Adaptation and the Courtroom: Judging Climate Science

Climate science is increasingly showing up in courtroom disputes over the duty to adapt to climate change. While judges play a critical role in evaluating scientific evidence, they are not apt to be familiar with the basic methods of climate science nor with the role played by peer review, publication, and training of climate scientists. This Article is an attempt to educate the bench and the bar on the basics of the discipline of climate science, which we contend is a distinct scientific discipline. We propose a series of principles to guide a judge’s evaluation of the reliability and weight to be accorded a given climate scientists’ claim or opinion. The principles are designed to aid a judge in evaluating whether the expert’s testimony complies with the Daubert test for the admissibility of scientific evidence but are broadly applicable to a judge’s evaluation of agency science-based decisions

Adaptation and the Courtroom: Judging Climate Science

Climate science is increasingly showing up in courtroom disputes over the duty to adapt to climate change. While judges play a critical role in evaluating scientific evidence, they are not apt to be familiar with the basic methods of climate science nor with the role played by peer review, publication, and training of climate scientists. This Article is an attempt to educate the bench and the bar on the basics of the discipline of climate science, which we contend is a distinct scientific discipline. We propose a series of principles to guide a judge’s evaluation of the reliability and weight to be accorded a given climate scientists’ claim or opinion. The principles are designed to aid a judge in evaluating whether the expert’s testimony complies with the Daubert test for the admissibility of scientific evidence but are broadly applicable to a judge’s evaluation of agency science-based decisions

Arctic system on trajectory to new state

The Arctic system is moving toward a new state that falls outside the envelope of glacial-interglacial fluctuations that prevailed during recent Earth history. This future Arctic is likely to have dramatically less permanent ice than exists at present. At the present rate of change, a summer ice-free Arctic Ocean within a century is a real possibility, a state not witnessed for at least a million years. The change appears to be driven largely by feedback-enhanced global climate warming, and there seem to be few, if any processes or feedbacks within the Arctic system that are capable of altering the trajectory toward this “super interglacial” state

A 4,500‐Year‐Long Record of Southern Rocky Mountain Dust Deposition

Dust emissions from southwestern North America (Southwest) impact human health and water resources. Whereas a growing network of regional dust reconstructions characterizes the long‐term natural variability of dustiness in the Southwest, short‐term fluctuations remain unexplored. We present a 4.5‐millennia near‐annual record of dust mass accumulation rates from the southern Rocky Mountains, CO. Using microscanning X‐ray fluorescence and a geochemical end‐member mixing model, the record confirms dust increased with human disturbance beginning around 1880 CE, reversing a long‐term decreasing trend potentially related to changes in effective moisture, wind, and vegetation. However, increases in dust mass accumulation rates do not correspond to years or periods of drought, as characterized by tree rings. This result suggests sediment supply and transport mechanisms have a strong influence on dust deposition. The record shows the Southwest is naturally prone to dustiness; however, human disturbances have a large influence on dust emissions, which can be mitigated by changing land use.Plain Language SummaryWe use a sediment record to characterize the long‐term naturally driven changes in dust deposition over the past 4.5 millennia. The record shows a long‐term trend toward decreasing dust deposition, which was reversed with human‐induced land disturbance beginning in the middle nineteenth century. The long‐term trend may be related to effective moisture, wind, and vegetation. Nonetheless, there appears to be little relationship between known drought events and increased dust deposition, suggesting the controls on dust deposition include factors such as sediment source and transport mechanisms acting independently of drought.Key PointsA new 4,500‐year‐long record of natural dust deposition shows a long‐term decreasing trendDrought variability, as characterized by tree rings, is not closely linked with dust mass accumulationHuman disturbance substantially increased dust deposition since 1880 CEPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151372/1/grl59278.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151372/2/grl59278_am.pd

The ICDP Lake Bosumtwi Drilling Project: A First Report

The 10.5 -km-diameter, 1.07-Ma Bosumtwi impact crater was the subject of a multi-disciplinary and international drilling effort of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) from July to October 2004. Sixteen different holes were drilled at six locations within the lake, to a maximum depth of 540 m. A total of about 2.2 km of core material was obtained. Despite some technical and logistical challenges, the project has been very successful and it is anticipated that the first scientific results will be available in late 2005

Potential climatic transitions with profound impact on Europe

We discuss potential transitions of six climatic subsystems with large-scale impact on Europe, sometimes denoted as tipping elements. These are the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, Arctic sea ice, Alpine glaciers and northern hemisphere stratospheric ozone. Each system is represented by co-authors actively publishing in the corresponding field. For each subsystem we summarize the mechanism of a potential transition in a warmer climate along with its impact on Europe and assess the likelihood for such a transition based on published scientific literature. As a summary, the ‘tipping’ potential for each system is provided as a function of global mean temperature increase which required some subjective interpretation of scientific facts by the authors and should be considered as a snapshot of our current understanding. <br/