These approaches are still the subject of ongoing development, so the report has two recommendations: Researchers should be very transparent about the uncertainties of what they are doing, and they should develop tools to make these analyzes useful for disaster preparedness. Knowing that new extreme weather is possible is much less useful than knowing which aspects of the extreme pose the greatest risks.
normal science
Beyond the details of the report, the most important conclusion is that this is normal science. Researchers have worked hard to explore a scientific question, and other researchers are taking the resulting knowledge and tools and applying them to new questions. There are some cases where this has had an immediate effect, but there are many others where there is still a lot of work to be done.
At that level, it’s hard to see why anyone would find this report notable beyond its main conclusions about where we are most confident. It is even more difficult to see why the preparation of the report would cause political operatives to launch a FOIA campaign against those authors who work at public universities, as described in the Politico report mentioned above.
The reason the report has sparked controversy before its release is because the fossil fuel industry sees it as a threat. The industry has faced a slew of lawsuits accusing it of everything from fraudulently misleading the public to being liable for financial damages caused by weather events. It is those subsequent lawsuits that make this report a threat. By presenting attribution as a normal science that we increasingly trust, it increases the possibility that courts will allow scientific evidence developed in this field to be used as evidence in the courtroom.
The situation has been made worse by the fact that the National Academies were already involved in a political fight over the use of climate science in the courts. State officials had demanded that the report he prepared on judges’ use of science have A chapter on climate change is eliminated.. the academies they have refusedwhich gave rise to the threats against its financing mentioned above.
Regardless of those threats, the report has now been published. It may take a few years to see whether the fossil fuel industry’s fears are realized in the courts, but it is safe to expect that in the meantime we will see attacks on the science detailed here.
