Interview with Eduardo Zorita

Interview with Eduardo Zorita
by Hans von Storch



Eduardo, please tell us your professional background. What did you study, how did you come to climate science, with climate-science problems and issues have you dealt with?

I studied physics at the University of Zaragoza, a biggish city located between Madrid and Barcelona, and obtained Ph.D. degree in Solid State Physics. My area of research durung my doctorate was the study of defects and impurities in some type of in crystals applying spectroscopic techniques, mainly magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a method that is also widely used in medicine. I became interested in climate science partly by chance. The German DAAD - an agency that funds foreign students in Germany and German students abroad - allowed a group of students to visit a few research institutions and universities in Germany over a period of two weeks,. One of these institutions was the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. I remember that Stephan Bakan gave us an overview talk about the state of climate science at that time. I had not taken any courses on meteorology or oceanography at home, and somehow I was struck by the shear interdisciplinarity of climate science: from Hasselman's stochastic climate models to geochemistry, and of course climate models. I felt strongly attracted and after the completion of my Ph.D I decided to test my luck. Post-docs and graduate students that wanted to work in a foreign institution were awash with funding in Spain at that time, and I could pick between the European Space Agency in the Netherlands and MPI in Hamburg.

What is your scientific understanding of the problem of greenhouse-gas related climate change? Which statements would you consider as very certain, and which would you consider as presently contested. Are there issues, which you consider "unsolvable" for the time being, maybe be even forever?

It is clear that carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases and their increase the atmosphere must lead to higher surface temperatures. If CO2 concentrations rise to , say 1000 ppm (now they are about 400 ppm) its effect must be very clear. We are, however, still at concentrations in which its effect may still be confounded by other factors, among them internal random variability, which hinders a precise quantification of anthropogenic global warming. Other impacts further down the chain are more uncertain, for instance, the effect of rising temperatures on hurricanes, precipitation patterns, and meteorological extremes. I think it will be very difficult to attribute changes in extremes to anthropogenic greenhouse in the foreseeable future.

Do you think that you, as a person trained as physicist, look at problems differently than, say a meteorologist or a geographer?

I think so. Physics students learn a particular way of tackling problems. Physics provides a set of guiding principles the laws of conservation (of mass-energy, momentum, angular momentum, etc.). Also important are the symmetries that a particular problem presents. A physicist's instinctive first reaction is to identify which quantities are conserved, what remains unchanged, which properties remain invariant regardless of different perspectives you may take to look at the problem, what can be transported from a simpler problem to a more general problem. Sometimes I even think that physics is just variations of the general theme of 'eigenvectors': to reduce a system to its conserved quantities and just get rid of the inessential and mutable properties. Other disciplines tend to fathom the problems in all their complexity, classify, memorize, etc. I do not know if the physicist's way of tackling problems is better than others’. Probably not always, but sometimes it is helpful to just dismiss the distracting details and focus on the essentials. One of the difficulties of studying the Earth's climate is that it is an open, non-linear, heterogeneous system, and for that type of systems physics offers no clear 'guiding principles', at least none that I am aware of. You have the conservation of vorticity, maybe the principle of maximum production of entropy, but I am afraid those principles do not bring you very far.

There are a number of key concepts. Would you mind telling us, what these terms mean for you? Data? Model? Theory? Falsification? Uncertainty?

I would cast model and theory under the same umbrella, although not everyone would agree. Theory is just a very condense model. They both are an internal representation of reality that allows making some predictions of yet unknown phenomena. Data are important to suggest the theories/models and to test them - so it is important that verification data are independent of the data used to construct a theory or model. Uncertainty appears in two different forms. One is that we can never be sure that a particular theory is a faithful and unique representation of reality. For instance, are there completely different theories that could describe and predict certain phenomena? The second form of uncertainty stems from the limitations of a theory, which due to the lack of data or computer power or lack of the adequate mathematical methods, could be in principle correct, but cannot deliver accurate enough predictions. This is the uncertainty we face in climate science.

