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A FACTUAL LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP 

BETWEEN CLIMATE AND WEATHER 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

December 11, 2013 

Serial No. 113–58 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

CHRIS STEWART, Utah 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

HON. CHRIS STEWART, Utah, Chair 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

December 11, 2013 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 18 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Witnesses: 

Dr. John R. Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center, 

NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Dr. David Titley, Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate 

Risk, Pennsylvania State University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 31 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 33 

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 50 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 52 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 66 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. John R. Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center, 

NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville ................................................... 78 

Dr. David Titley, Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate 

Risk, Pennsylvania State University .................................................................. 88 

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado ................................................ 95 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Letter submitted by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority 

Member, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................... 104 

(1) 

A FACTUAL LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP 

BETWEEN CLIMATE AND WEATHER 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith 

[Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 
2 
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Chairman SMITH. The Subcommittee on the Environment will 

come to order. 

Welcome, everyone, to today’s hearing titled ‘‘A Factual Look at 

the Relationship between Climate and Weather,’’ and let me also 

say that we have a little bit of a sparse attendance today for two 

reasons. One, there are Members of the Republican Caucus who 

are still hearing what the budget deal is all about. I expect them 

to trickle in shortly, and we have lost both Republican and Democrat Members to a Nelson Mandela memorial service, so we are 

down in numbers a little bit but not down in interest or in making 

a record, thanks to the expertise from our witnesses today. I am 

going to recognize myself for an opening statement, then the Ranking Member. 

Administration officials and the national media regularly use the 

impacts from hurricanes, tornados, droughts, and floods to justify 

the need for costly climate change regulations. President Obama 

stated in his 2013 State of the Union Address that, ‘‘We can choose 

to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in 

decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were 

all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science and act before it is too late.’’ 

However, the ‘‘overwhelming judgment of science’’ does not support the President’s claims. According to the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is high agreement among 

leading experts that long-term trends in weather disasters are not 

due to human-caused climate change. 

The story is the same when we look at each type of extreme 

weather event. Hurricanes have not increased in the United States 

in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. 

It has been seven years since a Category 3 or stronger hurricane 

made landfall in the United States. 

Government data also indicates no association between climate 

change and tornado activity. Whether measured by the number of 

strong tornados, tornado-related fatalities or economic losses associated with tornados, the latter half of the 20th century shows no 

climate-related trend. 

The data on droughts yields similar results. For example, the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that 

climate change was not a significant part of the recent drought in 

Texas. And the IPCC found that ‘‘in some regions droughts have 

become less frequent, less intense, or shorter. IPCC’s latest report 

also states there is low confidence in any climate-related trends for 

flood magnitude or frequency on a global scale. 

The science is clear and overwhelming but not in the way the 

President said. The fact is, there is little evidence that climate 

change causes extreme weather events. Instead of trying to scare 

the American people and promote a political agenda, the Administration should try to protect the lives and property of our Nation’s 

residents from extreme weather by better weather forecasting. 

This Committee last week passed bipartisan legislation to do just 

that. The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013 strengthens our Nation’s ability to save lives and property through advanced research and implementation of next-generation weather 

forecasting abilities. 
8 

I hope this hearing will make clear that the impact of climate 

change is often exaggerated. Politicians and others should rely on 

good science, not science fiction, when they discuss extreme weather. Otherwise, they will lack credibility when advocating new policy 

changes. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FULL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

Administration officials and the national media regularly use the impacts from 

hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and floods to justify the need for costly climate 

change regulations. President Obama stated in his 2013 State of the Union Address 

that, ‘‘We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe 

drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just 

a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of 

science and act before it’s too late.’’ 

However, the ‘‘overwhelming judgment of science’’ does not support the President’s claims. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 

there is ‘‘high agreement’’ among leading experts that long-term trends in weather 

disasters are not due to human-caused climate change. 

The story is the same when we look at each type of extreme weather event. 

Hurricanes have not increased in the US in frequency, intensity or normalized 

damage since at least 1900. It has been seven years since a Category 3 or stronger 

hurricane made landfall in the US. Government data also indicates no association 

between climate change and tornado activity. Whether measured by the number of 

strong tornadoes, tornado-related fatalities or economic losses associated with tornadoes, the latter half of the 20th century shows no climate-related trend. 

The data on droughts yields similar results. For example, the National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration concluded that ‘‘climate change was not a significant part’’ of the recent drought in Texas. And the IPCC found that ‘‘in some regions 

droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter.’’ 

The IPCC’s latest report also states there is ‘‘low confidence’’ in any climate-related trends for flood magnitude or frequency on a global scale. The science is clear 

and ‘‘overwhelming,’’ but not in the way the president said. The fact is there is little 

evidence that climate change causes extreme weather events. 

Instead of trying to scare the American people and promote a political agenda, 

the administration should try to protect the lives and property of our nation’s residents from extreme weather by better weather forecasting. 

This Committee last week passed bipartisan legislation to do just that. The 

Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013 strengthens our nation’s ability to 

save lives and property through advanced research and implementation of next generation weather forecasting abilities. 

I hope this hearing will make clear that the impact of climate change is often exaggerated. Politicians and others should rely on good science, not science fiction, 

when they discuss extreme weather. Otherwise, they will lack credibility when advocating new policy changes. 

Chairman SMITH. That concludes my opening statement, and the 

gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized for her 

statement. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today we continue what has been a popular topic for this Subcommittee and indeed the Committee at large: what impacts, if 

any, the changing climate is having on our daily life and the lives 

of our constituents. It is not likely that the Committee will reach 

consensus on this question anytime soon, but nonetheless I welcome and appreciate the witnesses who are here today. 

Dr. Titley, I am interested not just in your experiences at NOAA, 

but also in your work for the Navy, where you rose to the rank of 

Rear Admiral. And I know I speak for the entire Subcommittee 

when I say that we are very grateful to you for your service to the 

Nation. 
9 

Dr. Titley’s work has been at the interface of weather and climate through his long career with the U.S. Navy and now, at the 

Pennsylvania State University. There is a long list of good scientists who would be capable of appearing before us to shed light 

on the facts of the relationship between climate and weather. Actually I would like to see more of them come before this Subcommittee and the Committee in the whole because whatever our 

diverse views on climate change, there is absolutely no disagreement that severe weather events can devastate our constituents, 

deprive them of their livelihoods, and sometimes even take their 

lives. Ruling out research into a potential link between climate 

change and severe weather events would be burying our heads in 

the sand. 

