A few words on climate change from those hearings on the hill

The Senate Select Committee on Climate Change hearings in April-May 2009 threw up these lines in the battle between believers and sceptics, in a brief sampling of the transcripts published so far:

Senator BOSWELL—Has that sea level started to rise? Is there a rise in sea level?
Dr Raupach—Yes, it is starting to rise. It is going up at over three millimetres per year at the moment. The point is that these areas have economic implications. I am also not an economist but I cannot imagine that any of those three or other climate change impacts that we are talking about would be free of economic implications. It is not the economy versus the climate.

Prof. Steffen—If you want to know what is happening to the climate system, do not look at the atmosphere, look at the ocean. You will really see what is happening there. There is no cooling since 1998 in the ocean. In fact recent corrected measurements done by John Church and colleagues show that the ocean has warmed 50 per cent more than we had thought, once we got our sensors improved and their interpretation. The ocean records are absolutely clear. The earth's climate system is warming. It continues to warm. There has been no cooling trends over the past 10 years.

Senator CAMERON—The Science of Climate Change from the CSIRO—

Prof. Franks—I notice it is a very thin document.

Senator CAMERON—What will this appearance do for your careers?

Prof. Carter—A very important point of your question is that the same week that those 2,000 people, not 2,000 scientist, were meeting in Copenhagen, 700 people, mostly scientists, were meeting at another climate conference in New York that came to diametrically the opposite conclusion to the Copenhagen conference.

Prof. Karoly—My guess is that you will not get very much of a range of perspectives, but you may. First of all, Bob Carter and Stewart Franks are in fact in a minority of both scientist and climate scientists in Australia. In fact, neither of them is a climate scientist who publishes actively in the climate science literature.

Senator BOSWELL—That is not what they said. They said they did publish.

Prof. Karoly—Not in climate science literature. They publish in small journals.

CHAIR—Senator Cameron?

Senator CAMERON—Witnesses, professors!

CHAIR—Do not be overwhelmed, Senator Cameron. We are all senators.

Senator CAMERON—I am nearly professored-out today, I must say.

Prof. Karoly—If Professor Plimer is correct he will win the Nobel Prize for proving that climate change is not happening due to increasing greenhouse gases. I think the chances of that are much lower than the chances of anyone else on this panel winning the Nobel Prize.

Senator BOSWELL—Have you read the Australian today?

Dr Simshauser—Sorry, Senator, I have not.

Senator CAMERON—Is that the Australian you are reading, is it?

Senator BOSWELL—Yes.

Senator CAMERON—Oh, no.

Senator BOSWELL—That is the paper that actually got you elected, so I would not complain too much!

Senator IAN MACDONALD—Good call, Bozzie!

Senator BOSWELL—I do not know whether we achieve a great deal when one group of scientists puts the boot into another group of scientists. I do not know who is right and I do not know who is wrong and I do not believe we will ever find out. What I do understand—

Prof. Steffen—The point about science is that it is not just one group of scientists putting the boot into another group of scientists. Science is not like politics or religion. It is not what you believe and you debate that; it is an observation and evidence-based activity in which we constantly challenging each other. Members of the panel challenge each other.

CHAIR—Thank you very much, gentlemen. Whoever wants to respond to this can do so.

There was a fairly significant article in the Australian last week talking about ice in the Antarctic.

Senator IAN MACDONALD—As there was again this morning.

CHAIR—You might be able to enlighten us about that.

Dr Allison—My specialty is in ice. I have been working in glaciology for about 40 years, in both ice sheets and sea ice. I am not sure how familiar the panel is with ice in Antarctica, but a lot of misinterpretations get into the press about what is going on and why it is going on. I have a cartoon here, which I might try to talk to. I have a few copies that I will hand out. A lot of the reports that you see in the press confuse ice on the land, ice that originates from snowfall—what we call 'meteoric ice'—which is in ice sheets, glaciers and ice shelves, with what is called sea ice, which forms largely by direct freezing of the ocean in the polar regions. I have not seen the Australian, but there has been a recent report on an increase in the extent of Antarctic sea ice. I will put that aside for a moment.

Dr Allison—In my opinion, the newspaper article that you are talking about was selective. It concentrated on a rise in ice in East Antarctica. There is a very much greater loss of ice from West Antarctica. There is clear evidence now that overall the Antarctic ice sheet is losing ice at a rate of somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3 millimetres of sea level per year. The East Antarctic is very close to imbalance. There may be a slight increase, but it is more than offset by the loss of ice from West Antarctica by discharge and from the Antarctic Peninsula.

Mr Gunn—I think there is absolutely no doubt that the scientific consensus is that this is a global problem that needs to be fixed up globally. I do think it is inappropriate, sitting in a public servant's chair, to comment more broadly on policy within Australia, but—
Senator CASH—That is why I asked that political issues be put aside.
Mr Gunn—It is a very simple question. This is a global problem and needs to be addressed globally.