NOAA Section 515 Officer
NOAA Executive Secretariat
Herbert C. Hoover Building – Room 5230
14th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20230
Mr. Thomas N. Pyke, Jr.
Chief Information Officer, United States Department of Commerce
14th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
Room 5029B
Washington, DC 20230
Introduction
This document follows and
incorporates by reference: Comments provided 3 June 2002 by CEI to the
Department of Commerce as it and NOAA developed Guidelines under the Federal
Data Quality Act (FDQA), correspondence sent to Assistant Secretary Dr. James
R. Mahoney and Under Secretary Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr (18
October 2002) requesting that the US Global Change Research Change Project’s
National Assessment Synthesis Team undergo housecleaning to remove members
responsible for the unlawfully produced, incomplete and FDQA-noncompliant
National Assessment on Climate Change, and CEI’s Comments on NOAA/ USCCSP’s
“Strategic Plan for the Climate Science Program” (17 January 2003)(all
attached).
Pursuant to the justification presented therein and incorporated by
reference in this Request, the Competitive Enterprise Institute requests
correction of information, under Section 515 of Public Law 106-554, seeking
Commerce/NOAA comply with the FDQA by immediately ceasing dissemination of the “Synthesis
Product” formally if inaccurately styled as meeting the requirements as a
first statutorily required “Climate Change Impacts in the United States:
The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change”, or National
Assessment (NACC).
As the lead plaintiff in CEI,
Inhofe, et al. v. Clinton (DC DC CV 00-02383), litigation based on that
product’s unlawful production, CEI is an Affected Person. Further, CEI is an active
participant in the domestic debate over United States “climate change” policies
addressing regulatory and related policies of the United States government and
their impact on its citizens, including inter alia an active practice
writing and publishing (research, opinion, books, monographs, and biweekly
“Cooler Heads” newsletter), advocating and as warranted litigating on policies
regarding the economics, science and policies surrounding the theory of
catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (“climate change”), which is the
subject of the Synthesized Product at issue in the Request. Our numerous documents previously filed on
related matters and attached also demonstrate CEI’s status as an Affected
Person.
Summary
Consistent
with and following upon CEI’s 3 June 2002 “Comments on Commerce’s Proposed Data
Quality Guidelines”, we request
“correction” of NACC’s fatal data flaws which, which upon review appears to be
only obtainable by ceasing dissemination of the entirety.
The following represents “an accurate citation to or description of the
particular information disseminated which is the subject of the request,
including: the date, point and form of disseminations and source from which the
requester obtained the information” – NACC was originally disseminated
electronically and in print December 2000, continuing to present, at https://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/default.htm. That the entirety of the relevant USGCRP is
now effectively located in and out of NOAA’s Global and Climate Change
Program (see, e.g., “Program Guide to Federally Funded Environment
and Natural Resources R&D”, available through https://www.nnic.noaa.gov/CENR/, CENR
itself being housed out of NOAA as that and other documents and web addresses
attest) satisfies the inquiry into the “indication of which NOAA office or
program disseminated the information; and any other details that will assist
NOAA in identifying the specific information which is the subject of the
request and locating the responsible office”.
As CEI detailed in its
Comments on Commerce’s Proposed FDQA Guidelines, the White House Office of
Management and Budget’s (OMB) Interim Final Guidelines for agency compliance
with FDQA requirements (66 FR 49718), finalized by OMB’s January 3, 2002 Final
Guidance (67 FR 369), were expressly “government-wide” (see FDQA Section
515(b)(1)). We continue our proceeding
under Commerce’s now-final Guidelines, and particularly NOAA’s “Information
Quality Guidelines”, to the extent these Guidelines further and are not in
conflict with OMB’s organic government-wide guidelines and/or FDQA.
As also
detailed in the attached, FDQA prohibits – and therefore, Commerce/NOAA must
cease -- dissemination of NACC as the sole feasible “correction” given the
errors’ endemic nature due to that document’s rampant violations of the data
quality requirements of “objectivity”
(whether the disseminated information is presented in an accurate, clear,
complete and unbiased manner and is as a matter of substance accurate,
reliable and unbiased), and “utility” (the usefulness
of the information to the intended users (per the US Global Change Act
of 1990, these are Congress and the Executive Branch).
