STATEMENT TO THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Hearing on “The President’s U.N. Climate Pledge”, 15 April 2015,
Judith A. Curry, Georgia Institute of Technology
Major points:
Recent data and research supports the importance of natural climate variability and calls into question the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change:
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The hiatus in global warming since 1998
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Reduced estimates of the sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide
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Climate models predict much more warming than has been observed in the early 21'st century. We have made some questionable choices in defining the problem of climate change and its solution:
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The definition of ‘dangerous’ climate change is ambiguous, and hypothesized catastrophic tipping points are regarded as very or extremely unlikely in the 21'st century.
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Efforts to link dangerous impacts of extreme weather events to human-caused warming are misleading and unsupported by evidence.
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Climate change is a ‘wicked problem’ and ill-suited to a ‘command and control’ solution
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It has been estimated that the U.S. INDC of 28% emissions reduction will prevent ONLY 0.03 deg-C in warming by 2100. The inadequacies of current policies based on the Precautionary Principle are leaving the real societal consequences of climate change and extreme weather events largely unaddressed
FULL REPORT: http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/judith_curry_house-science-testimony-apr-15-2015-final.pdf
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