Falsifiability is a very important property of any theory or model. It is this property that supports science - as opposed to religion for instance. A theory must always be at risk of being proven wrong, and thus if it has lasted for a long time it is likely closer to be a correct explanation. At the same time, this risk of falsification may be falsely interpreted as a lack of knowledge. We see this sometimes in circles opposed to Darwin theory, who for instance argue that this theory is an hypothesis and not a theory, since even the Darwininst still are debating against each other. Something similar occurs in climate science as well. Policy makers and the public in general should be aware that science is never settled - this is the soul of scientific activity - and yet the state of science at a particular moment in time has to flow into policy decisions, with all its uncertainties and limitations.

What would you consider is the significance of paleoclimatology? How robust are the results of this field? Is there a chance or a great improvement?

Paleoclimatology has some similarities with history. It offers a wider perspective and play field in which to test our hypothesis. There have been quite a few advances in palaeoclimatology. More records and new type of proxies are been retrieved, although some are over-interpreted. Paleoclimatologist are now, I think, more critical of their own findings, and there is an awareness that not all proxy records are reflecting past climatic conditions. Modelling is becoming more widespread and more powerful due to the increasing computer power. Future advances would be, however, incremental, but I hope that we will have soon a more accurate picture of the global climate during the Holocene, and the interplay between the external drivers, like the sun, volcanoes, greenhouse gases, and the internal climate variations. I fret that climate models will then face significant challenges to simulate the reconstructed climate, but many things can be learned from this as well.

You are a frequent reviewer or journals - could you summarize your experience concerning this practice?

My personal experience is very positive. I always learn very much from the 'raw' manuscripts that other scientist write. I learn myself how to write my manuscripts better (hopefully). In 2011 I reviewed a few tenths of manuscripts and project proposals. It takes some time but I think it is a very good personal investment. Whether or not peer-review increases the general scientific level of the published literature is still an open question. It is important to bear in mind that peer-review is not a rubber-stamp of truth, and most manuscript nowadays can get published in one way or another. Peer-review is just a first filter about the consistency and potential interest of a manuscript. As any evaluation system, peer-review is not perfect, but I do not know how it could be improved. It takes time to review a paper and thus a manuscript is usually revised by 2 reviewers, which I think it is not enough, at least not in some cases. The danger of gate-keeping when only two reviewers are involved is too large for some controversial manuscripts. But to commit 10 reviewers for a review would be impractical. Sometimes I think that a mixed system would be better, in which the manuscript is first read by 10 people who just give a 'go' or 'not go' vote, and then the text can be reviewed in depth by two of them. Another solution would be that the editors take a more pro-active role. Quite often, the editors just blindly accept the reviewers’ recommendations, without filtering the reviews that are obviously biased. Open review systems are becoming more popular but so far with limited success, since not many people devote time to participate.

What do you think the role of social sciences and of cultural sciences could be in the field of climate science?

I guess there are two ways in this direction. It may be argued that society modulates the way in which climatologist (or scientist in general) work. I cannot see it so clearly, but probably I cannot see through because in this case I would be the object of study. The other direction, I do see an interesting role for social sciences in the field of climate policy- adaptation or mitigation and its interaction with technology. Here I am clearly out of my depth, but I feel that we can learn something by looking at how societies in the past accepted (or not) scientific knowledge and adopted (or not) technological and environmental changes. We now take many things for granted. Vaccines, electricity, transportation, communications, etc. But at some point in the past, these were also new technologies. It would be interesting to know why and how these technologies became ingrained in the society. What was the role of the state or of similar institutions and the role of the individuals, etc.

Do you know Merton's norms of scientific conduct. Would you agree to these norms, or are they mere naive and unrealistic requests?

Among the five rules I have read about (Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, Originality, Skepticism) I would agree with all except with Disinterestedness, according to which scientist are assumed to work for the benefit of common goal, rather than for personal gain. I do not think this is realistic and even necessary. Scientist have to cooperate, now even more than in the past, but the motivation of a scientist is not, in general, the benefit of a larger group of scientist or mankind. Scientist are scientist because they enjoy their job, the personal motivation is just the challenge to break a secret code. The benefits for society are a side effect.

