Hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Subject: Artic Climate Impact Assessment

Interview

HEARING OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
SUBJECT: ARCTIC CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENT

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): Good morning. Much attention has been devoted to the recently released Arctic Climate Impact Assessment by the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Sciences Committee. This assessment adds to substantial and growing body of evidence that clearly demonstrates that climate change is real and has far-reaching implications for society. I congratulate and thank those who have spent the past four years working on this effort.

The preface of the report states that it is essential that decision makers have the latest and best information available regarding ongoing climate changes in the Arctic. I strongly agree with that statement. And it's in this spirit we meet today to continue the series of climate change hearings held by this committee. The administration's recently report entitled "Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005" which was described by Dr. James Mahoney, director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program as, quote, "the best possible scientific information" on climate change, states that, quote, "comparison of index trends in observations and model simulations shows that North American temperature changes from 1950 to 1999 were unlikely to be due only to natural climate variations. Observed trends over this period are consistent with simulations that include anthropogenic forcing from increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols."

This report is consistent with the National Academy of Sciences' 2001 report that states greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and sub-surface ocean temperatures to rise. Now, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment clearly demonstrates how the Arctic region is acting as the canary in the coal mine. This assessment is consistent with these and other earlier scientific reports which project that the Arctic would experience the dramatic effects of climate change before other parts of the world.

Let me also note that one of the more interesting aspects of the assessment is how it has integrated the best scientific knowledge with the traditional knowledge of the indigenous people of the Arctic. It demonstrates a tremendous amount of respect for those who have lived off the land for many generations and therefore understand the environment in ways that the rest of us do not. I think this approach can and should be used as a model for future assessments.

According to the report, the term "Arctic" comes from the ancient Greek word for "country of the great bear." It's been said that we will have to rename Glacier National Park since all the glaciers are melting. I wonder if we will have to do the same for the Arctic if the polar bear becomes extinct, as the assessment has projected by the end of the century.

Today's first panel will discuss the assessment in more detail. The policy recommendation stemming from this assessment will not be available until next week. We also have a second panel today which will discuss some of the government's efforts to understand more about the environment of the other polar region, Antarctica. The polar regions play a key role in our understanding of the Earth's climate, environments and ecosystems and the critical links in the global climate system.

Last year, I introduced a resolution to celebrate the anniversaries of the International Polar Years and the International Geophysical Year which passed the Senate. The next International Polar Year to occur in 2007-2008 is envisioned to be a coordinated campaign of observations, research and analysis at the North and South Poles. These activities will provide valuable information regarding the impact of polar environmental changes and the conditions of environment changes across the globe.

I welcome our witnesses today and look forward to their testimonies.

Senator Stevens.

SEN. TED STEVENS (R-AK): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a slight cold this morning. I'll try to make myself heard. We have held a series of hearings on this subject as it's impacted our state of Alaska. I was at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and traveled to some of the villages that have been affected already by the climate change that's taking place in my state. We have had the General Accounting Office, as you know, make a study of the impact of this change on Alaska villages and it is very serious and poses immediate problems for us. I do appreciate you continuing to have these hearings and look forward to working with you in the future concerning this subject.

Unfortunately, I do have a little problem of nine bills that have to be passed by Friday. So I'm going to have to leave this morning. But I welcome this report on impacts of a warming Arctic. It is a very serious matter for the indigenous people of Alaska and for all of us, as a matter of fact, as we see the change. If anybody wants to see it, they should go to the Begich Boggs. It's just about five miles from my house, Mr. Chairman, at the Portage Glacier.

After there were two congressmen who disappeared in an airplane that left Anchorage, we named the visitor center there after them. And I have the memory of opening the curtain of this new visitor center and looking right at a glacier. That glacier is a mile and-a- half from that spot now. It has receded that far. It is a very serious subject that we're dealing with and one that we have to address and I'm certain that there are going to be some differences of opinion along the road. But I don't think that there are going to be any difference of opinion that this change is taking place and we must take some action to find a way to help the people who are impacted by it and also try to determine if possible any way to reduce the rate of change. Thank you very much.

SEN. McCAIN: Thank you very much, Senator Stevens.

I just mention that we have visited the Arctic in Northern Norway in August and the evidence was quite compelling in our meetings with the researchers from eight different nations that are up there and was attention-getting to say the least. I thank you, Senator Stevens, and I recognize you have some other important duties to perform.