Recently, I worked with Members of the Subcommittee on what 

is now bipartisan legislation to address the Federal weather enterprise and how it might be improved to provide our constituents 

with better warning of severe weather events. I know my constituents on the coast of Oregon rely on weather forecasting information 

that can tell them when it is safe to go out fishing, and my constituents in Yamhill County need information on weather patterns 

to help make decisions about the grapes they grow to make worldfamous Oregon pinot noir, and if we are here to learn that it is erroneous to associate any given day’s weather or any particular 

storm with climate change, then that is fine. However, climate 

change challenges us to think in terms of decades of accumulated 

change. Making comments on today’s weather is easy. Learning 

what factors might influence long-term climate patterns is significantly more difficult. Our constituents should be able to count on 

their elected leaders to take a difficult look at a complicated subject. The lesson of this hearing cannot be that a potential link between climate change and severe weather is too difficult to determine or understand, and therefore we should stop trying. 

It should not be controversial to examine if the weather will 

change as a consequence of global warming. Scientific projections 

from the IPCC make it apparent that we will live in a hotter world. 

We already have a warmer world than that of our grandparents. 

In many of our districts, residents will experience drier environments with more drought. Those of us who represent particularly 

wet areas may find that precipitation arrives in more intense 

storms. The oceans will be warmer and that may well produce 

stronger or more frequent tropical storms. To focus only on the 

question of whether there will be more extreme events misses the 

point that by the end of this century much of the world as we know 

it, in our districts and in the States and across the world will be 

considerably altered by the weather effects of climate change. 

We need to face up to the risks of global warming and do more 

to reduce carbon emissions. Americans have always boldly faced 

risks and challenges. Our own armed services have already begun 

taking climate change seriously. The Navy, as Rear Admiral Dave 

Titley could attest, has been struggling with the strategic implication of year-round open seas in the Arctic. 

In summary: anthropogenic climate change is real. There is a 

strong consensus that we are already seeing climactic consequences 

from warming. The continued warming of the globe will have pro-
10 

found effects on our country and the world. This situation creates 

an opportunity for the United States to show leadership in reducing carbon emissions, as well as in adapting and mitigating the effects of climate change. 

Finally, I want to join the chairman in noting that I do not want 

the absence of more Members on my side of the aisle to be perceived as a lack of interest in this important topic. As the Chairman noted, this morning there is a memorial service for Nelson 

Mandela at the National Cathedral, and many Members are attending that service. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT RANKING MINORITY

MEMBER SUZANNE BONAMICI

Mr. Chairman, today we continue what has been a popular topic for this Subcommittee and indeed the Committee at large: what impacts, if any, the changing 

climate is having on our daily life and the lives of our constituents. It is not likely 

that the Committee will reach consensus on this question anytime soon, but nonetheless I welcome and appreciate the witnesses who are here today. Dr. Titley, I 

am interested not just in your experiences at NOAA, but in your work for the Navy, 

where you rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. And I know I speak for the entire Subcommittee when I say that we are very grateful to you for your service to the nation. 

Dr. Titley’s work has been at the interface of weather and climate through his 

long career with the U.S. Navy and, now, at Pennsylvania State University. There 

is a long list of good scientists who would be capable of appearing before us to shed 

light on the ‘‘facts’’ of the relationship between climate and weather. Actually I 

would like to see more of them come before this committee, because whatever our 

diverse views on climate change, there is absolutely no disagreement that severe 

weather events can devastate our constituents, deprive them of their livelihoods, 

and sometimes even take their lives. Ruling out research into a potential link between climate change and severe weather events would be burying our heads in the 

sand. 

Recently, I worked with Members of the Subcommittee on what is now bipartisan 

legislation to address the federal weather enterprise and how it might be improved 

to provide our constituents with better warning of severe weather events. My constituents on the coast of Oregon rely on weather forecasting information that can 

tell them when it is safe to go out fishing, and my constituents in Yamhill County 

need information on weather patterns to help make decisions about the grapes they 

grow to make world-famous Oregon pinot noir. 

If we are here to learn that it is erroneous to associate any given day’s weather 

or any particular storm with climate change, then that is fine. However, climate 

change challenges us to think in terms of decades of accumulated change. Making 

comments on today’s weather is easy. Learning what factors might influence longterm climate patterns is significantly more difficult. Our constituents should be able 

to count on their elected leaders to take a difficult look at a complicated subject. 

The lesson of this hearing cannot be that a potential link between climate change 

and severe weather is too difficult to determine or understand, and therefore we 

should stop trying. 

It should not be controversial to examine if the weather will change as a consequence of global warming. Scientific projections from the IPCC make it apparent 

that we will live in a hotter world—we already have a warmer world than that of 

our grandparents. In many of our districts, residents will experience drier environments with more drought. Those of us who represent particularly wet areas may 

find that precipitation arriving in more intense storms. The oceans will be warmer 

and that may well produce stronger or more frequent tropical storms. To focus only 

on the question of whether there will be more extreme events misses the point that 

by the end of this century much of the world as we know it, in our districts and 

states, will be considerably altered by the weather effects of climate change. 

We need to face up to the risks of global warming and do more to reduce carbon 

emissions. Americans have always boldly faced risks and challenges. Our own 

Armed Services have already begun taking climate change seriously. The Navy, as 
11 

retired Rear Admiral Dave Titley could attest, has been struggling with the strategic implication of year-round open seas in the Arctic. 

In summary: anthropogenic climate change is real; there is a strong consensus 

that we are already seeing climactic consequences from warming; the continued 

warming of the globe will have profound effects on our country and the world. This 

situation creates an opportunity for the United States to show leadership in reducing carbon emissions, as well as in adapting and mitigating the effects of climate 

change. 

Finally I would like to note that I do not want the absence of Members on my 

side of the aisle to be perceived as a lack of interest in this important topic. This 

morning there is a memorial service for Nelson Mandela at the National Cathedral, 

and many Members are attending that service. 

Thank you, I yield back. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. 

And let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness today is 

Dr. John Christy, Professor and Director of the Earth System 

Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Since 

November 2000, he has been Alabama’s State Climatologist. Dr. 