This
invokes NACC’s inappropriate use of and reliance upon computer models and data
that upon scrutiny are demonstrably meaningless. Further, in developing the published version of NACC, the US
Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) also admittedly failed to perform the
necessary science underlying regional and sectoral analyses (that Congress
contemporaneously notified USGCRP was a condition precedent to the release of
even a draft National Assessment, as the absence of such yields the absence of
sound science). FDQA ratifies those
objections, and is violated by continued dissemination of this product by any
federal agency.
An
extensive record obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
provides additional evidence requiring a prohibition on further NACC
dissemination. This record exposes that
the purported internal “peer review” of the draft NACC did not in fact occur,
and also ratifies the inappropriate use of computer models, detailed
herein. As the obtained documents
demonstrate, commenting parties expressly informed USGCRP that they were rushed
and given wildly inadequate time for substantive review or comment. USGCRP published and continues to
disseminate the product nonetheless, as do all agencies such as Commerce/NOAA
which reference, cite, link or otherwise disseminate NACC.
All of
these failings ensure that dissemination of NACC violates FDQA’s requirement,
manifested in OMB’s Guidelines and as necessarily manifested by Commerce’s and
NOAA’s final guidelines, that data disseminated by Federal Agencies meet
standards of quality as measured by specific tests for objectivity, utility and
integrity.
As the statutorily designated
steering document for policymaking – despite that the particular document at
issue admittedly failed to complete the statutory mission required to qualify
as a “National Assessment,” and was disavowed by the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy in order to resolve litigation also brought by, inter
alia, CEI -- NACC qualifies as “influential scientific or statistical
information” for purposes of FDQA.
Therefore it must meet a “reproducibility” standard, setting forth
transparency regarding data and methods of analysis, “as a quality standard
above and beyond some peer review quality standards.”
Pursuant to these prior
filings, CEI requests that Commerce/NOAA immediately comply with FDQA and cease
dissemination of the National Assessment on Climate Change in whole or part and
in any form including any product relying on NACC. We therefore also request that you notify us at your earliest
convenience of Commerce/NOAA’s substantive response to the violations set forth
in this series of communications and the docket number assigned.
Facts
I. FDQA Coverage of the NACC
However and by whatever
cooperative effort of several government agencies, NACC as originally produced
and/or disseminated is inescapably covered by FDQA when disseminated by a
Federal Agency. This is particularly
true given that no permissible interpretation of FDQA would permit evasion of
its requirements, particularly regarding such a massive taxpayer expenditure,
on the basis that it was a collaborative effort of numerous covered
agencies. It is noteworthy that,
whatever the status of the governmental cooperative producing NACC, as directed
by the Executive Office of the President (EOP), the United States Global Change
Research Program (USGCRP), as putative producer of the National Assessment on
Climate Change nonetheless is subject to the Federal Data Quality Act
(FDQA). FDQA covers the same entities –
and therefore, products -- as the Paperwork Reduction Act (PWRA)(44 U.S.C.
Sections 3501 et seq.; see esp. 44 U.S.C. 3502(1)).
By statute the President serves as Chairman of the National Science and
Technology Council (“NSTC”), operating under the White House Office of Science
and Technology Policy (“OSTP”), and which has under its authority the Committee
on Environment and Natural Resources (“CENR”) (15 U.S.C. 2932 (originally
“Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences”)). All of these offices are therefore EOP entities, subject to PWRA,
thus FDQA.
Per 15 U.S.C. 2934 the President, as Chairman of the Council, shall develop and implement through CENR a US Global Change Research Program. The Program shall advise the President and Congress, through the NACC, on relevant considerations for climate policy. Though the composite USGCRP is an “interagency” effort staffed in great part by seconded employees from federal agencies, it remains under the direction of the President and is therefore a “covered agency” pursuant to 44 U.S.C. 3502(1).
