Review of the Draft Climate Science Special Report (2017) / Chapter Skim
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II. Synthesis of Comments on the Draft Climate Science Special Report
II. Synthesis of Comments on the Draft Climate Science Special Report
Pages 5-12
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From page 5... ...
First, it focuses on changes in the climate system as they affect the United States and provides a much more comprehensive evaluation of physical climate changes than was included in the climate science chapter of NCA3. Second, the report provides a synthesis of recent manifestations of continued climate change: a new global temperature record set in 2014, which was broken in 2015 and again in 2016 thanks in part to a strong El Niño event (e.g., Lean and Rind, 2008, who quantified the contribution of El Niños to global temperature)
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From page 6... ...
Separating this new information from the longstanding foundational science that underpins the report would improve its impact and usability. A list of "what's new" appears at the end of the ES, but the Committee suggests that each chapter examine its key findings and find ways to delineate what is a new or significantly updated observation, a new or important line of evidence, or is simply an important and significant aspect of climate change that was already part of the foundation of the science.
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From page 7... ...
According to the draft CSSR, traceable accounts support each key finding and "document[s] the supporting evidence, process, and rationale the authors used in reaching … conclusions, and provides additional information on sources of uncertainty through confidence and likelihood statements." The description of evidence base provided in the traceable accounts for many key findings across many chapters list citations noted to support the finding, but do not summarize the evidence contained within those citations.
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From page 8... ...
and as shown in Figures 7.3 and ES.4. But, the underlying message of the spatial complexity is not well articulated in the draft CSSR, especially when accompanied by language like "Heavy precipitation events across the United States have increased...." The Committee recommends careful consideration of the appropriate level of detail concerning spatial complexity (e.g., plotting station-level or climate-division trends)
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From page 9... ...
The Committee recommends that the CSSR authors recompute the values where possible, using a different method detailed next. The Committee recommends using the following guidelines that would improve the statistical treatment of data throughout the draft CSSR, and encourages all individual-chapter authors to consistently apply this approach: • Be clear enough about how each calculation is done that a reader could reproduce or find the reported value or plot.
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From page 10... ...
Figure ES.2: Since the Paris Agreement aims to implement GHG emissions reductions that would achieve a concentration pathway similar to Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6, it would be useful to illustrate the RCP2.6 scenario in this figure.
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From page 11... ...
Rather than continuing to focus on the hiatus, the Committee recommends shortening the discussion for this topic and rephrasing page 29 from line31 through page 30 line 2 with a statement to the effect that short-term variability (resulting in either strongly positive or flat trends) is not the best indicator of whether climate is changing in response to GHGs.
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