Christy has served as a lead author, contributor and expert reviewer for the UN reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which included satellite temperatures as well as 

other climate data sets he constructed. Dr. Christy is also a Fellow 

of the American Meteorological Society. He has served on five National Research Council panels or committees and has performed 

research funded by NASA, NOAA, DOE, DOT and the State of Alabama. Dr. Christy received his master’s and doctoral degrees in atmospheric sciences from the University of Illinois. 

Our next witness is Dr. David Titley, Director of the Center for 

Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Titley served as a Naval Office for 32 years and rose 

to the rank of Rear Admiral. Dr. Titley’s career included duties as 

Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, 

Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy, and Deputy Assistant 

Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance. After retiring from the Navy, Dr. Titley served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Operations, the Chief Operating Officer position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

Dr. Titley holds a master’s degree in science and meteorology and 

physical oceanography, and a Ph.D. in meteorology from the Naval 

Post Graduate School. 

Our third witness today is Dr. Richard Pielke, Professor of Environmental Studies and Director for the Center for Science and 

Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado. Before 

joining the faculty of the University of Colorado from 1993 to 2001, 

Dr. Pielke was a Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric 

Research. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Pielke has collaborated with 

researchers around the world to publish dozens of peer-reviewed 

papers on extreme weather events and climate change. He is also 

a Senior Fellow of the Breakthrough Institute and holds academic 

appointments at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and 

the London School of Economics. Dr. Pielke holds degrees in mathematics, public policy and political science, all from the University 

of Colorado. 

We welcome you all and look forward to your testimony, and Dr. 

Christy, we will begin with you. 
12 

TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN R. CHRISTY, 

PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR, 

EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE CENTER, NSSTC, 

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA IN HUNTSVILLE 

Dr. CHRISTY. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member 

Bonamici, for the privilege it is to offer my views on climate 

change. I am John Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the 

University of Alabama in Huntsville and Alabama State Climatologist. I served as a lead author of the IPCC years ago. My research 

might best be described as building data sets from scratch to advance our understanding of what the climate is doing and why. 

Have climate extremes of the past 50 years been unprecedented? 

To answer that question statistically, one needs 1,500 to 2,000 

years of data with which to compare. Only then can one determine 

if the characteristic is unusual. For a few extremes such as 

drought, we have long data sets. In the 12th century, there were 

megadroughts, far worse than any we have seen in the past century. As noted in more detail in my written testimony, when the 

comparison is done properly, to label today’s events as extreme 

usually fails the test of time. 

Now to the IPCC climate models. On the screen, the figure you 

will see, a 35-year record of atmospheric temperature in the tropics, the key region in which climate models respond to greenhouse 

gas warming with a large and distinct signal and was used by the 

EPA as a fingerprint of climate change. This shows that the very 

latest climate model simulations are on average warming the tropics two to five times greater than the real world, as shown by the 

symbols. In other words, the models cannot tell us why the temperature did what it did in the past 35 years. 

Now, regarding the IPCC now, please note that the IPCC was 

written by IPCC select scientists and that the document represents 

their opinions. Many of the conclusions are fine but some of the key 

ones do not represent the views of the broader climate science community. For example, the headline statement from the summary 

for policymakers baffles me. It reads: ‘‘It is extremely likely that 

human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed 

warming since the mid-20th century.’’ 

First, the IPCC relies on climate models to distinguish natural 

from human caused climate change. However, as demonstrated in 

the chart, these same models fail to represent the climate of the 

past 35 years by a significant amount. But in its conclusion, the 

IPCC now claims more confidence that the models can distinguish 

natural from human change in correct proportions over a period of 

time during which the models fail. So if the models can’t tell us 

what has happened, how can they tell us why it happened? It just 

doesn’t make sense to me. 

I see two things here. One, we need to go back to the drawing 

board on climate modeling with a rigorously independent validation 

program or red-team approach, and two, the world community 

needs to be exposed to the real debates of climate science rather 

than the statements of a carefully selected few. 

Seventeen years ago in March 1996, I testified before this Committee about climate change and new data sets my colleague, Roy 

Spencer, and I pioneered. Using these data, Richard McKnight, 
13 

also at UA Huntsville, and I wrote a paper in Nature magazine 

that indicated climate model simulations were warming the planet 

about four times too fast. Now over 17 years later, we still see the 

latest climate models warming the key region of the tropical atmosphere about four times too fast. In a paper published last week, 

Swanson demonstrated that these latest models are actually getting worse. 

It was clear at that time and agreed to by nearly everyone that 

our understanding of how the climate system works was poor and 

we needed more observations to better understand natural variability. One of my concluding statements 17 years ago was, and I 

quote: ‘‘Without a continuing program of research that places climate variations in proper perspective and reports with improving 

confidence on their causes, we will be vulnerable to calls for kneejerk remedies to combat climate change which likely will be unproductive and economically damaging.’’ 

Regulations have been put forward based upon those climate 

model projections. I have shown in previous testimony that these 

regulations will be unproductive in terms of climate effects, and I 

will let economists answer the question about whether the economic effects of higher energy prices will be damaging, especially 

for the poorest among us. 

In summary, we have a lot of work to do to understand why the 

climate is not changing according to proper projections, projections 

that unfortunately have been used to create policy. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Christy follows:] 
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Christy. 

Dr. Titley. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. DAVID TITLEY, DIRECTOR, 

CENTER FOR SOLUTIONS TO WEATHER 

AND CLIMATE RISK, 

PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY 

Admiral TITLEY. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Bonamici, distinguished Members for the opportunity and 

privilege to present to you today on this very, very important topic. 

As mentioned, I am Dave Titley and I currently am a Professor 

of Practice at Meteorology at the Pennsylvania State University 

and the Founding Director of the Center for Solutions to Weather 

and Climate Risk. I am here in my personal capacity today, and 

the views that I represent are mine. 

When—in the Navy, we have—I am just going to talk. It is 

much, much easier. 

In the Navy, we have a saying called the ‘‘bottom line up front,’’ 

and it is like just tell me what I really, really need to know. So 

here, sir, is the way that I see the salient points for today’s hearing. 

The first is, is that the climate change is very real. I was very, 

very encouraged, sir, to hear from your opening statement your numerous quotes from the IPCC. The IPCC shows that the climate is 

in fact warming. We see that in the temperature record in both the 

air and the ocean, and as you I am sure know, 90 percent of the 

heat is in fact in the ocean. It is kind of the Willie Sutton theory. 

Why do we study it? It is where the heat is. 

