Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
—Mark Twain
In 2007, climate science was on somewhat of a winning streak. Al Gore's summer 2006 documentary
An Inconvenient Truth
, love it or hate it, had introduced a far greater number of Americans to the
science of climate change than ever before. Many media outlets were now treating the scientific
evidence more seriously, not inserting a contrarian in every piece for “balance.” Even Frank Luntz of
the infamous “Luntz memo,” which had coached climate change deniers on their messaging back in
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Fourth Assessment Report, and with the
widespread and positive media coverage of the report's findings, there was finally a feeling within
the climate science community that our science had become generally accepted. For the time being,
anyway, climate change denial had been relegated to the fringe.
On October 12, 2007, there was a further development: The IPCC was co-awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize, along with former Vice President Al Gore. The several hundred of us who had served as
lead authors were each sent a plaque acknowledging our sharing of the honor. At an IPCC meeting
singled out by IPCC scientific working group chair Susan Solomon for special commendation for the
personal sacrifices made in the name of the IPCC. It was a good time to be a climate scientist. It was
an extraordinary experience to feel part of an international effort collectively lauded in this way.
AR4—What Say You?
The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was considerably more definitive in its conclusions
than its predecessors. “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the
mid-20th century,” the report said, “is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic
used in this latest assessment were considerably more refined than earlier generation models. They
could be run at much finer spatial scales, better resolving surface topography, regional wind patterns,
and current systems. The modeling of physical processes such as cloud formation had grown more
sophisticated. Many of the models were now producing realistic looking El Niño events, generating a
natural pattern of alternation between warming and cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific every few
years that resembled the real-world phenomenon—a strong indication of physical realism in the
models' treatment of climate dynamics. We now had six more years of observations since the IPCC
