Finally, an Unbiased and Objective Climate Science Report | RealClearScience
The value of the DOE report is its holistic treatment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their effect on the nation s climate, extreme weather events, and accepted metrics of societal well-being.
Consider the opening chapters that address anthropogenic CO2, which is accurately described as being at a concentration of about 430ppm and increasing at a rate of about 2ppm per year. The report openly acknowledges the role of CO2 as a GHG that alters the earth s energy balance and warms the planet, but it also documents the expansive research which confirms the net benefit that higher levels of atmospheric CO2 have had on agriculture.
The report also takes a significant departure from what might be considered the mainstream view of climate science by calling the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 emission scenario what it truly is: implausible and unrealistic. RCP 8.5 was developed as an extreme worst-case, but its overuse as a business as usual scenario with extreme climate change impacts has resulted in many misleading studies and media reporting.
Another beneficial aspect of the DOE report is that it informs the public about the facts regarding climate science. Namely, it finds fault with those who invoke process-based reasoning and simple thermodynamic arguments to assert that warming is worsening extreme weather events. Because climate is the statistical property of weather over decades, single event attribution to climate change is not possible by definition
Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., U.S. Navy (Ret.).