Comments of the Center for Science and Public Policy on EPA’s Proposed Endangerment Finding (Part 1)

The Center for Science and Public Policy submitted the June 26, 2008 testimony of Roger A. Pielke, Sr., Ph.D. (Part 1) to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality on EPA’s Proposed Endangerment Finding.

Dr. Pielke reviews the computer modeling used by EPA in the Proposed Endangerment Finding and finds it “fatally flawed.” Scant attention is given to the wide variety of human climate forcings, focusing solely on carbon dioxide emissions. Citing a 2005 National Research Council report, Dr. Pielke states “the human role in the climate system is more diverse than focusing only on the global warming effects of CO2.” Because these forcings are not included in the computer models, they cannot predict future climate.

Dr. Pielke reports one of the lead authors of the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report admits “None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. … I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized. ... [T]he science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate.”

Furthermore, Dr. Pielke notes, there are severe problems with the land surface temperature records used to verify the models.