock. “Most of the homes in use in 2050 have already been built … we used more energy heating our homes than Sweden, where average January temperatures are 7 degrees Celsius lower than ours.” Addressing existing homes will be Huhne’s flagship programme. He’s talking about insulating millions of homes. It seems the improvements will be funded at least in part through the energy savings and recovered directly from household utility bills.

“The era of cheap energy is over. …tomorrow’s energy bills will undoubtedly be higher”

When asked about the lights going out, he ruled out wind and nuclear coming to the rescue due to the timeframe, but he stated gas fired power stations can be built in 18 months and assured us the lights wouldn’t go out on his watch. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) was described as vital to meeting climate objectives whilst keeping the lights on.

So in summary, Huhne didn’t address the fundamental peaking of energy supplies which surely should be the key driver for national energy policy today. The inconsistencies of shooting for growth whilst reducing energy use along with addressing climate change (by which I can only assume he means reducing carbon emissions) while encouraging future exploration for oil and gas are glaring. Meinshausen et. al. showed in their Nature paper last year the world has more than enough proved fossil fuel reserves already from a climate change point of view without having to discover more. His enthusiasm for CCS is also worrisome and I would see as largely incompatible with energy peaking scenarios. His focus on energy efficiency and especially domestic energy use is positive though. However there was no mention of transport at all.

New government, new minister but we still seem little closer to recognising the challenges ahead.

Natural gas is regarded as a relatively environmentally friendly way of generating electricity. Gas burns cleanly without many of the problems associated with coal. Coal is a chemically complex substance. When it is is burnt, it releases oxides of sulphur (SO_x) and nitrogen (NO_x), traces of mercury, selenium and arsenic, as well as particulates, and a non-combustible slag remains after burning. Coal mining is also a dirty and dangerous job.

Coal emits considerably more CO₂ than natural gas per unit energy. However, natural gas (CH₄) itself is a potent greenhouse gas, and its release to the atmosphere without being burnt can quickly compensate for the CO₂ advantage against coal.

Generating electricity from fossil fuels typically involves their combustion in large power stations. Due to the molecular differences of coal, oil and gas, different amounts of carbon dioxide are produced for each unit of thermal energy. For example, the EIA tells us coal (anthracite) releases 227 pounds of CO₂ per million BTU (or 351 g/kWh thermal), fuel oil or diesel 161 lb/MBTU (249 g/kWh) and natural gas releases 115 lb/MBTU (178 g/kWh). This, coupled with the variability in power station thermal efficiency leads to significant variations in the amount of CO₂/kWh of electricity emitted.

The figures below are for the UK electricity grid.

This table was lifted from: http://electricityinfo.org/co2emissions.php

These CO₂ emissions are directly related to the fossil fuel combustion and power station efficiency. Lifecycle emissions are not included, leaving nuclear and renewables at zero, because emissions related to construction, decommissioning, uranium processing etc. are ignored. Natural gas is considered the ‘greener’ fuel as electricity from gas emits 2.5 times less CO₂ than coal, as well dramatically lower CO, NO_x and virtually no SO_x or particulates.

There is an issue of system boundaries here. The figures above only consider the power station and not any upstream supply system. While CH₄ may leak from the gas pipelines, there are also CH₄ releases from coal mines. For this post, let’s consider emissions after the mine mouth or well head, and ignore emissions associated with transporting coal.

For oil and coal, the only significant route into the atmosphere is via combustion. However, besides being burnt, natural gas can be released without combustion as methane, CH₄. This becomes interesting when one considers both the impact of atmospheric emissions of CO₂ and CH₄. Both are greenhouse gases in that they that absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, however their respective radiative forcings are very different. The radiative forcing measures how much a greenhouse gas (or other factors) alters the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth-atmosphere system.

The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) part of the US Dept. of Energy uses Global Warming Potential (GWP), as it provides a simple measure of the radiative effects of emissions of various greenhouse gases, integrated over a specified time horizon and relative to an equal mass of CO₂ emissions. Over a common 100 year time horizon CDIAC state the global warming potential of CH₄ as 25 times greater than CO₂ [link]. The calculation is not trivial, and estimations do vary a little, but for this analysis the factor 25 is sufficient.

We saw above that natural gas emits 2.5 times less CO₂ than coal when used to generate electricity. However, when CH₄ is released to the atmosphere without first being combusted, the global warming potential is 25 times higher than CO₂. It is a more potent greenhouse gas. If only a little natural gas is released without being burnt, it will dominate the radiative forcing and more than compensate for the 2.5-fold advantage gas has over coal.

The chart illustrates this effect:

On the left, CO₂ emissions per kWh for coal and natural gas. On the right, the global warming potential of leaked CH₄ expressed as CO₂

If the natural gas leak rate is 3%, the global warming potential of a kilowatt-hour of electricity from gas is equivalent to coal.