Collectively
and pursuant to statutory authority, under the direction of these Executive
offices the collaborative effort USGCRP directed
an effort statutorily dedicated in part to studying the state of the science
and its uncertainties surrounding the theory of “global warming” or “climate
change,” producing a National Assessment on Climate Change. Though originally produced prior to FDQA,
the data asserted by the NACC (issued in final in December 2000), current or
continued dissemination is subject to the requirements of the Federal Data
Quality Act. Such an argument of
“pre-existing study” is not available as regards any disseminated document
under FDQA.
The Assessment was produced
as follows:
“On a periodic basis (not less frequently than every 4 years), the
Council, through the Committee, shall prepare and submit to the President and
the Congress an assessment which –
(1)
integrates, evaluates,
and interprets the findings of the [USGCR] Program and discusses the scientific
uncertainties associated with such findings;
(2)
analyzes the effects of
global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and
use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human
social systems, and biological diversity; and
(3)
analyzes current trends
in global change both human-inducted (sic) and natural, and projects major
trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.” (15 U.S.C. 2934).
III. The Assessment violates the requirements of the FDQA in the
following ways:
1. NACC Relies Upon and Promotes Improper
Use of Computer Model Data
For the following reasons, NACC violates FDQA’s
“objectivity” and “utility” requirements.
For these same reasons, as
“influential scientific or statistical information”, NACC also fails FDQA’s
“reproducibility” standard, establishing transparency requirements for data and
methods of analysis, “a quality standard above and beyond some peer review
quality standards.”
First, consider excerpts from the review of NACC by Patrick
Michaels, Professor of Environmental Sciences at University of Virginia, dated
and submitted to USGCRP August 11, 2000, detailing the above-noted concerns
placing the NACC in violation of FDQA.
Where appropriate, additional explanatory text is included. USGCRP
made no apparent alterations of the original text in response to these
comments, therefore the comments apply to NACC as disseminated.
“August 11, 2000…
“The essential
problem with the USNA [elsewhere cited in this Petition as the NACC] is
that it is based largely on two climate models, neither one of which, when
compared with the 10-year smoothed behavior of the lower 48 states (a very
lenient comparison), reduces the residual variance below the raw variance of
the data. The one that generates the most lurid warming scenarios—the Canadian
Climate Centre (CCC) Model—produces much larger errors than are inherent in the
natural noise of the data. That is a simple test of whether or not a model is
valid…and both of those models fail. All implied effects, including the large
temperature rise, are therefore based upon a multiple scientific failure. The
USNA’s continued use of those models and that approach is a willful choice to
disregard the most fundamental of scientific rules. (And that they did not find
and eliminate such an egregious error is testimony to grave bias). For that
reason alone, the USNA should be withdrawn from the public sphere until it
becomes scientifically based.”
Explanatory text: The basic rule
of science is that hypotheses must be verified by observed data before they can
be regarded as facts. Science that does not do this is “junk science”, and at
minimum is precisely what the FDQA is designed to bar from the policymaking
process.
The two climate models used in the NACC
make predictions of U.S. climate change based upon human alterations of the
atmosphere. Those alterations have been going on for well over 100 years. Do
the changes those models “predicted” for U.S. climate in the last century
resemble what actually occurred?
This can be determined by comparison of
observed U.S. annual temperature departures from the 20th century
average with those generated by both of these models. It is traditional to use
moving averages of the data to smooth out year-to-year changes that cannot be
anticipated by any climate model. This
review used 10-year running averages to minimize interannual noise.
The predicted-minus-observed values for
both models versus were then compared to the result that would obtain if one
simply predicted the average temperature for the 20th century from
year to year. In fact, both models did worse than that base case. Statistically
speaking, that means that both models perform worse for the last 100 years than
a table of random numbers applied to ten-year running mean U.S. temperatures.
There was no discernible alteration of
the NACC text in response to this fatal flaw. However, the NACC Synthesis Team,
co-chaired by Thomas Karl, Director of the National Climatic Data Center, took
the result so seriously that they commissioned an independent replication of
this test, only more inclusive, using 1-year, 5-year, 10-year and 25-year
running means of the U.S. annual temperature.
