The CCSP revised and re-released Synthesis Report is out. I have not had a chance to look at thoroughly, but my first look does not leave me impressed. In fact, I am once again amazed at the brazen and willful misrepresentation of an area of climate change that I have some expertise in. The selective presentation of research on disasters and climate change by various assessment bodies leaves me convinced that such selectivity is a matter of choice and not simply incompetence. Such behavior damages the credibility of the entire climate science enterprise. Read on for the details of this latest and now common misrepresentation of the state of science on disasters and climate change.

On disasters and climate change The CCSP Synthesis Draft report concludes (p. 106 here in PDF):

While economic and demographic factors have nodoubt contributed to observed increases in losses 39, these factors do not fully explain the upward trend in costs or numbers of events 37,40.

What are these definitive references 37, and 40, you might wonder?

They are:

37 Mills, E., 2005: Insurance in a climate of change. Science, 309(5737), 1040-1044.

40 Rosenzweig, C., G. Casassa, D.J. Karoly, A. Imeson, C. Liu, A. Menzel, S. Rawlins, T.L. Root, B. Seguin, and P. Tryjanowski, 2007: Assessment of observed changes and responses in natural and managed systems. In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Parry, M.L., O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. Hanson, (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, pp. 79-131.

Both are problematic for reasons I have discussed here before, and also in the literature.

I discussed the errors found in Mills 2005 at length here. But lets set aside the fact that Mills 2005 is fatally flawed. There is a more fundamental problem with the CCSP report, and that is its selectivity in reporting legitimate scientific perspectives. I have no problem with the CCSP citing Mills 2005, it is after all part of the scientific literature. I have a problem with the CCSP citing only Mills and not other research with a decidedly different conclusion.

Consider reference #41 in that exact same section of the CCSP report:

41 Pielke Jr., R.A., 2005: Response to: “Attribution of Disaster Losses” by E. Mills. Science, 310(5754), 1615.

In that response to Mills published by Science, which the CCSP dismisses, I conclude after reviewing the literature that, (here in PDF):

Presently, there is simply no scientific basis for claims that the escalating cost of disasters is the result of anything other than increasing societal vulnerability

Similarly, in a short piece in BAMS a group of scholars made a similar argument against such selective interpretations of the literature (here in PDF):

a robust body of research shows very little evidence to support the claim that the rising costs associated with weather and climate events are associated with changes in the frequency or intensity of events themselves.1 Instead, the research that has sought to explain increasing disaster losses has found that the trend has far more to do with the nature of societal vulnerability to those events.

Here is how the CCSP dismisses this “robust body of research”:

Analyses discounting the role of climate change tend to focus on a limited set of hazards and geographies. They also often fail to account for the vagaries of natural cycles and inflation adjustments, or to normalize for countervailing factors such as improved pre- and post-event loss prevention (such as dikes, building codes, and early warning systems)41.

This critique is just wrong. In fact it is so far wrong as to be bizarre. Much of my work has focused on accounting for the very adjustments that are referred to here. In fact, reference #39 in that section of the CCSP report is my own work making such adjustments:

Pielke Jr., R.A., J. Gratz, C.W. Landsea, D. Collins, M. Saunders, and R. Musulin, 2008: Normalized hurricane damages in the United States: 1900-2005. Natural Hazards Review, 9(1), 29-42.

In that paper we conclude (here in PDF):

The lack of trend in twentieth century normalized hurricane losses is consistent with what one would expect to find given the lack of trends in hurricane frequency or intensity at landfall. This finding should add some confidence that, at least to a first degree, the normalization approach has successfully adjusted for changing societal conditions.

But wait, there is more. The second reference used by the CCSP is the IPCC WGII report. Surely that provided a definitive review of the literature? Nope. In this post I show how the IPCC cherry picked a single white paper from a collection that I put together (with Peter Hoeppe) as background to a major workshop on climate change and disaster losses. The cherry-picked white paper was at odds with the consensus of the workshop. At the time I wrote:

The full discussion by the IPCC WG II has a bit more nuance, but it is clear that they are reaching for whatever they can to support a conclusion that simply is not backed up in the broader literature. Can anyone point to any other area in the IPCC where one non-peer-reviewed study is used to overturn the robust conclusions of an entire literature?

The CCSP cherry picks an assessment that cherry picks — now we are talking about cherry picking squared.

But wait there is more. The CCSP itself reported no climatological basis for increasing economic losses in the United States in its report on extremes.

The bottom line is that the CCSP report refuses to acknowledge the range of legitimate scientific discussion on the subject of disasters and climate change. It selectively cites research that supports conclusions that it would like to reach, and dismisses and ignores that which is inconvenient. This is not how assessments should be done. How can anyone trust the climate science community as long as such shenanigans are allowed to take place?