Leak Rates

So what are pipeline leak rates? A 1997 US Environmental Protection Agency report states US methane leak rates were 1.4 +/- 0.5 % in 1992. The largest source of leakage at that time was compressor components used in the processing, transmission, and storage, followed by the distribution network itself, with the small length of old cast iron pipes leaking disproportionately highly. The natural gas production process also contributes through millions of slowly leaking pneumatic control devices. A larger study carried out from 2005 by Brazil’s largest gas distributer Comgas suggests cast iron pipe leak rates double the EPA study.

A 1990 study for Greenpeace considered the UK distribution network then operated by British Gas. Greenpeace estimated low, medium and high scenario leakage rates of 1.9%, 5.3% and 10.8% respectively. This was in contrast to the 1% claimed by British Gas at the time. The authors were confident leakage rates were above 1.9%. These figures are likely obsolete today as there still existed a large amount of pre-1970 cast iron pipe work, much of it since replaced. In 1990 only 39% of the UK mains and 74% of the service pipes were plastic.

The 1.4% figure is also old, and only refers to the US, but it is a significant magnitude, it represents a 70% increase in global warming potential compared to the CO₂ alone and halves the CO₂ advantage gas has over coal based on the 360 and 890 g/kWh figures above.

Whilst these figures do not tip gas beyond coal, they halve its advantage. They are also only national. For the US this is quite understandable, but for the UK and Europe, the gas system is changing. Could leak rates become important as natural gas supply routes become longer? As Europe increases its reliance on Russia, as previously stranded gas is brought to market through longer pipelines than before, as a larger number of smaller deposits are exploited and as existing infrastructure ages, it seems likely that leak rates will increase. We often hear about struggles in the former Soviet states related to gas – is the leak rate there one percent or five? Is it economically feasible for the pipeline operator to make investments to stem the last percentage point of a system’s leaks?

Is it possible that a ‘green’ gas power station in the UK is making a greater contribution to global warming than one burning coal?

Does anyone have recent data on leakage rates, especially for Russia and Eastern Europe?

Rahmstorf, S. and A. Ganopolski, 1999: Long-term global warming scenarios computed with an efficient coupled climate model. Climatic Change, 43, 353-367.

Deviation of the annual mean surface air temperature from its zonal average - Rahmstorf (1999)

The provided caption reads:

Deviation of the annual-mean surface air temperature from its zonal average, computed from the NCAR air temperature climatology. Anomalously cold areas are found over some continental regions, anomalously warm areas over ocean deep water formation regions.

The term “zonal average” means the average along a line of latitude. Meridional refers to longitude (think Greenwich Meridian). The chart shows that the average air temperature off Scandinavia is some 10 °C warmer than the average temperature at the latitude (60 to 70 degrees North). NCAR refers to The National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Rahmstorf explains in his paper how this temperature deviation is the result of heat being transported by ocean currents, currents that do vary over time and could be impacted by future climate change. This warming is the result of the thermohaline circulation (THC), driven by global density gradients created by surface heat (thermo) and freshwater fluxes (haline). Variation in the THC could have a dramatic cooling influence in the North Atlantic as climate change impacts both heat and freshwater flux. As far as I am aware though it is not currently possible to measure and model the interactions accurately enough to make confident predictions about the likelihood of the THC being significantly impacted as a result of climate change.

I think this is an interesting chart as it illustrates just how exceptionally warm the North Atlantic and northwestern Europe are for their latitude. The UK for example sits between 50 and 60 degrees North. Within that band we also find the southern tip of Greenland, Vancouver (home of the 2010 winter Olympics), Moscow and the chilly waters of Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Alaska.

This is a good news story. Climate Change Minister Joan Ruddock is quoted in the press release:

Today’s emissions score card shows that the UK’s climate change policies are working and that we’re on track to meet our carbon targets.

We’re putting in place policies to make the low carbon transition by supporting investment in clean energy, in insulating homes and creating green jobs.

Call me a spoil sport, but I don’t buy it. One has to be careful when thinking about correlation and causation. I put it to you that the 1.9% decline in UK CO2e emissions from 2007 to 2008 was not in fact due to the “UK’s climate change policies” as Ruddock would have us believe but an inevitable result of the recession the country entered that year.

The Quarterly national accounts for 4th quarter 2008 (published 27th March 2009) can shed some light on the matter. The following charts show UK GDP growth, then the separate performance of the manufacturing and service sectors as we entered recession in 2008. Note the vertical scales are different.

Whilst total GDP growth for 2008 was still just positive for 2008 at 0.5% (the declines didn’t really manifest until the 2nd half of the year) this hides the fact that the relatively energy and carbon intense manufacturing sector was disproportionately hit by the recession.