Climate science is close to climate policy. Could you first dwell upon your view, how science and policy making should interact?

Climate science, and science in general, cannot offer full certainty. But it does offer an instrument to interpret observations and suggests ways of action when some goals are desired. Scientists that are involved in policy should be very clear about the uncertainties, and policy makers should also be aware that sometimes there are alternative views. Scientists are also human beings with all their frailties and biases. In the end, policy making entails risks, but informed decisions should be less risky than uninformed decisions. Thus, policy makers should indeed seek scientific advice, but in my opinion, not directly from active researchers but from independent bodies. If I were to design health policy I would not like to have the advice of star researchers that may have all kind of vested interests in academia, press, industry or finance. I would rather like to have the assessment of an unspectacular body of paid professionals that can explain to me what the researchers are doing but that have otherwise no stake in the matter.

And how is this link, according to your perception, in case of climate science?

Climate science and policy makers mainly interact via the IPCC. I have always had a hard time trying to understand the role of the IPCC. It produces its regular reports, which in the case of Working Group I (the physical basis of climate) are in general terms of high scientific quality. It is a very good source if you already have a scientific background and wish to inform yourself about climate science. But I really do not see how the IPCC can help policy makers. I guess that very few, if any, policy makers are reading the WG-I report. The Summary for Policy Makers is co-written by government officials and scientist, and thus it seems that it is the result of some type of obscure negotiations. This leads to all sorts of wrong incentives, also for scientists. In some countries, a criterion for promotion is whether your work has been cited by the IPCC, this gives already an idea about how the IPCC reports are misused for goals totally alien to the intended purpose. I think another type of IPCC would have been much more useful. For instance, the US government, when faced by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, called Feynman to lead an investigation team. The IPCC could be something of this sort: a commission lead by independent scientists, who are not climate scientists themselves, but who are smart enough to gather the information they need from the sources they deem adequate.

Some scientist feel very motivated to influence policy directly, and I have the impression that in the end these scientists are being misused by the politicians themselves, which can then boast green credentials in the next elections. Sincerely, I do not feel that, in general, policy makers really feel the need to be informed about climate science, unless it serves their own preconceived agenda. It is true that climate, with its long time scales involved, poses an 'unprecedented' problem to everyone involved: policy makers, scientists and the voters. I want to be optimistic and hope that the climate problem will be solved, but probably it will be solved in ways that we cannot foresee now, and not by the intense lobbying of policy makers.

You set up the Klimazwiebel within an hour, or so, on 9 December 2009. What was the motivation for doing so? What did you expect to get?

That was immediately after Climategate. We felt that times have changed enough so that it was possible to engage in a more open discussion about climate issues, including a hopefully a more unbiased information about climate research. I expected the discussions to be more or less rational, at least much less aggressive that we see in other blogs. From the very beginning we did not want to moderate the comments, with obvious exceptions.

And what did you get?

In general terms, I think that the Klimazwiebel is the blog we wanted to have, and thus I am quite satisfied with the results. One point that probably we will never know is whether or not any reader has changed his initial stance on any of the issues we have discussed, and admits that he might have been wrong after all. That would be a real achievement in this polarized atmosphere.

Is running Klimazwiebel worth the effort?

The goal of writing good blog entries regularly takes a lot of time, and often in my case they are not that good. I am often surprised by the reaction of our readers, which I guess is a good sign. Personally, I have realized a few important things. One is to never be convinced of being completely right. The engagement with the readers can lead to 'circle the wagons' and the impulse to delete comments, but I think it is often healthy to ponder if 'that stupid reader' may have a point after all. This is almost never the case, but only almost.

The heated days of the hockeystick are mostly gone. How do you asses in hindsight the situation in the past, what is the present situation?

I would characterize the period of the Third Assessment Report, the one that included the hockey stick graph, as a period in which criticisms about climate models, observation uncertainties and of course, uncertainties about climate reconstructions, were downplayed and even suppressed. I recall many sceptical comments about the hockey-stick reconstruction among climate researchers that were simply not publicly voiced. We now see published papers that display and discuss the deficiencies of climate models and of climate reconstructions, which would not have been published 10 years ago. In this sense, the situation is more open, and in my view, also better for climate policy. Some would argue that scientist should present a closed and tidy story about anthropogenic climate change, but in the end this will backlash.

