B - 202 - Open Letter on „Climate Change:
Reply concerning the letter, 21st October,
to the U.S.A. Senate by the listed institutions

Subject: Letter to Senators concerning climate change legislation – 21.Oct.2009

Dear President or Executive Director,
How could it happen that more than a dozen of the most prestigious scientific associations signed and submitted this letter on ‘climate change’ without having ensured that the used terminology is sufficiently defined. Good science can and is required to work with reasonable terms and explanations. The science about the behaviour of the atmosphere should be no exception. But WMO, IPCC and other institutions simply are using the layman’s term of weather and climate not even recognizing that this is very unscientifically. Actually nowadays climate is still defined as average weather, which may be fine for the general public, but nonsense as scientific term. This can be well demonstrated with the most relevant international legal instrument, namely the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 (FCCC).

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B - 205 - Should Governments object when IPCC scientists neglect the working conditions of the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)? Can IPCC use its own term: ‘Climate change’, and in different versions?

Has the WMO/UNEP sponsored IPCC to apply international law? Should IPCC be permitted to circumvent the text of the UNFCCC? Should IPCC required to apply the FCCC definition on ’climate change’ to avoid confusion and misunderstanding?

The United Nations initiated the UNFCCC in 1990. At its 45th Session the General Assembly decided to establish a Committee for preparing a framework convention on climate change taking into account – inter alias – the work of the IPCC. The Committee (INC) was to be established in consultation with WMO and UNEP. This increased their influence further since the joint setting up of the IPCC in 1988, which submitted its first report in 1990, and thus played an important role in establishing the INC for preparing the climate change convention . Insofar the UNO, WMO, and UNEP are not free from responsibility for the outcome of the UNFCCC and its implementation since 1994. There are at least three items, which the mentioned organizations should have addressed since long.

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C - 305 - What is Weather? - Is 'average weather' climate?

What is the difference between partly cloudy and partly sunny, or warm and cold weather? In Australia, in China or in North America? You know, we know, the weather forecaster know! Often we needs much more specification, concerning season, location, temperature and humidity conditions. But we know as we have a lot of knowledge about weather conditions and a lot of experience. Every day we are confronted with weather, we talk a lot about  the weather, and are usually keen to know what is happening next with the weather. For this reason we are grateful for being advised about the weather today, tomorrow, and beyond. As it works fairly well for a couple of days, it is less convincing with regard to months, years and millenniums. This touches the question how science handles the terms: weather, average weather and climate. That is a complex matter and the material and comments provided can only hope for initiating a border discussion.

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D - 411 - About Valerio Lucarini's effort to define climate science in 2002

Valerio Lucarini's paper: "Towards a definition of climate science", does not spend much time on explaining how climate science explains 'climate science', but talks about other matters. Actually Lucarini never even attempts to define 'climate science', but practically speaks only about "Uncertainties in climate science", and is concerned with computer modeling. Subsequently his Conclusion of ca. 350 words mentions the term 'climate science' not once. Lucarini's paper is a demonstration how the term 'climate' can be easily 'twisted' and misused.

In his chapter on " Uncertainties in climate science", he starts saying firstly: "Due to the complexity of the system, climate dynamics is chaotic and is characterized by a large natural variability on different temporal scales", and thereon continues to emphasize that "the actual situation is much more problematic because even for the atmosphere, the database go back in time no more than 4-5 decades". This shows that a simple fact is ignored, namely that only the atmosphere is part of a system and climate a mere 'imagination', respectively arbitrarily selected and compiled statistics. This shall be further analysed by putting some questions or remarks to the Lucarini's Introduction.

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B - 212 - R. Pielke Sr. says: For many, the term "climate" refers to long-term weather statistics. However, more broadly and more accurately, the definition of the climate is a system consisting of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere.

  In his recent paper "A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system"(11/2008)¹, Prof. Pielke addressed also the "Definition of climate". Actually he belong to the few scientists that care about this matter. In November 2008 he presented once again a comment on his invaluable weblog: www.climatesci.org, with which he had started it in 2005, under the same title "What is Climate? Why Does it Matter How We Define Climate?"² , and an unchanged text. Our comment in autumn 2007 is available at section: B-211, and had some reservations. Can we agree more today?

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C - 330 - Prof. Roger A. Pielke Sr calls for recognition that an equivalence of global warming and climate change is erroneous

Prof. Roger A. Pielke Sr seems to be one of the few scientists who raises his voice if an incomprehensible scientific terminology is used that may lead to serious confusion or misunderstanding. In a contribution to SCITIZEN in April 2007[1], he addressed the confusion between the terms ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’[2], claiming that the terms are often used interchangeably. According Pielke this has resulted in the communication of climate change science to policymakers that are seriously flawed.

Although Whatisclimate (WIC) welcomes any serious attempt that requires or achieves more clarity in atmospheric science terminology, it kindly requests any reader to form his own view on Prof. Pielkes reasoning, while WIC constrain its contribution to questions, hoping that they are useful for further reasoning. A short section follows the Extract/Question section with:

Few examples on term: ‘global warming’, and ‘global warming potential’

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