This analysis verified that in fact both models performed no better than
a table of random numbers applied to the U.S. Climate Data. Mr. Karl was kind enough to send the results
to this reviewer.
“….the
problem of model selection. As shown in Figure 9.3 of the Third Assessment of
the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the behavior of
virtually every General Circulation Climate model (GCM) is the production of a
linear warming, despite assumptions of exponential increases in greenhouse
forcing. In fact, only one (out of, by my count, 26) GCMs produces a
substantially exponential warming—the CCC model [one of the two used in the NACC].
Others may bend up a little, though not substantially, in the policy-relevant
time frame. The USNA specifically chose the outlier with regard to the
mathematical form of the output. No graduate student would be allowed to submit
a thesis to his or her committee with such arrogant bias, and no national
committee should be allowed to submit such a report to the American people.
Even worse, the CCC and Hadley data
were decadally smoothed and then (!) subject to a parabolic fit, as the caption
for the USNA’s Figure 6 makes clear. That makes the CCC even appear warmer
because of the very high last decadal average.
One of the two models chosen for use
in the USNA, the Canadian Climate Center (CCC) model, predicts the most extreme
temperature and precipitation changes of all the models considered for
inclusion. The CCC model forecasts the average temperature in the United States
to rise 8.1°F (4.5°C) by the year 2100, more than twice the rise of 3.6°F
(2.0°C) forecast by the U.K. model (the second model used in the USNA). Compare
this with what has actually occurred during the past century. The CCC model
predicted a warming of 2.7°F (1.5°C) in the United States over the course of
the twentieth century, but the observations show that the increase was about
0.25°F (0.14°C) (Hansen, J.E., et al., 1999: GISS analysis of surface
temperature change. Journal of
Geophysical Research, 104,
30,997–31,022), or about 10 times less than the forecast [Hansen has since
revised this to 0.5°C, which makes the prediction three times greater than what
has been observed]…. The CCC forecast of precipitation changes across the
Unites States is equally extreme. Of all the models reviewed for inclusion in
the USNA, the CCC model predicted more than twice the precipitation change than
the second most extreme model, which interestingly, was the U.K. model [the
other model used in the NACC]. The U.K. model itself forecast twice the change
of the average of the remaining, unselected models. Therefore, along with the
fact that GCMs in general cannot accurately forecast climate change at regional
levels, the GCMs selected as the basis for the USNA conclusions do not even
fairly represent the collection of available climate models.
Why deliberately select such an
inappropriate model as the CCC? [Thomas Karl, co-Chair of the NACC synthesis
team replied that] the reason the USNA chose the CCC model is that it provides
diurnal temperatures; this is a remarkable criterion given its base
performance….”
“The USNA’s high-end scenarios are
driven by a model that 1) doesn’t work over the United States; 2) is at
functional variance with virtually every other climate model. It is simply
impossible to reconcile this skewed choice with the rather esoteric desire to
include diurnal temperatures…”
Explanatory text: It is clear that the NACC chose two extreme models out of a field
of literally dozens that were available.
This violates the FDQA requirements for “objectivity” detailed in the
third paragraph of this Petition.
Second, Dr. Michaels is clearly not alone in his
assessment. The following are excerpts
from comments by government reviewers, received and possessed by USGCRP, or
USGCRP’s “peer reviewers’” failed attempts to elevate the NACC to the level of
scientific product. For example, consider
that styled “Improper use of climate models”, by William T. Pennell of
Northwest National Laboratory, submitted through DOE (John Houghton) to Melissa
Taylor at USGCRP:
“Although
it is mentioned in several places, greater emphasis needs to be placed on the
limitations that the climate change scenarios used in this assessment have on
its results. First, except for some
unidentified exceptions, only two models are used. Second, nearly every impact of importance is driven by what is
liable to happen to the climate on the regional to local scale, but it is well
known that current global-scale models have limited ability to simulate climate
effects as this degree of spatial resolution.
