With the recent inquiries into the science and reporting of climate change, how will research and media coverage of climate science change? During today's OnPoint, Jay Gulledge, senior scientist and director of the Science and Impacts Program at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, discusses the recent inquiries into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report. He also assesses the media's role in the reporting of the "Climategate" controversy.

Transcript

Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to the show. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today is Dr. Jay Gulledge, senior scientist and director of the Science and Impacts Program at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Jay, thanks for coming on the show.

Jay Gulledge: It's my pleasure, thanks for having me.

Monica Trauzzi: Jay, the science of climate change is back in the news and there have been many questions relating to the accuracy of the IPCC report raised in recent days. Most mainstream scientists though have downplayed the errors that were found in the IPCC report because they don't see that they have a direct impact on the overall idea, the bigger picture that humans are causing global warming. How has the science changed since we've seen these questions come out about the IPCC report?

Jay Gulledge: Well, Monica, I think it's very important that people understand where these errors occurred. There are only two of them, as far as I know, that have been confirmed. They occurred in a part of the report that's not about the basic science of climate change. I think it's important for people to understand that the report is composed of three volumes. One of those volumes talks about the basic physical science of climate change. That's the one where they explored whether or not the Earth is warming, whether or not humans are causing that warming, and what the potential future climate would look like. The mistakes were in a different volume that explores the effects of changes in the climate on society, on natural systems and so forth, so they're not actually impacting those basic questions about is climate changing, why is it changing and what will the basic climate look like in the future. It's also important for people to understand that these are remarkably few mistakes for the fact that this report has been out for three years, it's over 2000 pages long. We have a copy of it right here. It's the three volumes, well over 2000 pages here and, frankly, I've only personally been convinced that there are two obvious mistakes. That doesn't mean that those are okay. The volume that looks at the impacts of climate change on society is very important. That's where the rubber hits the road. What do we do about this? How do we adapt? How do we survive the changes? So, the mistakes need to be acknowledged, corrected, steps need to be taken to make sure they don't happen in the future, and there's no denying that. But this does not upset the apple cart of our basic understanding of climate change.

Monica Trauzzi: But do these two obvious mistakes and others that have perhaps not been confirmed yet have an impact on how aggressively we may try to get legislation out or how aggressively we might want to do that? I mean it does have an impact on the politics of all of this.

Jay Gulledge: Well, that's right. It certainly might and it's clear that the people who don't want action on climate change have jumped on these mistakes to try to claim that either we don't know what's happening with the climate system or that the science is not valid and those are extreme exaggerations and it does harm the politics of getting legislation on climate change and that's a bad development.

Monica Trauzzi: Where does the science on sea level rise stand now, because there was a retraction of a study on the projected sea level rise that was linked to in the IPCC report, so where does that stand now?

Jay Gulledge: I'm not aware of that retraction. Can you be more specific about the study?

Monica Trauzzi: E&E had reported that there was a retraction on a study of the projected sea level rise caused by global warming that confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report. It wasn't linked to in the report, but it had confirmed the conclusions of the report.

Jay Gulledge: I'm not aware of that retraction.

Monica Trauzzi: OK. As you mentioned, there are many in Congress and in the skeptic community that believe the errors are sort of being shrugged off. Should a closer look be taken at all these points that have been brought up and all these concerns and, you know, are they being given a fair shake?

Jay Gulledge: I think that the mistakes are important. I think that there are a couple of things going on. One is that there's been this pile on affect where people are claiming that there are many more mistakes than actually have been made and the effect of that is to have scientists denying that these were mistakes. The mistakes that are verified, I think one in particular, is a very important mistake. They mistakenly said in the second volume of the report that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. That's a serious mistake because there are aid groups, there are militaries who are concerned about how this might affect the security of the region, who are doing now studies and planning and that's a serious mistake. Those kinds of mistakes really have to be avoided and when they are made, they have to be corrected really quickly. But there are a lot of accusations and mistakes that haven't been verified.

Monica Trauzzi: And there are people in Washington right now that are going over this report with a fine tooth comb looking for additional mistakes. If more mistakes come out will that damage the integrity of the overall report?

Jay Gulledge: Well, I just hope that people will be able to keep it into perspective. I have no reason to believe that you couldn't find another mistake in this 2000 plus page report. If mistakes are found, they need to be acknowledged and corrected. I have no doubt that more accusations will be made that aren't valid actually as well, but certainly let's get it right and I think they've made some changes. They're now working on the next assessment report and it's my understanding that they've made some changes that will prevent this kind of mistake in the future. And one reason that I think that it's happened, I think it's reveals that there's been too much stovepiping between the three different groups that write the IPCC report. The impacts group doesn't have the full advantage of the content of the physical science report before they have to release their report and it's my understanding that the fifth report is going to set it up so that there's more interaction between those two groups. That will help.

Monica Trauzzi: What impact do you believe this has had on the average American and their perception of climate change?

Jay Gulledge: Well, you know, we know that there's polling in recent months as of this year that shows that there's been an erosion in confidence in the public of the science. I think it shows that there's been a very successful campaign to spin some very small mistakes in the IPCC reports and the weird weather that we've been having in the eastern United States and some of these things that actually do not directly impact on our understanding of climate change that have been spun that way. And, of course, we're having very difficult economic times and people are concerned about a government spending money, so I think that all together, taken altogether, there's been a tendency in the public to have less faith in the science.

Monica Trauzzi: Were enviros and scientists sort of caught in this cushy bubble post-IPCC that now sort of they need to step out of and be a little bit more on guard and recognize that there is still a debate out there?

Jay Gulledge: Yes and I think the scientists, the science institutions in particular, have to understand that their role in society has changed because of climate change. You know, they've always had some role in helping people understand health and medicine and so forth, but there is much more of a role now for science institutions to help people understand and have confidence in the science and that's not a role that they've generally found themselves in and I think have been unprepared for, but we need to hear from them now. It's time to rebuild the confidence in the science.

Monica Trauzzi: OK, we're going to end it there. Thank you for coming on the show.

Jay Gulledge: Thanks.

Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see back here tomorrow.

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