by Nate Silver
63. GISS stands for the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Some scientists express a preference for the NASA/GISS record because it does a better job of accounting for the Arctic and a few other areas where temperature stations are sparse. This is potentially important because there has been more warming in the Arctic than in any other part of the globe.
64. Global Temperature Anomalies, National Atmospheric and Oceanic Association. ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat.
65. Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt.
66. Japan Meteorological Agency. http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/climate/cpdinfo/temp/list/an_wld.html.
67. Note that the two satellite records use some of the same underlying data.
68. Some analyses have mistakenly used the satellite temperature records for the upper atmosphere rather than the lower atmosphere. The upper atmosphere is not necessarily predicted to warm—and in fact, may actually cool—under the greenhouse effect.
69. If the satellite technique is slightly less precise since it relies on inference, it does provide some advantages over measuring temperatures from thermometer readings, as the traditional sources do. In particular, these measurements are not subject to the so-called “heat island effect,” which is the tendency of downtown business centers to show higher temperatures because of the materials used in tall buildings, which often reflect heat and thereby leave the surrounding areas somewhat warmer. Studies suggest that the impact of the heat-island effect is small, and the station-based temperature records make efforts to correct for it. Nevertheless, having the satellite measurements in addition to station-based temperature measurements provides for some redundancy.
70. For instance, one can adjust the temperature records to the same scale by looking at the years in which they overlapped with one another.
71. Their correlations (where 1 represents an exact match and 0 represents no relationship at all) are all .90 or higher.
72. J. Hansen, et al., “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” Science, 213, 4511(August 28, 1981). http://thedgw.org/definitionsOut/..%5Cdocs%5CHansen_climate_impact_of_increasing_co2.pdf.
73. Geert Jan van Oldenborgh and Rein Haarsma, “Evaluating a 1981 Temperature Projection,” RealClimate.org, April 2, 2012. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/04/evaluating-a-1981-temperature-projection/.
74. J. Hansen, et al., “Global Climate Changes as Forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies Three-Dimensional Model,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 93, D8 (August 20, 1988), pp. 9341–9364. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha02700w.html.
75. I use the meteorological definition of summer—the calendar months of June, July, and August—rather than the astronomical definition in which summer does not begin until about June 21.
76. This observation comes mainly from my own evaluation of Hansen’s forecasts, but see also Steve McIntyre, “Thoughts on Hansen et al. 1988,” Climate Audit, January 16, 2008. http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/16/thoughts-on-hansen-et-al-1988/.
77. The charts that accompanied the IPCC report showed a roughly linear increase in temperature. Thus, although we know that temperatures are subject to substantial yearly fluctuations, the IPCC forecast implied how much they are supposed to increase on average: by between 0.02°C and 0.05°C per year.
78. Roger Pielke Jr., “Verification of IPCC Sea Level Rise Forecasts 1990, 1995, 2001,” Prometheus, January 15, 2008. http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001323verification_of_ipcc.html.
79. “Policymakers’ Summary,” in Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. XVIII.
80. Ibid., figure 5, p. XIX.
81. “EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions: More Than Half Way to the 20 % Target by 2020,” European Environment Agency, April 13, 2011. http://www.eea.europa.eu/pressroom/newsreleases/eu-greenhouse-gas-emissions-more.
82. Earth System Research Laboratory, “Full Mauna Loa CO2 Record.”
83. See section 2.7 in “IPCC Second Assessment: Climate Changes 1995,” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, p. 5. It refers to a “best estimate” of a 2°C increase in global mean surface temperatures in the 110 years between 1990 and 2100, which works out to approximately 1.8°C per 100 years. The note also expresses a range of projections between 0.9°C and 2.7°C in warming per century. So, even the high end of the IPCC’s 1995 temperature range posited a (slightly) lower rate of warming than its best estimate in 1990. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-1995/ipcc-2nd-assessment/2nd-assessment-en.pdf.
84. Pielke, Jr., “Verification of IPCC Temperature Forecasts 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2007. http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001319verification_of_ipcc.html.
85. Julienne Stroeve, Marika M. Holland, Walt Meier, Ted Scambos, and Mark Serreze, “Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Faster Than Forecast,” Geophysical Research Letters, 34, 2007. http://www.ualberta.ca/~eec/Stroeve2007.pdf.
86. William Nordhaus, “The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy,” 2007. http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/dice_mss_072407_all.pdf.
87. Richard B. Rood, Maria Carmen Lemos, and Donald E. Anderson, “Climate Projections: From Useful to Usability,” University of Michigan, December 15, 2010. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cts=1330695376711&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fclimateknowledge.org%2Fopenclimate%2Fdoclink%2F20101211_Projections_Usability_AGU_2010.ppt&ei=xcxQT7HYNoPg0QHNoMDqDQ&usg=AFQjCNH0X_mGc24M3bWTlVusJeItaZm_bA&sig2=bfPJPgcKUTj6czOP-WnegQ.