Our first panel is Dr. Robert Corell who is the chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and senior fellow of the American Meteorological Society, Ms. Susan Joy Hassol, independent scholar and science writer. Dr. Mark Serrez is a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado and Dr. Igor Krupnik, a research anthropologist at the Arctic Studies Center, Department of Anthropology, the National Museum of National History of the Smithsonian Institute. Welcome to our panelists and Dr. Corell, we'd like to begin with you.

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SEN. STEVENS: I must go. But I do thank you very much, Doctor. I think as one -- I have traveled the Arctic now for over 55 years and they are my great friends in the Arctic. I think the difficulty we have is in convincing the rest of the country of what we must do to help them. They have to have a cash flow. They have to have some form of revenue to move their villages, to reestablish their churches, move their schools, even move their runways. They are accessible only by air. No roads were allowed to be built in our state north of Ribe (ph), Fairbanks. Just one.

I think people have to realize the extent of this change and the impact on our people which is here now. We've held these hearings now every year for three years. I've been unable to earmark any money for these projects so far. And I do believe it's going to shock a lot of people, but when we're going to open ANWR for drilling this year and we're going to dedicate a portion of the revenue from that vast resource to meeting the needs of these people in the Arctic.

We just cannot depend upon the Treasury of the United States, the taxpayers' money, to meet the needs of these people. It's going to cost $100 million to move the first village. And there are over 100 villages. So unless we find some way to establish a cash flow and establish a means of allocating that cash flow to meeting their needs. They have to be retrained. Their diets are going to change. Really, the calving area for the sea mammals is going to change. The ice, as you know, the shelf ice is a protection for the small marine mammals. There's no longer going to be that shelf near the islands. I think of some of the people who live on the islands offshore of Alaska. They're the ones that are going to be devastated the most and sooner than anyone else because their food chain is going to change rapidly. It's already changing.

I hope everybody understands the scope of what we're dealing with. We've been trying to get the Congress interested in the scope of this change. But so far, it's not been possible. I congratulate you on this report and look forward to reading it. But I do think that first impact has to be addressed first. We're willing to work with you on terms of trying to solve the understand the overall problem and see how much we can solve as -- mankind can solve now, but I do think the impact on the people that live in that area is going to change.

The Northwest Passage is open every year now. I remember riding on the "Manhattan" as we took that double hull tanker around thinking we're going to take oil out of the North Slope by tanker. And as you know, on the way back, it crashed into an iceberg so big that it put a hole in both hulls, I believe -- at least one of them -- sufficient to deter anyone to think about moving oil from the North Slope in a tanker then. Now it's open, not only above our country, but it's open above Russia. You can go all the way through now and they do every year -- as you know -- they go through with convoys of vessels there too.

But this change is enormous. I'm pleased to see you are looking at the change in the rest of the country too because I think there's going to be change. But it's not going to be as great, I don't think, in any portion of our occupation of this continent as it not only will be, but is now. That's my point. I hope you don't just talk about the future. Let's talk about right now. It's very serious just this winter. That's why we've had this problem of the storms that the president had to react to. I just went up and visited Nome during this period. We're putting in a new breakwater and a new port. Totally destroyed almost by 20-ton rocks removed by that storm. This is a new phenomenon for that part of the Arctic in the winter time to have a storm of that type.

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman. It is going to be with us for a long time. I'm not sure either of us is going to live through that life cycle of 80 years. (Laughter.) But we ought to do our best to make sure those who do will have a better chance to survive.

Thank you very much.

SEN. McCAIN: I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would also suggest that perhaps we need to address the root causes of this problem, and sooner rather than later, and convince our colleagues to take concrete measures and this administration to try to stop the continuing increase of greenhouse gases which are the major factor in impacting what's happening in Alaska. Unless we address this problem, the people in Arizona are going to need the same kind of help that the people in Alaska need today.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to working with you.

SEN. STEVENS: This keeps up, you are going to want a cabin on the Arctic Coast.

(Laughter.)

SEN. McCAIN: Thank you, sir.

Dr. Corell, before I move to the next witness, we still seem to be plagued with this debate that there are scientists that believe that climate change is not real, that there's nothing wrong, that basically we don't have to do anything. One of my colleagues on the floor of the Senate said climate change is all a myth. After the last hearing, one of these outfits -- I've forgotten -- you know, funded by industry, said that it was a propaganda show. Why is this and what does it take to prove that what you're saying and what Senator Stevens just commented on has got to be addressed?