I’m disappointed by the disingenuous (at best) way the Government is presenting the emission data. Claiming responsibility and credit whilst not recognising the surely highly significant role the recession has played in reducing UK emissions.

Looking forward, what can we expect? 2009 is very likely to show a further decline, strongly influenced by the continued decline in the economy. It is as I highlighted in a post a few months ago, economic collapse (as seen by the Soviet Union) is a tremendous way of cutting CO2 emissions.

I don’t think that is the climate change policy Joan Ruddock has in mind!

It’s actually Sunday afternoon on the 31st January 2010. I happened to be in Putney on the banks of the river Thames and was surprised to watch the river come over its banks and flood the nearby road. By the look of the parked and flooded cars I wasn’t the only surprised onlooker that afternoon.

I managed to take a few photos on my phone. The photos were taken between 15:08 and 15:12, high tide was officially 15:16 in Putney that day so this was pretty much it. A Putney tide table is available here: http://tides.rjen.me.uk/

The site contains a tide table for Putney Bridge, just a few hundred metres from where the photos were taken (visible in the second shot). The table says the projected high tide height was 7.4 m, certainly a high tide but the projection for the following day was 7.5 m and scanning down the table every ~28 days high tides exceed seven metres for a few days at a time. I don’t believe this high tide was contributed to by particularly strong easterly winds, low air pressure or high proceeding precipitation in the Thames catchment area. This is normal, London and its millions of inhabitants live at sea level. There isn’t much margin to accommodate the potential 1 m (or possible as much as 2 m) sea level rise the science is indicating could occur by 2100, 90 years from now.

The only point to keep in mind is that this road, The Embankment, is the ‘wrong’ side of what flood defences do exist. In some ways it could be said to give a more accurate impression of how vulnerable London is. Were it not for the hard engineered flood defences many more roads would regularly look like this. The map at the bottom of the page is from the Environment Agency (click here for dynamic version). It shows these hard defences in pink and the areas at risk of flooding without defences.

The long term view, several hundred years, could easily see sea level rise of several meters. At which point cities on tidal estuaries like the Thames are unlikely to be viable. What should one do today, if one believes much of London to be uninhabitable in several hundred years time? How much should be invested to protect the city for the next hundred or two hundred years, if its loss four hundred years from now is inevitable? Of course these numbers are just educated guesses but the question is a serious one.

London flood map from the UK Environment Agency

Geoengineering solutions for combating global warming fall into two broad categories. The first, Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), addresses the principal cause of climate change by removing CO2 from the atmosphere, and so reducing the greenhouse effect. The second, Solar Radiation Management (SRM), involves countering the warming effects of high atmospheric CO2 by reflecting some of the radiation from the sun.

Examples of suggested CDR techniques include biochar; aforestation; ocean fertilisation; and enhancement of weathering. SRM methods include increasing the albedo of the earth, such as by painting building roofs white; increasing the reflection of radiation from the stratosphere by releasing aerosols; and space-based methods which reduce the amount of radiation reaching the earth, such as by launching reflectors into space.

The immediate benefit of CDR over SRM is that it removes CO2 and so would counter ocean acidification (and other CO2-related problems), whereas SRM only prevents warming. However, some methods for SRM could be deployed very rapidly, most CDR methods would take years or decades to become effective.

The only panelist who opposed any further research into geoengineering was Greenpeace senior scientist Dr. David Santillo. The opinion of Greenpeace, and of many other opponents, is that focussing on geoengineering solutions to the climate problem diverts attention (and funds) from what is sometimes termed ‘Plan A’: the reduction of CO2 emissions. The possibility of a ‘Plan B’ may be regarded by governments, industry and the public as an excuse to continue burning all remaining fossil fuel reserves. An uncertain cure in the place of a more reliable prevention.

However, it can not be assumed that all serious advocates of climate geoengineering see it as an alternative to emissions reduction, but rather as a necessary additional measure. This is the logical conclusion from the increasingly popular view that present levels of atmospheric CO2 are already so high that certain tipping points in the earth climate system have been reached (most recently). This position asserts that even if emissions fall to zero tomorrow, ‘catastrophic climate change’ is still probable.

The problems with geoengineering are wide-ranging and hard to predict, but stem from three main areas:

Firstly, designing successful methods to reduce either atmospheric CO2 levels, or solar radiation absorption require an excellent understanding of the earth system. At the Royal Society, Professor Corinne Le Quéré, from the University of East Anglia, reminded us that current models are still not accurately reproducing observation in a number of fields, Arctic ice melt, for example.

Secondly, implementation of the technology itself could prove prohibitively expensive. This is certainly the case with space-based SRM methods. As well as monetary costs, implementation of some technologies may be expensive in terms of space and resources. Aforestation, for instance, risks competing for fertile land with agriculture.