Would you mind telling us how you judge "climategate"?

Climategate did not show that the essentials of climate science were wrong or that anthropogenic climate change is the result of a conspiracy. It did show that some scientists were impelled to present a clean story, cleaner than it really is, and in doing so they went a bit too far. In some way it showed a kind of 'window dressing' that extended into the peer-review process. This is similar to what happens to political organizations: they have to present a clear message to the public at the cost of diluting or simplifying the whole story. In the end their credibility sinks, and this is also what happened to climate science in general.

The scientific corpus did not need to be revised after Climategate. The cases in which other independent groups attempted to revisethe conclusions that appeared compromised by Climategate, it turned out that the conclusions were in order - I am referring here to the Müller et el reanalysis of the station temperature record. The procedures of climate science or of climate communication did require a review, for instance by the International Academy Council. Trust is one of the most valuable currencies and it is very easy to lose. I was not surprised by the Climategate emails, I can understand that many were surprised, and not in a positive sense. The reaction of the climate researchers to Climategate was clumsy, but this actually demonstrates that climate scientist are not part of an organized conspiracy and that they are not members of a secret society. They are just individuals that share some interests, but do not collude in the sense as it has been sometimes portrayed after Climategate.

I think the lessons from Climategate have not been completely learned. I personally would have advocated much more transparency, for instance making the IPCC author meetings public on the internet.

Are there "alarmists"? Is that a good term?

Yes, I think there are alarmists, if by that term we include those that see anthropogenic forcing behind every change we see in the environment. Perhaps alarmist is not the right term. I would rather use the expression 'climate hypochondriacs'.

What do you think about skeptics, about deniers?

Deniers have a similar mindset as alarmists. For them, no amount of evidence is or will be enough to convince them of the anthropogenic effect on climate. Ironically, both wield the application of 'scientific method' as weapon to combat the adversary. In reality, both are rather closer to religious position than to a proper scientific way of inquiry. There is a useful method to find out whether we are fundamentalist. Pose the question of what type of experimental evidence would be required for us to change our most firmly held belief, e.g. that climate change is a hoax or that the end of the world is approaching. If we cannot find an answer, then we are fundamentalist.

Scepticism is a more subtle concept. All of us should be sceptic about everything, first of all about ourselves. What I miss among some sceptics is that they apply a biased scepticism. We see this quite clearly in so called sceptical blogs, when they praise articles that they think defend their positions, but they fail to scrutinize those papers in the same way as they do with the IPCC, for instance. Healthy scepticism should, however, not lead to paralysis. At the end of the day, we have to take decisions, take risks framed by uncertainty, and accept the consequences of decisions that turned to be wrong. It is a matter of weighting risks and opportunities, and different persons would come to different conclusions even when they are faced with the same scientific evidence. The example of vaccination is enlightening. In the last epidemic of Mexican flu, some medical authorities recommended vaccination, other were more 'skeptical'. We will never know who was right.

Finally, a forecast, or a number of scenarios. What will be the state of climate science in 20 and in 50 years? In terms of knowledge and societal significance?

I hope that in 50 years, with long series of satellite data, we will know how sensitive climate is to external perturbations, and probably we will know how large internal climate variability is. But, hopefully, at that time anthropogenic the carbon dioxide will have ceased to be an issue. My tentative prediction is that the main source of energy will be geothermal and that climate science will be focused on other fields, e.g.: provide accurate decadal predictions at regional scales, and to evaluate and design geo-engeneering. For instance, how to modify hurricane tracks (or typhoons...), how to stop a drought spell, etc. Some important climate research centres, like CRU and GFDL were founded in part with this purpose in mind, for instance to study the consequences of the Soviet plan to divert Arctic rivers. Maybe there will be a strong interest in simulating the climate of Mars. If I live long enough to see this predictions come to pass, I would not mind to be handed the Gattaca prize by one of its employees.