The ice is collapsing. We see the ecosystems moving. We see the 

sea level rising. If you look at any one of these individually, you 

can sometimes try to figure out well, what is going on here, but 

when you put it all together, it gets pretty hard to come up with 

something other than that the climate is changing, and we know 

the basics. We certainly still have questions on the details like tornados, like typhoons, but we kind of understand the basics. I mean, 

this is cutting-edge 19th-century science. Fourier, Tyndall, Arnhus 

all figured this stuff out in the 19th century. 

If you take a look at Jim Hanson’s model that he—climate model 

he published in Nature magazine in 1980, it showed the rise in 

temperature. In fact, he was too conservative. The temperature, the 

global temperature, has actually risen more than what Hanson projected. And some models are going to be too slow, some are going 

to be too aggressive. I think there is a saying called ‘‘all models are 

wrong but some are useful.’’ 

So what can we actually tell out of these models? So, I mean it 

is—hopefully we are doing more than just like looking at individual 

models because, you know, frankly, you don’t need a brain to do 

that, but we understand the science, we understand the physics, 

we understand then what the models can help us in, and we kind 

of look at this in a risk framework. I mean, again, I am a—we are 

all sort of victims of our past circumstance, and mine is national 

security. I spent 32 years in the Navy. So I kind of look at this as 

the way that we looked at security issues in the national defense 

realm. We did not necessarily wait for that extreme event. 
32 

I mean, imagine if this was a terrorism hearing in the summer 

of 2000. What would we say? Well, we would say we have had a 

few events, you know, some people in Africa, we had a bombing in 

the World Trade Center in the 1990s but we really haven’t see a 

big signal. Is that where we want to be on climate? Do we want 

to wait for that catastrophic signal to then say oh, my, God, now 

we need to do things. So I kind of see the system blinking red here. 

And why do I say that? Warmer oceans, moister atmosphere, 

warmer air temperatures, does it mean that we have seen that catastrophic signal? No. But the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. So we don’t know, and there is a big, big difference between not knowing versus saying well, since we haven’t 

seen anything, therefore it is not going to happen. 

So I kind of would look for a risk management strategy. I was 

very happy, sir, to hear about the Weather Forecasting Improvement Act. As you may know, the Department of Defense and Department of Navy have funded, starting with President’s budget 

FY13, a program called Earth System Prediction Capability. It is 

interagency. NOAA is participating. I would strongly encourage 

and hope that the Committee can help NOAA further participate 

in that along with NASA, Department of Energy and Department 

of Defense. The idea is to get better at everything from zero hours 

or today’s forecast to about 30 years because this is where in the 

real world we make our budgets, we make our decisions. It is sort 

of, you know, our infrastructure decisions. If you are a city planner, 

if you are an emergency manager, you know, seasons, years, that 

is where we need to get better, that intersection of weather and climate. 

As Dr. Christy said, there is a lot to learn there, and I hope we 

can help out. 

Thank you very much, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Titley follows:] 
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Titley. 

Dr. Pielke. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ROGER PIELKE JR., 

PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR, 

CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND 

TECHNOLOGY POLICY RESEARCH, 

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO 

Dr. PIELKE. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bonamici, thank 

you for hearing my testimony today. I am a Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado. Before I jump into 

my substance, I do want to say I was an intern on this Committee 

in 1991 under George Brown, and I have a lot of respect for the 

work of the Members and the staff, and it is always great to come 

back. 

I have three take-home points, and then underneath that I will 

have a few more specifics. Number one, there exists exceedingly little scientific support for claims found in the media and political debate that hurricanes, tornados, floods and drought have increased 

in frequency or intensity on climate time scales either in the 

United States or globally. Two, similarly, on climate time scales, it 

is incorrect to link the increasing cost of disasters with the emissions of greenhouse gases. Three, these conclusions that I have just 

reported are part of a broad scientific consensus including that recently reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

in its 5th assessment report as well as a special report it did last 

year on extreme events. 

So here are a few more specifics. Globally, weather-related losses 

measured in dollars have not increased since 1990 when the data 

starts being good as a proportion of GDP. Insured catastrophic 

losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960. Hurricane landfalls have not increased in the United States in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1990. The 

same holds true for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970, 

again when the data is good. 

Now, people in New York and New Jersey might not agree with 

this, but the United States is actually in an extended period of relatively good luck with respect to hurricane landfalls. We haven’t 

seen a category 3 landfall for the longest time period since 1900, 

at least. If rates return to the historical average, we will see much 

more hurricane damage than we have in recent years. 

Floods have not increased in the United States in frequency or 

intensity since at least 1950. Flood losses as a percentage of U.S. 

GDP have actually dropped by 75 percent since 1940. 

Tornados in the United States have not increased in frequency, 

intensity or normalized damage since 1950, and based on research 

that we have done, there is some evidence in fact that they have 

actually declined, the strongest tornados. 

Drought has, and I quote from a U.S. government science assessment report, ‘‘for the most part become shorter, less frequent and 

cover a smaller portion of the United States over the last century.’’ 

Globally, and I quote from a paper in Nature, there has been little 

change in drought over the past 60 years.’’ 
51 

Now, that being the case, it is also true that the absolute cost 

of disasters will undoubtedly increase significantly in coming years 

due to greater wealth and population and locations exposed to extreme. So disasters will be an important focus of policy irrespective 

of the future course of climate change. 

Now, to avoid any confusion, because this issue is so politicized, 

I thought I would make a few further statements to put my testimony into context. 

Humans influence the climate system in profound ways including 

through the emission of carbon dioxide via the combustion of fossil 

fuels, and again, I point you to the IPCC, which has been mentioned as the authoritative basis for that statement. Researchers 

have detected and in some cases attributed a human influence in 

other measures of climate extremes beyond those that I discuss in 

my testimony including surface temperatures, specifically, heat 

waves, and some measures of precipitation extremes. The inability 

to detect and attribute increasing trends and the incidents of hurricanes, floods, tornados and drought does not mean that humancaused climate change is not real or of concern. It does mean, however, that some activists, politicians, journalists, corporate and government agency representatives, even scientists who should know 

better have made claims that are unsupportable based on evidence 

and research. Such claims when they are made could undermine 

the credibility of arguments for action on climate change, and to 

the extent that such false claims confuse those who make decisions 

related to extreme events, they could lead to poor decision-making. 