DR. CORELL: First, there has been a real effort on the part of the scientific community, through IPCC, you know, upwards of 3,000 scientists around the world concluded that the preponderance of evidence --

SEN. McCAIN: There are members of the media here today. They will hear this hearing and they will go and find, as they should, some, quote, "scientific" group, group of scientists who will say it's all bunk, it's a propaganda show and absolutely unnecessary to take any action, like curbing the increases in greenhouse gases and stopping their devastating effect on this Earth's climate.

DR. CORELL: Well, I think the consensus in the scientific community is so powerful, not only from this assessment for the IPCC, that what we've seen in the last 50 years is attributable to human activities, greenhouse gases. Now one of the richnesses of the community, of course, is the debate always between us about what we know and how well we know it. But I think this is outside of that realm, as you are pointing out. There are what we have come to know as skeptics, and I think documents of this nature which we can say has been thoroughly reviewed by over 200 other people who have had nothing to do with it, and said what's in here is not only right, printable but should be recognized. And, in my view, we should take these individuals on in debate and I think the facts will, in the long run, support the fact that the warming over the last 50 years is clearly due to greenhouse effects.

I have had the opportunity to meet with a number of those individuals here and abroad and when the argument is done, they back off. But there is still a group who believe, for whatever reason, whether scientific reasons or for the community they represent, that the challenge of changing our energy policy and having a more distributed energy policy and changing the way we emit CO2s from our energy sources, we're going to have to take that on head-on. And I'd like to think that this assessment and others to follow where we can make absolutely clear that it's been done openly, there's been no influence from this administration or anybody else on the content of this document, that we'll win the battle.

SEN. McCAIN: Thank God for that.

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SEN. McCAIN: Thank you, Senator Lautenberg, and I appreciate your kind remarks. Also a statement by Senator Collins will be included in the record.

And before I ask this next panel to appear, Dr. Corell, I mentioned that there will be some outfit that will dispute the findings today. The George C. Marshall Institute issued a press release saying, "Claims that temperature increase over the past 50 years are mostly due to human activity are based on computer modeling analysis and assertions that temperature increases are larger than at any time in the past 1,000 years are based on a report on climate history featured in the IPCC's list assessment report, but which have now been thoroughly discredited."

This is from the Marshall Institute. Do you know anyone who was thoroughly or anything that was thoroughly discredited in your findings?

DR. CORELL: I know of no such -- I'm surprised at their statement. On the other hand, it's not surprising that they would come forward with that. There have been numerous --

SEN. McCAIN: What do you know about this outfit? I know that General Marshall was a great American. I think he might be very embarrassed to know that his name is being used in this disgraceful fashion. I wonder how these people shave?

DR. CORELL: Wonderful.

SEN. McCAIN: "In short, the Arctic Impact Assessment report can only tell us for certain that the Arctic is changing, Jeff K-u-e-t-e- r, executive director of the Marshall Institute, concluded. Quote, Reports projections into the future are nothing more than science advocacy used to promote climate alarmism, unquote."

Who are these people?

DR. CORELL: Well, as I indicated earlier, a number of us in the community, not only the Arctic community but others have been confronted with these sorts of statements. And in the end, I think the debate rests on the consensus built within the science community, largely -- the trouble with a debate of this nature is you pit 2,600 people against two or three or four. And it's okay that people might have differing opinions. But they need to put them in the same sort of documentation that comes about by these, in our case, 300 people working --

SEN. McCAIN: Have you ever heard of any reliable organization discrediting your findings?

DR. CORELL: I have not and I think it would be very hard to do so with the credence necessary to overcome the incredible range of scientific effort. The references in the "Brick" run 1,500 to 2,000 just in some chapters. So this is all built on the best science can bring from all over the world.

SEN. McCAIN: I wonder if the native Alaskans believe that this is promoting climate alarmism.

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SEN. McCAIN: And we're getting way out of your area of expertise. But technology has clearly been developed to meet challenges. And to assert that somehow we use present technology to address these challenges does a great disservice to the innovative skills and ability of the United States of America; i.e. hydrogen engine cars. I believe that if there was enough pressures brought about by enough people in the world, particularly in this country, to be aware of these impacts, then it would drive us to hydrogen engines, for example, not to mention a whole broad variety of technologies which I don't even know of.

But there's -- this is what is frustrating to me is that the economic impacts are not necessarily as described by the Marshall Institute. But it was more of a statement than a question.

DR. ABDALATI: Well, I agree with the statement.

SEN. McCAIN: Thank you.

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