🧵 @ISSUESinST several climate scientists & Marcia McNutt (@theNASEM pres) respond to @jritch & my recent article on misuse of climate scenarios, offering a unified defense of RCP8.5
First they defend RCP8.5 as "business as usual" stating that characterization "remains 100% accurate"
What to say? That's just wrong.
RCP8.5 depends on the building of >33,000 new coal plants by 2100, on top of current ~6,000
🤷♂️
Second, they appear to contradict themselves by stating that RCP8.5 was in fact "until recently" properly viewed as a plausible or even likely future
Again, this is objectively false
The world has never been on track for ~40,000 coal plants by 2100
Third, they also argue that the reality of RCP8.5 convinced the world to move away from it
RCP8.5 was never evaluated for its plausibility when created or used in many thousands of research papers, as we document
They claim its recognized failures now demonstrate its accuracy
Climate scientist @DrKateMarvel offers a different critique & in the process disagrees with Field/McNutt
She says RCP8.5 is not properly referred to as "business as usual"
Right, I had thought we were past this bit of semantics
Marvel states accurately that "even an unrealistic scenario can yield interesting science if used appropriately" (L)
Indeed, this is a puzzling critique because we make exactly the same point (R)
An issue she ignores is that much use RCP8.5 is inappropriate
Marvel ends on a political note warning that criticism of climate science aids the bad guys
Not sure the point of this - should we not be researching how scenarios are used and, yes, misused?
In a 3rd response NASA scientist @ClimateOfGavin & NASA strategic science advisor Peter Jacobs agree with much
They repeat a number of points we make about why climate scientists use extreme scenarios (e.g., to distinguish signal from noise in model runs)
They also agree on BAU
They blame the economic and energy modelers for being slow and unfunded, and that explains why the climate modelers have had to rely on implausible, dated scenarios
We suggest some other reasons, but at least we agree that scenarios are out-of-date
They also agree with us on a need to improve scenarios
Obviously if the "scientific community is already responding" then there must be an issue for them to be responding to, right?
They also highlight the new fad toward "scenario-free" climate research (a bad idea IMO)
After all those points of agreement (I actually missed any disagreement) they call our work "pointless and misleading"
😎
In sum:
1. RCP8.5 as BAU is entirely appropriate 2. RCP as BAU is incorrect but there are some scientific reasons for its use 3. RCP8.5 is dated, but the community is fixing it
🧵
Why are climate scientists so mad at me?
Here's one answer
For almost 30 yrs I've been writing abt the conflicts between (a) the special interests of the climate science community and (b) the broader social responsibilities of this community
Pretty normal STS fare ... read on
My 1994 PhD dissertation was an evaluation of the then newly-created US Global Change Research Program link.springer.com/content/pdf/10…
I argued that the USGCRP would do a lot of good science but have limited policy relevance (a conclusion later reached by a @theNASEM study)
I was a post-doc at NCAR when this paper came out
It resulted in a furor
NSF funded NCAR & the program officer who oversaw NSF funding was central to creation of USGCRP
My job was threatened
A huge debate ensued
UCAR leaders pushed back on the pressure
I kept my job
A preview...
Scenario misuse in climate science is far deeper and nuanced than semantics of reference scenarios (as some would have us believe)
They are also very pedestrian mistakes, common to efforts to use scenario methods in research
Not surprising or unique to climate, but significant
The petulance, name-calling and invented quotes we saw earlier today suggests that our first recommendation won't be easily taken😉
Easier to attack messengers than hear their messages
We all all suffer the consequences when science gets off track and some try to keep it there
The responses I've had today the this discussion have me optimistic that the powerful few gatekeepers in the climate space of 2009 are not so powerful in 2021
The teeth gnashing & name calling remains the same, but most now see it for what it is, and that's good news
Schmidt's refusal to acknowledge the incredible work @jritch and focus on me suggests that this is once again more of a personal issue he has with me than anything else
That would explain why his letter pretty much agrees with & acknowledges our claims while posturing otherwise
With the IEA now projecting a near-term emissions trajectory <RCP4.5 I've been taking a peek at the gatekeeping on RCP8.5 debates over recent years
A rich vein to explore
Really remarkable public evidence of how scientific progress gets stunted by a few powerful people
Examples
Despite @bradplumer recognizing implausibility of RCP8.5 in 2017 (props!) the NYT has apparently never written anything critical about the misuse of the scenario (my NYT search finds only 6 articles that explicitly mention RCP8.5 or "RCP 8.5")
With powerful figures Mann & Hayhoe (they weren't alone) warning critique of RCP8.5 is "denial," no wonder it has taken so long for researchers and journalists to deem its discussion to be legitimate
What's the difference between a for-profit climate analytics firm & a non-profit one, both living off of RCP8.5? 🤷♂️
I'm all for people making good money
Especially when they have paying clients for their services
But non-profit expectations are (and should be) different
Don't even get me started on sports organizations!
Latest haul of RCP8.5 headlines
Catnip for the climate beat and utterly irresponsible
The same group did the same analysis with the same conclusions based on RCP8.5 in 2015
Rinse, repeat
The exploitation of shoddy, inattentive peer-review processes by climate advocacy groups is extremely well done
Props to their cleverness
But that really shouldn’t happen
Some text peer reviewers can use when reviewing RCP8.5 (& similar) studies:
“RCP8.5 may have appropriate uses as an extreme, exploratory, implausible scenario, but it is absolutely and undeniably inappropriate to use to generate plausible or likely projections of the future.”