A considerable body of research projects that various extremes 

may in fact become more frequent and/or intense in the future as 

a direct consequence of the human emission of carbon dioxide. 

Our research and that of others suggests that even assuming 

that these projections are true, it will be many decades, perhaps 

longer before that signal of human-caused climate change can be 

detected in the statistics of hurricanes, and the same holds for 

other phenomena that have the same statistical properties. If you 

are looking for evidence of climate change, don’t look at extreme 

events. Our decisions related to climate change will take place long 

before we have certainty on that topic. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony, and I 

look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Pielke follows:] 
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Pielke, and let me recognize for 

questions and then the Ranking Member. 

Dr. Christy, let me address my first couple of questions to you, 

and the first is this: that some people like the President and the 

EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy, have made this assertion: ‘‘97 

percent of climate scientists think climate change is real, human 

activities are contributing to it, and that it presents a big threat 

to our planet.’’ Is that an accurate statement? 

Dr. CHRISTY. No, not at all. That statement came from a question 

that was relatively benign about, do humans have some effect on 

the climate, and it only used 77 respondents out of several thousand, so it was highly selective. And the American Meteorological 

Society, by the way, did do a survey of its professional members 

and found only 52 percent said that climate change of the past 50 

years was due mostly to humankind. So a 52 percent amount is 

quite small, I think, in terms of confidence. 

Chairman SMITH. You think the 52 percent is much more credible than the 97 percent? 

Dr. CHRISTY. Oh, yeah. It included over a thousand respondents. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Fifty-two percent I don’t think by anybody’s definition is a consensus, by the way, so I would say that 

there is not necessarily a consensus. 

My second question is this: Some scientists have claimed that the 

recent 15-year pause in global warming has been caused by the additional heat being absorbed by our oceans. Is that true? 

Dr. CHRISTY. Well, that is a speculation at this point because the 

data are very imprecise when you go down below 700 meters in the 

ocean, and so not having real good data, it is hard to make conclusions about that. However, even if it is true, what it indicates is 

that our models cannot express accurately what is actually happening in the climate system. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Christy. 

Dr. Pielke, a couple questions for you. The first is, over the last 

half century—and I think you testified to this as well—the scientific community has not been able to detect any increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornados, droughts or floods. So 

there has been no scientific, I think, proof that any of these types 

of extreme weather have increased over the last number of years. 

That has been confirmed by the IPCC, which I quoted in my opening statement. That being the case, what does that say about any 

projections as to the future number of extreme weather events? 

Dr. PIELKE. We did a study where we asked the question, let us 

look at climate model output, assume that it is true, and then look 

back and say when would we have detected those changes, and we 

looked in the statistics of hurricanes. It is a little bit like saying 

you are playing blackjack with a shady dealer and he puts an extra 

ace into the deck and you say how many hands would we have to 

play before we have some statistical evidence that there is a 

change in the composition of the deck, and the answer is that it 

is the better part of a century or longer before we would be able 

to detect the changes that are currently projected. So there is no 

physical basis actually for expecting that we would be able to detect those signals today, even assuming that those signals are there 

but will emerge deep into the future. 
67 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Pielke. One more question. Recently there was a national TV ad run by the Natural Resources Defense Council that indicated that ‘‘taking action against 

climate change’’ would ‘‘reduce extreme weather events like Hurricanes Katrina, Irene and Sandy.’’ Is there evidence that these 

storms have been driven by human-caused climate change? 

Dr. PIELKE. There is not presently that evidence, and further, 

there is not evidence that we have a discernible impact on the future rates or intensities of those forms. There is a lot of good policies that can be put in place to deal with the threats of extreme 

events including hurricanes, and there is also a lot of good reasons 

to discuss energy policy changes including greenhouse gases but 

modulating the future rate of extreme events is probably not high 

on that list. 

Chairman SMITH. And particularly with Hurricane Sandy, just to 

go back to that hurricane, there was a great deal of damage in part 

because it hit highly populated areas, not because the storm was 

severely or unusually strong, as we pointed out today. It is Hurricane Sandy that has been embraced by a lot of people as an indication of climate change causing extreme weather like that hurricane 

but you don’t think there is any truth to that? 

Dr. PIELKE. Well, actually, Hurricane Sandy was not even a hurricane-strength storm. It was incredibly intense, had massive damage, but the main reason it had massive damage was because it hit 

one of the most populated, wealthy parts of our coastline. Had it 

actually taken that left turn in Nova Scotia, it would have much 

less impacts and been much less severe. 

Chairman SMITH. But again, no correlation between weather 

change and Hurricane Sandy as such? 

Dr. PIELKE. Right. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Pielke. 

That concludes my questions. I will recognize the gentlewoman 

form Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, for hers. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you to all the witnesses. 

Dr. Titley, some people assert, and I have heard this, that there 

has been no warming in the global climate temperature since 1998. 

Did global warming end in 1998? 

Admiral TITLEY. If only. That would have made everything so 

much easier. As we have already heard, the temperatures have not 

stopped warming since 1998, and in fact, NOAA’s data show that 

for the United States, 2012, not 1998, was the warmest year for the 

continental United States. 

As has already been mentioned, the oceans continue to warm, 

and while we would always want better data, and I think I agree 

with Dr. Christy, we do agree on that, that a monitoring system 

is in all of our interests. Having said that, the Argo floats and the 

altimetry data for the ocean unequivocally show that this is where 

the heat is going. Now, why it is going there is an open question 

but it is going there, and 90 percent of the heat is in the ocean system. So the Earth continues to warm and there is some very recent 

research that shows it might be warming even faster now. So yes, 

ma’am, it is warming. 
68 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. And I have a couple more questions. 

Dr. Titley, you have used the term ‘‘all systems are flashing or 

blinking red’’ in the climate, and could you expand on that? What 

do you mean by that? In terms of weather, what could we anticipate in the coming decades as a result of climate change? 

Admiral TITLEY. With respect to whether we can tell this to a, 

let us say, a 95 percent confidence level, the normal statistical way, 

you know, Dr. Pielke is right; it is going to take a long time. However, do we wait for like hundreds of terrorist attacks to say you 

know, there is a statistical change that something may be going on 

here. So for the system to be blinking red simply looking at the 

amount of additional moisture and amount of additional heat in 

the ocean and the atmosphere, we know hurricanes are basically 

heat engines. One of their main factors is how warm and how 

much heat do you have in the upper ocean. We know that is increasing. 