Thirdly, and perhaps most critically, major geoengineering projects would require international cooperation. Although some CDR techniques, such as biochar and land use changes, could be applied in specific areas, without need for consent from others, they would actually need to be implemented across large areas of the world to be effective. Certain SRM techniques, however, could be carried out by one country (perhaps by releasing aerosols into the stratosphere), and would be effective over the entire globe. This category of technique could be damaging to the climates of certain parts of the world, for example by reducing precipitation. Added to this is the fact that once a particular SRM is started, it will have to continue indefinitely. If suddenly terminated, rapid warming would commence, with disastrous consequences. After the recent failure of world leaders to agree upon emission reductions at Copenhagen, how can we rely upon them to reach an agreement over the much more complex issue of geoengineering?

Plan A may have already failed, plan B is not a silver bullet solution, which leads me to consider plan C: Adaptation. Millions, perhaps billions of people are at risk of being displaced by sea level rise, drought, famine and other effects of climate change. Humankind has adapted to changes in climate before, by migrating, by changes in behaviour, and by inventing new technologies. With a population of nearly seven billion, the task is certainly tougher this time. But perhaps it’s the most feasible option left to us.

In a far ranging discussion here are a few points that stuck out to me:

Despite many years of training few scientists have training to understand the media. This is becoming well recognised and most universities are starting to offer training, especially for their more prominent academics but it remains the exception rather than the rule. A book that I think all scientists should find time to read is “Don’t be such a scientist” by Randy Olson. It was recently reviewed on Real Climate.

Journalists tend not to have subscriptions to scientific journals, they literally can’t see our science. Even if they could, many papers would remain illegible due to the specialist terminology and assumed knowledge. A proposal from the floor was for journals to require from paper authors a “layperson version” of the paper. It could be a short summary, written for a general audience, with a figure or two. This would be available on the journal’s website for free providing much needed public content for the journal and a way for the core message of the science to find a wider audience.

There exists a tension between knowledge and uncertainty. Too often specialists aren’t willing to give the certainty media craves. The situation may arise where an editor has a story, they phone their pet scientist, known and trusted for advice. Most likely is that the scientist won’t be the expert so will refer the editor on to someone else. Someone the editor doesn’t know and doesn’t have time to develop a relationship with. There’s a four-hour deadline after all. The point is the editor only needs to know the general stuff and the scientist probably knows enough, more than the editor anyway. If the scientist refers the editor either the true expert will baffle the editor with way more information than they need or the editor will just write up the story themselves. We should be braver, run with what we do know, with caveats if need be. The expert fine detail isn’t always required or even desirable.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen makes a very good point in a 2007 paper:
Scientific reticence and sea level rise

Reticence is fine for the IPCC. And individual scientists can choose to stay within a comfort zone, not needing to worry that they say something that proves to be slightly wrong. But perhaps we should also consider our legacy from a broader perspective. Do we not know enough to say more?

One fascinating question to the room was how many have written on the web, a blog or Wikipedia? Only a few admitted blogs, no one raised their hand to Wikipedia. Scientists tend only to publish in peer-reviewed journals, however the general public and the media don’t read them. Oops. They read the web but scientists aren’t writing on the web! In a room full of sea level rise experts none had contributed to the Wikipedia article on sea level rise. Who had written it!? There is no encouragement or recognition for scientists to communicate in the forum most people get their information from. I will keep writing this blog!

The discussion did come back to sea level rise, what image represents sea level rise? Shouts included Katrina, Tuvalu etc. however it was pointed out these examples are scientifically controversial. The problem is how do you communicated mm per year without using these emotional, controversial images? It’s a scale issue. The science works on scales that people aren’t interested in. People care about weather not climate. The useful response was to reframe mm per year into insurance premiums, 200-year flood events becoming 50-year events and so on. Same science but human language.

Predictably the media’s treatment of climate change with 50:50, “balanced” debates was raised. Journalists are trained in politics, economics and law where there are often two sides worthy of equal coverage. Journalism is all about finding the other point of view, it simply doesn’t handle science well. It was suggested that the BBC at least is improving in this area now.

Whist the debate focused on science and the media, the actual decision makers with respect to sea level rise at least, are often local government. There doesn’t seem to be much of a communication channel between the sea level scientists and local governments at all.

Finally, The Oil Drum was founded by a couple of US academics [edit: see 2nd comment]. Key to their motivations was dissatisfaction with the traditional academic publishing process. It simply took too long to go from idea to published paper and once published few people read it. Blogging reduced a process that took months, to days or even hours and increased eyes by an order of magnitude or three. Blogging also enables academics to more easily write outside their recognised specialism.