We have to use them, but I think we need to be candid about their limitations. Let’s take the West [cites example]…Every
time we show maps that indicate detail beyond the resolution of the models we
are misleading the reader.”
USGCRP
received other comments by
governmental “peer reviewers” affirming these clear, significant, indeed
disqualifying modeling data transgressions:
“Also,
the reliance on predictions from only two climate models is dangerous”. Steven J. Ghan, Staff Scientist, Atmospheric
Sciences and Global Change, Pacific Northwest Laboratory.
“This
report relies too much on the projections from only two climate models. Projections from other models should also be
used in the assessment to more broadly sample the range of predicted
responses.” Steven J. Ghan Staff
Scientist, Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change, Pacific Northwest
Laboratory.
“Comments
on National Assessment. 1. The most critical shortcomings of the
assessment are the attempt to extrapolate global-scale projections down to
regional and sub-regional scales and to use two models which provide divergent
projections for key climatic elements.”
Mitchell Baer, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
“General comments: Bias of individual authors is evident. Climate variability not addressed…Why were the Hadley and
Canadian GCMs used? Unanswered
questions. Are these GCM’s [sic]
sufficiently accurate to make regional projections? Nope”. Reviewer Stan
Wullschleger (12/17/99).
William
T. Pennell, Manager, Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change, Pacific Northwest
Laboratory, cites the that “only two models are used” as a “limitation” on the
product.
The final NACC currently disseminated by
Commerce/NOAA shows these admonitions went unheeded.
Stated
simply, the climate models upon which NACC relies struck out. Strike one: they can't simulate the current
climate. Strike two: they falsely
predict greater and more rapid warming in the atmosphere than at the surface --
the opposite is happening (see e.g., https://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/hl_sat_accuracy.html). Strike three: they predict amplified warming
at the poles, which are cooling instead (see e.g., https://www.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40974-2002Jan13.html). Worse, NACC knowingly misuses the data
demonstrably non-utile for their purported purpose. Being on notice of these facts, NOAA is equally culpable.
2. Failure to Perform Requisite Scientific
Review Violates FDQA
USGCRP’s development of NACC drew
congressional attention to particular shortcomings. Specifically, leaders in
the United States House of Representatives repeatedly attempted to herd USGCRP
and its subsidiary bodies to follow the scientific method regarding particular
matters, specifically the regional and sectoral analyses. Indeed the concerns had become so acute that
these leaders were compelled to promote a restriction prohibiting relevant
agencies from expending appropriated monies upon the matter at issue, unless
consistent with the plain requirements of the GCRA of 1990, through language in
the conference report accompanying Public Law 106-74:
“None of the funds made available in this Act may be
used to publish or issue an assessment required under section 106 of the Global
Change Research Act of 1990 unless (1) the supporting research has been
subjected to peer review and, if not otherwise publicly available, posted
electronically for public comment prior to
use in the assessment; and (2) the draft assessment
has been published in the
Federal Register for a 60 day public comment period.”[1]
USGCRP
did not perform the conditions precedent for valid science as reaffirmed in
that language. Instead USGCRP produced
and now disseminates a NACC knowingly and expressly without the benefit of the
supporting science which not only is substantively required but which Congress
rightly insisted be performed and subject to peer review prior to releasing any
such assessment.
These attempts to rectify certain NACC shortcomings were
made in advance of USGCRP producing the NACC, but were never rectified. These failures justify Petitioners’ request
that USGCRP cease present and future NACC dissemination unless and until its
violations of FDQA are corrected. In
addition to NACC violating FDQA’s “objectivity” and “utility” requirements, as “influential scientific or statistical information”,
NACC also fails its “reproducibility” standard, setting forth transparency
regarding data and methods of analysis.
Per OMB, this represents “a quality standard above and beyond some peer
review quality standards.”[2]
Given
USGCRP’s refusal to wait for completion of the underlying science and their
response to the relevant oversight chairmen, it is manifest that USGCRP ignored
or rejected these lawmakers’ requests, including by the relevant oversight
Chairmen and produced a deeply flawed Assessment, knowingly and admittedly
issuing a “final” Assessment without having complied with Congress’s direction
to incorporate the underlying science styled as “regional and sectoral
analyses,”[3]
while also admitting that the requisite scientific foundation would be
completed imminently. For these same
reasons dissemination presently violates FDQA.