So it is a little bit like playing with a loaded gun here. Now, is 

it going to go off? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But you look at the 

typhoon that went into the Philippines, strongest winds ever recorded on landfalling, is that climate change? I don’t know but the 

atmosphere lined up with the ocean to create one of the most 

strongest storms we have ever seen. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. And Dr. Titley, you previously served 

in the Navy as a Rear Admiral and you manage both weather and 

climate programs, so people sometimes have a hard time seeing 

how changes in climate and changes in weather, how that matters 

in their lives. So can you talk a little bit about the Arctic? Because 

I think that is a place where you can really illustrate how these 

changes have real-world consequences for the United States, and I 

know there is something about that in your written testimony, but 

could you expand on that briefly, please? 

Admiral TITLEY. Yes, ma’am. I sometimes tell people that we 

plan for climate but we live in weather, and that is really what it 

is. It is, you know, climate is the card deck from which the weather 

hands are being dealt. So we see that card deck changing faster in 

the Arctic than in any other place. So for the Navy, we see the climate is changing, so from a security perspective, we need to—the 

Navy needs to be ready—one of Chief of Naval Operations three tenets—be ready for a changing environment, and it is really not a 

political issue because we would make sure we have plans for 

changes in economics, demographics, political situations, so why 

wouldn’t we plan for changes in the physical situations? 

So one of the things we need is better weather forecasts. If we 

are going to work up there, and that is what the Earth System Prediction Capability is to help us with, ma’am. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Right. Well, thank you. And I have a follow-up on 

that, and I again want to thank the Members of the Subcommittee 

for working on the weather forecasting bill with all of us. 

Dr. Titley, from an economic perspective—and you touched on 

this briefly when you talked about the analogy to security. From 

an economic perspective, isn’t it wise to prepare for severe weather 

events and save property and perhaps lives rather than simply responding to them after they happen? I want to note that the Reinsurance Association of America has begun to adjust its business 
69 

model to reflect a rising number of catastrophic events. They recently sent a letter with recommendations for policymakers along 

those same lines. I would like to include that for the record, and 

we will submit a copy. 

Chairman SMITH. Without objection, that will be made a part of 

the record. 

[The information appears in Appendix II] 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. 

So from an economic perspective, isn’t it wise to prepare for these 

events rather than just responding? 

Admiral TITLEY. Yes, ma’am. Very briefly, as you mentioned, the 

insurance industry, the reinsurance industry, sees a number of 

weather catastrophes, by their definition, significantly increasing. 

The part I find interesting is, they also look at geophysical like 

earthquake, tsunami; those aren’t going up. So you can’t just say 

well, there is more people, more wealth, living by the ocean. The 

weather part is going up. And of course, preparation is always better than reaction. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much. My time is expired. I yield 

back. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. The gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Neugebauer, is recognized. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

calling this important hearing. 

Dr. Pielke, you know, when we talk about a lot of these extreme 

weather conditions, we tend to talk to them in the context of cost: 

what did this event cost, what did that event cost. And so some 

have even suggested that when you start to talk about climate 

trends that you somehow associate the cost of these disasters with 

the cost of these climate changes, climate trends. Is there a relationship between these financial damages and extreme weather 

events and long-term climate trends? 

Dr. PIELKE. A lot of care has to be taken in looking at cost damage because like anything else in the economy, it changes quickly 

over time. We have more wealth, which is a good thing, generally, 

but that means more property, more exposure to losses, and so it 

is—you are setting yourself for errors by taking, say, the raw Munich Reinsurance data and coming to some conclusions about the 

climate system. 

There has been a number of studies that have tried to normalize 

those economic records to try to say something about the climate 

data, and there are several dozen of them now, and they come to 

a remarkable consensus, that there is in fact no signal of humancaused climate change in the economic loss record really globally 

but also in individual locations around the world. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. You know, Dr. Titley showed a figure in his 

testimony that displayed the number of natural catastrophes 

worldwide by, I believe, Munich Reinsurance. Is there any basis for 

claiming that any part of the increases in disaster losses can be attributed to human-caused change? 

Dr. PIELKE. Munich Reinsurance, which is one of the world’s 

largest reinsurance companies, had that exact same question several years ago. So they funded a big study at the London School 

of Economics to actually go into their data and look at that, and 
70 

you will see that is cited in my testimony. They found that no part 

of that increase in global disaster losses could be attributed to 

human-caused climate change. So that was their own research submitted to peer-review outlets, which I think is pretty consistent 

with what the research community has concluded. So I think there 

is a pretty strong answer to that question. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. The warning coordination meteorologist at 

NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, Greg Carbon, I believe, stated that ‘‘There really is no scientific consensus 

on connection between global warming and tornadic activity, jumping from a large-scale event like global warming to relatively smallscale events like tornados, a huge leap across the varieties of 

scales.’’ 

Dr. Christy, Dr. Pielke, do you agree with that statement? 

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes, that sounds reasonable. 

Dr. PIELKE. I will say that yes, that statement sounds reasonable, and we have actually looked at the tornado record, which is 

complicated by the fact that there were different ways to measure 

tornados that the Weather Service has used over time, and one of 

the most interesting features of the tornado record is that if you 

look at the damage that has been caused, which is an independent 

record from the tornados themselves, there has actually been a decline over many decades. So that gives us some reason to think 

that the evidence that you see, there is certainly no evidence of an 

increase in tornadic activity, especially the most damaging ones, 

but there is a slight hint that perhaps even there may be a decrease in recent decades. I wouldn’t put too much weight on that 

but it is much stronger on the lack of increase side. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. And the last question, what is the danger that 

we begin to try to tie these two together in the debate and the discussion that we are having on climate change? 

Dr. PIELKE. I guess I would say that these are really two important issues. Climate change, the effect that we have on the planet 

is an important issue. Extreme events both nationally and internationally, as we saw in the Philippines, are also an important 

issue. And if we begin using extreme events as kind of a poster 

child for energy policy, we are doing a disservice to both debates. 

So I think it is important to understand what the science says, and 

if the science says there is no linkage, then, you know, let us not 

force that. Let us take these issues apart and have a reasonable 

policy discussion rather than a proxy debate through the science. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Dr. Christy, do you have a reaction on that? 