88. Thomas C. Peterson, William M. Connolley, and John Fleck, “The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, September 2008. http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/Myth-1970-Global-Cooling-BAMS-2008.pdf.
89. Peter Gwynne, “The Cooling World,” Newsweek, April 28, 1975. http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf.
90. Brian J. Soden, Richard T. Wetherald, Georgiy L. Stenchikov, and Alan Robock, “Global Cooling After the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo: A Test of Climate Feedback by Water Vapor,” Science, 296; April 26, 2002. http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/SodenPinatubo.pdf.
91. S. J. Smith, et al., “Anthropogenic Sulfur Dioxide Emissions: 1850–2005,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 11 (February 9, 2011), pp. 1101–1116. http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/1101/2011/acp-11-1101-2011.pdf.
92. sfalke, “Country SO2 Emissions,” Community Initiative for Emissions Research and Applications, October 5, 2010. http://ciera-air.org/wiki/country-so2-emissions.
93. For Antarctic Ice Core CO2 measurements, see J.-M. Barnola, D. Raynaud, and C. Lorius, “Historical Carbon Dioxide Record from the Vostok Ice Core,” Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.html.
94. For a review of studies on the CO2 doubling value from 1980 to 1995, see Kavita Kacholia and Ruth A. Reck, “Comparison of Global Climate Change Simulations for CO2-Induced Warming: An Intercomparison of 108 Temperature Change Projections Published Between 1980 and 1995,” Climactic Change, 35, 1 (1997), pp. 53–69. http://www.springerlink.com/content/g65v456v8621247m/.
For a similar review for studies conducted prior to 1980, see Ruth A. Reck, “Introduction to the Proceedings of the Workshop on the Responsible Interpretation of Atmospheric Models and Related Data,” General Motors Research Publication GMR-3800, 1981.
95. G. S. Callendar, “The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Climate,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 64 (1938), pp. 223–240.
96. Kacholia and Reck, “Comparison of Global Climate Change Simulations for CO2-Induced Warming.”
97. “How Reliable Are Climate Models?,” Skeptical Science. http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm.
98. “Climate Change: Examining the Pr
ocesses Used to Create Science and Policy,” hearing before the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, March 31, 2011. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg65306/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg65306.pdf.
99. The success of forecasting methods that date back to the 1990s instead depend on that especially large amount of warming that occurred during the 1990s.
100. Voros McCracken, “13 for His Last 24: Tomfoolery with Multiple Endpoints,” Primate Studies, Baseball Think Factory, March 20, 2001. http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/primate_studies/discussion/mccracken_2001-03-20_0/.
101. Armstrong was willing to acknowledge there was some chance his no-change forecast would go badly in the near term. He told me that he figured the chances of winning the bet with Gore—which looked at temperature increases over the next decade rather than the next century—were about 70 percent.
102. This estimate is based on the error term on the coefficient associated with temperature increase in the regression model. It assumes that the exact amount of carbon dioxide is known and that CO2 will continue to increase at the same annual rate that it did between 2002 and 2011. In practice, the model underestimates the error slightly—and therefore somewhat underestimates the chance of a cooling decade—because the exact amount of CO2 is an unknown, as well as because of any specification uncertainty in the model.
103. “Climatic Research Unit E-Mail Controversy;” Wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy.
104. Henry Chu, “Panel Clears Researchers in ‘Climategate’ Controversy,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2010. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/15/world/la-fg-climate-data15-2010apr15.
105. Including those from satellite records processed by private companies.
106. “Climate of Fear;” editorial in Nature, 464, 141 (March 11, 2010). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7286/full/464141a.html.
107. The site is run by the meteorologist Anthony Watts and derives its name accordingly.
108. This especially holds if we like the way things are now. In this sense, conservatism—if defined as preservation of the status quo—argues more strongly for action to mitigate climate change than liberalism does.
109. Lydia Saad, “In U.S., Global Warming Views Steady Despite Warm Winter,” Gallup.com, March 30, 2012. http://www.gallup.com/poll/153608/global-warming-views-steady-despite-warm-winter.aspx.
110. The reluctance to tackle burgeoning national debt loads in the United States and other Western countries is another consequence of our short-term thinking.
111. Voteview, “An Update on Political Polarization (Through 2011)—Part II,” VoteView.com. http://voteview.com/blog/?p=309.
112. Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem,” Washington Post, April 27, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html.
113. Michael Kinsley, “The Gaffer Speaks,” The Times of London, April 23, 1988.
114. “Patents by Country, State, and Year; Utility Patents (December 2011)” Patent Technology Monitoring Team, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_utl.htm.
CHAPTER 13: WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN HURT YOU
1. Since the War of 1812. “A Sunday in December, Chapter 5: Fighting the Good Fight;” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1991. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-03/news/wr-753_1_pearl-harbor/3.
2. Mark R. Peattie and David C. Evans, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887–1941; (Bethesda, MD: Naval Institute Press; 1997.