3. NACC Not in Fact Peer
Reviewed, the Record Makes Clear
Finally, NACC suffers from having received no authentic
peer review, in violation of FDQA’s “objectivity” and “utility”
requirements. As “influential scientific or statistical
information”, for these reasons NACC also fails the “reproducibility” standard,
setting forth transparency regarding data and methods of analysis, “a quality
standard above and beyond some peer review quality standards.”
Once an advisory committee was chartered pursuant to the
Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in 1998, Dr. John Gibbons’ communication
of January 8, 1998 to the first Designated Federal Officer (DFO) Dr. Robert
Corell indicates a sense of urgency was communicated to the panel by political
officials. Further, statements in the
record and major media outlets, including but in no way limited to those from
certain anonymous if purportedly well placed sources, indicate a perception
among involved scientists that political pressures drove the timing and even
content of this draft document. This is
manifested by the lack of opportunity to comment for parties whose comment was
formally requested as part of a “peer review” of NACC.
This sense of urgency is reflected in, among other
places, comments the Cooler Heads Coalition obtained via the Freedom of
Information Act, made by parties from the National Laboratories asked by the
Department of Energy to comment on the Draft.
In addition to an emphasis on speed as opposed to deliberation, the
report’s emphasis on “possible calamities” to the detriment of balancing
comments which were widely offered, and rampant criticism of the reliance on
only two significantly divergent models for the pronouncements made, these
comments are exemplified by the following samples from well over a dozen such
complaints accessed through FOIA, also received by and in the possession of
USGCRP:
1)
“This review was constrained to be performed
within a day and a half. This is not an
adequate amount of time to perform the quality of review that should be
performed on this size document” (Ronald N. Kickert, 12/08/99);
2)
“During
this time, I did not have time to review the two Foundation Document Chapters”
(Kickert, 12/20/99);
3)
“Given
the deadline I have been given for these comments, I have not been able to read
this chapter in its entirety” (William T. Pennell);
4)
“UNFORTUNATELY, THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT READY
FOR RELEASE WITHOUT MAJOR CHANGES” (CAPS and bold in original)(Jae
Edmonds);
5)
“This
is not ready to go!” (William M. Putman).
These comments reflect an alarming implication of timing
over substance, and of a product whose final content appears
predetermined. Patrick Michaels’
comments, and the absence of apparent change in response to his alarming
findings, reinforces this troubling reality.
Notably, the product was released and continues to be disseminated
without offering an actual peer review or otherwise addressing the concerns
expressed.
In
conclusion, the National Assessment on Climate Change fails to meet FDQA and/or
OMB and Commerce/NOAA Guidelines regarding Data Quality. As a consequence, Commerce/ NOAA must
immediately cease electronic and other dissemination of the unacceptable data
provided by the National Assessment on Climate Change, as defined by OMB, and
now Commerce and NOAA, and described, supra.
Sincerely,
Christopher C. Horner
Counsel
202.331.2260
enc
[1] House Report 106-379, the
conference report accompanying H.R. 2684, Department of Veterans Affairs and
Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act,
2000 (Pub.L. 106-74), p. 137.
[2] As established in CEI et al. v. Clinton, Congress detailed for USGCRP its more obvious scientific failures which ensure that NACC now violates FDQA, noting USGCRP’s apparent failure to comply with such conditions and seeking assurance that such circumstances would be remedied. USGCRP via OSTP drafted a response to House Science Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner, evasively failing to specifically address the concerns raised by these Members. Chairmen Sensenbrenner and Calvert specifically took issue and/or disputed these non-responses in the July 20, 2000 letter, reiterating their request for compliance with the law’s requirements. Nonetheless, the failings persist.
[3] This despite that the two principal NACC sections are “Regions,” and “Sections.” (See https://www.gcrio.org/nationalassessment/overvpdf/1Intro.pdf).