Dr. CHRISTY. Dr. Roger Pielke said it correctly, that preparing for 

extreme events is something we should always be doing. I like the 

idea of the Weather Service being given extra resources to do that 

for forecasting but also in preparation of our infrastructure and responses and so on. That is good no matter what the climate might 

do in the future. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. But those who try to tie the cost of those two 

to kind of impute that into the cost of climate change, are they 

doing the debate a disservice? 

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes, and I yield to Dr. Pielke on that. He has done 

quite a bit of work, and he is exactly right, that that linkage needs 

to be broken right there. 
71 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Neugebauer. The gentleman 

from California, Mr. Takano, is recognized. 

Mr. TAKANO. Dr. Titley, I am interested in this question about 

reinsurance. It has been stated here at this hearing that no costs 

heretofore can be demonstrated to have been attributed to climate 

change, but can you tell me— you know about reinsurance models 

going forward—whether climate change science has affected their 

modeling and their understanding of risk. 

Admiral TITLEY. Just very briefly, sir, what I can tell you is, the 

reinsurance industry is intensely interested in how the climate is 

changing because it is a business issue for them. It is not a politics 

issue; it is business. And when they see the number of weather catastrophes increasing and increasing significantly, they have got to 

wonder how is that impacting their business. They may or may not 

be statistically related to climate but I will tell you, I lived on the 

Gulf Coast, and when I watched my hurricane premiums go from 

about $600 a year to $6,000 a year, there is real impact. And they 

are not coming back down and we don’t see them coming back 

down. So I think there is a real impact in both the insurance and 

reinsurance industry as we price the risk of extreme weather. 

Mr. TAKANO. Do you agree with some of the claims made that 

there is no association between climate change and tornadic activity? 

Admiral TITLEY. Thank you certainly for that question. Words 

matter, and you know, I was almost going to start nodding my 

head up and down with the other witnesses until I heard that 

there was no linkage. There is a tremendous difference between no 

linkage and a linkage that is not known. It is only a subtle word 

change but there is a really big difference. I think the scientific 

consensus is not that there is no linkage. The scientific consensus 

is, we don’t know. And that is a very, very important definition, sir, 

but we do know, we have a warmer and more moister world and 

that means that we need to really be careful because we know both 

with severe weather, with big thunderstorms and with hurricanes, 

those are one of, not the only, but those are primary important ingredients to creating big storms. 

Mr. TAKANO. Also, could you comment on the claim that there 

have been no increase in extreme weather events? 

Admiral TITLEY. Yes, sir. I think it really matters again, how do 

you define extreme weather events. I looked up the definition of 

‘‘extreme’’ since I thought we were going to be talking about that 

today, and one of the main definitions is away from the center. 

Again, just take the basic data. We have had for the last 36 years 

since President Ford was in office above-normal temperatures. 

That is away from the center. And they are getting further and further away. Now, if you take each year as kind of its own thing, 

imagine like flipping a coin 36 times and getting heads. I mean, if 

that is a fair coin, I want to go to Vegas with you because the odds 

of that are about one in 68 billion. To put it another way, there 

is a 400 times chance, greater chance that you are going to win the 

Powerball, which is $400 million, by the way, this week than getting 36 coins to flip heads in a row. So I would say that is extreme, 
72 

and the ice and the Arctic, that is extreme. We have seen geologic 

changes in less than ten years. That is pretty extreme, sir. 

Mr. TAKANO. Moving from the independent assessment of 

businesspeople and reinsurance, you come from a military background, how has climate change science affected the hard-hatted 

decisions about what the Navy or other armed forces or having to 

do to adjust? Is climate change science having an impact on those 

sort of decisions? 

Admiral TITLEY. Yes, sir. It is in the most—the highest-level 

strategies of the Department of Defense. It is in what the DOD 

calls the Quadrennial Defense Review. Climate change is talked 

about there. I could go through very, very quickly just about three 

places. The Arctic, it is opening up a whole new theater of operations. That is being driven by climate. 

Infrastructure and sea-level rise, we haven’t talked much about 

sea-level rise but it is a huge issue, probably up 2, 3, 4 feet. We 

were just in Norfolk. I have a graph in my testimony that shows 

exponentially rising hours of flooding in some Norfolk neighborhoods. The Department of Defense is worried about that. The Navy 

is, and people ask why is the Navy concerned? It is like it is kind 

of a ship thing. We have to put our bases at sea level so it is going 

to be a big deal. 

And then finally, how does climate change potentially exacerbate 

conflicts, and there has been a number of peer-reviewed studies 

that show both the Arab Spring and Syria probably have some climate linkages. Thanks. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Takano. The gentleman from 

California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have 

been running back and forth. There is a hearing in Afghanistan 

going on, and I am sort of involved in that issue as well. 

Just some of the statements that Doctor—pronounce your name 

for me. Is it Titley? 

Admiral TITLEY. Yes, sir, Titley. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Doctor, is there any time period in the 

last 100 years when there has been a similar de-icing in the Arctic 

area? 

Admiral TITLEY. No, sir, not in the last 100 years. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So in the last 100 years, there hasn’t been a 

thawing out? 

Admiral TITLEY. Not to the degree that we are seeing now. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The degree. Okay. And in the past, of course, 

before the 1300s, there was much less ice up there. Is that correct? 

Admiral TITLEY. As best the paleoclimatologists can tell, the 

world today is warmer than it has been probably for about the last 

44,000 years, sir. I think you and I had this discussion actually at 

a previous hearing, I remember, and I quoted the Native Americans, the Inuit, who are riding the Coast Guard cutter Healey, 

nothing in their oral history showed the kind of changes that are 

happening in the Arctic today. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So Greenland wasn’t green, and it was always icy, and Iceland was always Iceland, and from what I understand at times that there is lots of evidence to suggest that there 
73 

was large communities in Greenland and Iceland that actually because it got colder disappeared. 

Admiral TITLEY. Yes, sir. We may be talking past each other 

slightly. I am talking about sea ice, the Arctic sea ice. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, I understand that the sea ice had a lot 

to do with the Iceland community disappearing because they lost 

their transportation for supplies from Europe. 

Admiral TITLEY. Yes. When you take a look at the Arctic as a 

whole, we have not seen the diminishing or the lessening of the sea 

ice in thousands and thousands of years. This is unprecedented. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Do the other two witnesses agree with that 

assessment? 

