Kevin Trenberth (NCAR) On Interior Sec. Zinke's Climate Testimony: "A Stupid And Ignorant Answer"

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke evaded questions yesterday about the extent of rising temperatures during a Senate budget hearing for an agency that oversees fossil fuel development on a fifth of the nation's land.

During a heated exchange with Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Zinke punted on basic questions about climate science. The secretary declined to engage in a line of inquiry that focused on government predictions of rising temperatures over the next 80 years. He claimed instead that climate models are inaccurate, a frequent talking point among climate skeptics.

"I'm concerned about whether you are clear about the magnitude of warming that is occurring," Franken said at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing. Franken repeatedly asked Zinke, a former congressman from Montana, if he could "tell me how much warming government scientists predict for the end of this century under a business-as-usual scenario?" Zinke parried. "I don't think government scientists can predict with certainty," he said. "There isn't a model that exists today that can predict today's weather given all the data."

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Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said Zinke's explanation was "a stupid and ignorant answer." Climate models, he said, are getting better. The simulations increasingly line up with observed changes. By using temperature records and atmospheric measurements of carbon dioxide, scientists know that in the past 200 years the planet has warmed about 1.4 F and CO2 has risen 40 percent. The present level of atmospheric CO2 is higher than it has been in the past million years.

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https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/21/stories/1060056340