Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change
[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/]
Source: By Naomi Oreskes, Michael Oppenheimer, Dale Jamieson, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: ...climate change and its impacts are emerging faster than scientists previously thought, ...When new observations of the climate system have provided more or better data, or permitted us to reevaluate old ones, the findings for ice extent, sea level rise and ocean temperature have generally been worse than earlier prevailing views. ... Consistent underestimation is a form of bias—in the literal meaning of a systematic tendency to lean in one direction or another—which raises the question: what is causing this bias in scientific analyses of the climate system? The question is significant for two reasons. First, climate skeptics and deniers have often accused scientists of exaggerating the threat of climate change, but the evidence shows that not only have they not exaggerated, they have underestimated. ...Among the factors that appear to contribute to underestimation is the perceived need for consensus, or what we label univocality: the felt need to speak in a single voice. Many scientists worry that if disagreement is publicly aired, government officials will conflate differences of opinion with ignorance and use this as justification for inaction. ... The impulse toward univocality arose strongly in a debate over how to characterize the risk of disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (AR4). Nearly all experts agreed there was such a risk as climate warmed, but some thought it was only very far in the future while others thought it might be more imminent. ...everyone concurred that, if WAIS did not disintegrate soon, it would likely disintegrate in the long run. Therefore, the area of agreement lay in the domain of the long run—the conclusion of a non-imminent risk—and so that is what was reported. The result was a minimalist conclusion, and we know now that the estimates that were offered were almost certainly too low..... See also nyt. “How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong” [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/sunday/science-climate-change.html]
Source: By Naomi Oreskes, Michael Oppenheimer, Dale Jamieson, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: ...climate change and its impacts are emerging faster than scientists previously thought, ...When new observations of the climate system have provided more or better data, or permitted us to reevaluate old ones, the findings for ice extent, sea level rise and ocean temperature have generally been worse than earlier prevailing views. ... Consistent underestimation is a form of bias—in the literal meaning of a systematic tendency to lean in one direction or another—which raises the question: what is causing this bias in scientific analyses of the climate system? The question is significant for two reasons. First, climate skeptics and deniers have often accused scientists of exaggerating the threat of climate change, but the evidence shows that not only have they not exaggerated, they have underestimated. ...Among the factors that appear to contribute to underestimation is the perceived need for consensus, or what we label univocality: the felt need to speak in a single voice. Many scientists worry that if disagreement is publicly aired, government officials will conflate differences of opinion with ignorance and use this as justification for inaction. ... The impulse toward univocality arose strongly in a debate over how to characterize the risk of disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (AR4). Nearly all experts agreed there was such a risk as climate warmed, but some thought it was only very far in the future while others thought it might be more imminent. ...everyone concurred that, if WAIS did not disintegrate soon, it would likely disintegrate in the long run. Therefore, the area of agreement lay in the domain of the long run—the conclusion of a non-imminent risk—and so that is what was reported. The result was a minimalist conclusion, and we know now that the estimates that were offered were almost certainly too low..... See also nyt. “How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong” [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/sunday/science-climate-change.html]