Dr. CHRISTY. Not at all. I think he might have misspoke on the 

44,000 number but the globe, especially the Arctic, has been much 

warmer in the past than it is today and there is plenty of evidence 

to support that. As well as the sea ice, that is a bit more murky 

on how much sea ice was there in any particular year but it does 

look like it had receded much further, especially in the mid-Holocene period, five, six, seven thousand years ago when Greenland 

was much warmer than it is today. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Admiral TITLEY. The globe, sir, has been warmer in the past. It 

has warmed and it has cooled. Climate has changed for millions of 

years. It will change for millions of more. The difference is, is in 

about the last eight to twelve thousand years, we have had very 

stable climate relative to what climate normally is, and that is 

when we built human civilization. It is why we put our cities where 

we did, it is why the agriculture is where it is. So if we start changing that for whatever reason, that becomes a huge issue that humanity as a whole will have to deal with. So yes, the climate does 

change. That is not the issue. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But just in terms of we were talking about 

the Arctic, you agree that it has never been warmer in the Arctic? 

Admiral TITLEY. Overall, it has not been warmer for thousands 

of years in the Arctic. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We have one disagreement. Dr. Pielke? 

Dr. PIELKE. It is not my expertise so I am happy to let those guys 

fight. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Thank you very much. 

Let me just ask, I sat through Hurricane Hazel when I lived in 

North Carolina at the time. I remember the trees. That was a pretty strong hurricane back in the 1950s. Was that stronger than 

Sandy or weaker than Sandy? 

Admiral TITLEY. It depends how you measure the strength. If you 

measure by the winds—and I think it has already been brought up 

that two of our most destructive hurricanes have actually been 

pretty—by the Saffir-Simpson scale, pretty weak storms. Katrina, 

not many people realize this, was actually a category 2 when it 

made landfall. Sandy was not even technically a hurricane—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Now, a lot of the damage that we are talking 

about is—— 

Admiral TITLEY. —is storm surge. 
74 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. —not based on the climate or the strength of 

the wind but instead where the people have built and what kind 

of houses. 

Admiral TITLEY. And it is storm surge, sir. And it is the storm 

surge with a rising overall—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You mentioned that the sea rates have gone 

up, the ocean levels 4, 5 feet. Do our other witnesses agree with 

that? 

Dr. CHRISTY. I don’t think—it was someone’s projection, I think. 

It has not—and it has not accelerated either. The sea level has not 

been accelerating in terms of its rising level. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So over the centuries, you are suggesting sea 

levels are rising and you are suggesting that they are not. Is that 

correct? 

Admiral TITLEY. The data do show—— 

Dr. CHRISTY. The sea level is rising. It is just at a rate that is 

not accelerating. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I see. 

Admiral TITLEY. It is accelerating. It is right now 3.2 millimeters 

per year and it is accelerating, and are going to deal with 2 to 3 

feet by the end of this century, at least. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And accelerating from what time period? Was 

it accelerating—you know, we see the pictures of the continents 

and everything changing. If the continents can change and the sea 

level rises and changes then before mankind is ever around—see, 

most every time when you are suggesting that this is due to climate change, we are not really talking about climate change. We 

are talking about manmade climate change because what you are 

saying is then being used as an excuse to control the activities of 

mankind, correct? 

Admiral TITLEY. Okay. Congressman, I don’t get into the politics. 

When I did this in the Navy, the reason we looked at this is because the battle space was changing. Now, why the battle space is 

changing was not our core interest but we saw the battle space was 

changing. But when you then walk back the physics, if you put in 

greenhouse gases, it is changing it, so from a policy perspective, 

how do we deal with the greenhouse gases. You can regulate it, you 

can use market forces, you can do a number of different things but, 

you know, again, this is cutting-edge 19th-century science so 

whether we are going to deal with that or not but that is kind of 

the crux of the matter. So the sea level—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You are right. It is the crux of the matter, 

and if we try to suggest that we know the climate is always changing, but if we are suggesting that the greenhouse gases that mankind puts into the air—of course, 90 percent of the greenhouse 

gases come from natural sources—but if you are suggesting then 

we have an excuse to control human activity, and quite frankly, 

controlling human activity is not necessarily consistent with the 

founders of this country, who believed that human beings have 

rights to control their own actions. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

I would like to follow up on a subject that Mr. Rohrabacher 

brought up and ask Dr. Titley and Dr. Christy this question. As I 
75 

understand it, some people point to the decrease in Arctic sea ice 

as an indication of a calamity or a red flag. Arctic sea ice went 

down for a number of years, actually went up last year. The Antarctic sea ice has gone up, increased for the last 30 years, and 

when you combine the two, the amount of sea ice, Antarctic and 

Arctic is actually above the average over the last number of years. 

So why should we be concerned about some diminution of Arctic 

sea ice when the total sea ice is above average and when Antarctica has been going up? Dr. Titley and Dr. Christy. 

Admiral TITLEY. Thanks, sir. Just very briefly, when the Arctic 

sea ice goes down, it goes down in the summer. That allows a lot 

more heat to get into the atmosphere because it is summertime. 

The winter ice in the Antarctic is increasing. There is already no 

sun down there, so, one, it doesn’t matter. I tell people the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic, it is people, not penguins, so the difference in what is going on in the Arctic profoundly 

affects human civilization. The difference going on with the winter 

sea ice in the Antarctic really doesn’t affect anyone. So it is a matter of changing the global balance. The Arctic is kind of the northern hemisphere’s refrigerator, and we are kind of getting rid of the 

refrigerators. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Titley. 

Dr. Christy? 

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes, the Arctic is different because it is a confined 

space. The Arctic ice cannot grow really much more than what it 

is because of the land area. And it is not correct to say that the 

Antarctic sea ice doesn’t have an effect. In fact, because it grows 

without bound to lower latitudes, it actually increases the albedo 

of the Earth and so it does have a profound effect, even more so 

than the albedo change of the Arctic ice because of the angles of 

solar inclination. 

So yeah, the global sea ice is above average right now, and that 

is something. You know, we really don’t—we can’t predict. You 

can’t find a single model that is able to show that result. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. I thank you both for answering that follow-up question. I think we have no other individuals to ask questions, so thank you all very much for your expertise today, for the 

information you have provided us. We very much appreciate it, and 

we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:05 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(77) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. John R. Christy 
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Responses by Admiral David Titley 
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Responses by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr 
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(103) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
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SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVE SUZANNE BONAMICI
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