3. “Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision” (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962), p. 385.
4. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor, p. 173.
5. Ibid., pp. 12–13.
6. Ibid., p. 385.
7. Some analysts did think that the carriers were on the move but on a far more southerly route, toward the Marshall Islands.
8. The vote was 82–0 in the U.S. Senate and 388–1 in the U.S. House. Frank L. Kluckhorn, “U.S. Declares War, Pacific Battle Widens,” New York Times; December 9, 1941.
9. Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinel, 2011), Kindle edition, locations 6147–6148.
10. Ibid., Kindle locations 814–816.
11. Urbahn was the first to break the news of Osama bin Laden’s death in May 2011, “Osama bin Laden Death First Revealed on Twitter;” Daily Mirror, May 2, 2011. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/osama-bin-laden-death-first-179280.
12. Associated Press, September 10, 1940 (as printed in Tuscaloosa News, September 11, 1941).
13. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor, p. 291.
14. Saburo Kurusu, “Historical Inevitability of the War of Greater East Asia,”Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, Tokyo; November 26, 1942. http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/421126a.html.
15. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor, pp. 1–2.
16. Ibid., p. 3.
17. Ibid., p. 387. Emphasis in original.
18. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (1599), Act I, Scene III.
19. This would exclude an extremely brief incursion across the Rio Grande by Mexican troops during the Mexican-American War in 1846 and a raid on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, by Pancho Villa in 1916..
20. Errol Morris, “The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1),”; Opinionator, New York Times, June 20, 2010. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/.
21. “DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers;” News Transcript, U.S. Department of Defense; February 12, 2002. http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2636.
22. Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Kindle location 196.
23. Harlan Ullman, “Known and Unknown Dangers (Terrorism),” National Interest, March 22, 2006.
24. “Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; 107th Congress, 2nd Session; December 2002, pp. 209–214.
25. “Statement by J. Gilmore Childers, Esq., Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP New York City, New York, and Henry J. DePippo, Esq., Nixon Hargrave Devans & Doyle Rochester, New York,” before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, Foreign Terrorists in America: Five Years After the World Trade Center, February 24, 1998. http://web.archive.org/web/20071227065444/http://judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/childers.htm.
26. “Major Terrorist Acts Suspected of or Inspired by al-Qaeda;” InfoPlease.com. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0884893.html.
27. “Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice;” Washington Post, October 1, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000282.html.
28. Ibid.
29. Moussaoui, who had overstayed his visa, was arrested on immigration charges.
30. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: Norton Trade E-Books, 2011), Kindle edition), location 6914.
31. Ibid., Kindle location 9243.
32. Ibid., Kindle location 9092.
33. Some of this resulted because of the banalities of the national security system; bureaucracy might be thought of as the opposite of imagination. In Pearl Harbor, some of the signals of the impeding Japanese attack were detected by the Army and others by the Navy; some were detected in Washington and others in Hawaii. However, the information was not necessarily shared, so no one decision maker had much insight. As Schelling writes in Wohlstetter’s book:
Surprise, when it happens to a government, is likely to be a complicated, diffuse, bureaucratic thing. It includes neglect of responsibility but also responsibility so poo
rly defined . . . that action gets lost. It includes gaps in intelligence, but also intelligence that, like a string of pearls too precious to wear, is too sensitive to give to those who need it. It includes the alarm that fails to work, but also the alarm that has gone off so often it has been disconnected. . . . It includes the contingencies that occur to no one, but also those that everyone assumes someone else is taking care of.
Likewise, in advance of September 11, some key pieces of information were held by the FBI and some by the CIA, some by the State Department and some by the Department of Defense. Rumsfeld told me that many of George Tenet’s revelations, for instance, he learned of for the first time only after reading Tenet’s book. Meanwhile, the Bush administration had just taken over from the Clinton administration and there were the usual political chores to worry about; Rumsfeld, for instance, spent much of his first nine months in office trying to fend off budget cuts.
34. The 9/11 Commission Report, Kindle location 9253.
35. Ibid., Kindle locations 2907–2910.
36. Bruce Schneier, Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World (New York: Springer, 2003), Kindle locations 951–952.
37. Note, however, that the kamikaze strategy was largely employed toward the end of the war, when Japan had started to lose badly; it was not in use at Pearl Harbor.
38. Global Terrorism Database, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, University of Maryland. http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?page=2&casualties_type=b&casualties_max=&start_yearonly=1979&end_yearonly=2000&dtp2=all&sAttack=1&count=100&expanded=no&charttype=line&chart=overtime&ob=GTDID&od=desc#results-table.
39. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability,” Cognitive Psychology, 5, 2 (Setepmber 1973), pp. 207–232. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010028573900339.
40. “Nineteen hijackers using commercial airliners as guided missiles to incinerate three thousand men, women, and children was perhaps the most horrific single unknown unknown America has experienced.” Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Kindle locations 196–198.