Andrew, I think by now given this administration's attitude towards climate science that any such errors are not by accident or lack of understanding. Any report that says climate change is in any way anthropogenic would not be published. The NPS has been ordered to remove any signs that discuss changes due to climate change (among other things Trump doesn't like https://grist.org/politics/why-trumps-purge-of-negative-national-park-signs-includes-climate-change/ ) so I wouldn't count on this being an "error" that could be corrected.
You'll be gratified to know that ChatGPT agrees with you. I entered the following fragment:
'Section 8.5 of the DOE CWG Report focuses on a single table in the IPCC report (Table 12.12 in the Sixth Assessment’s Working Group 1 Report) and, based on this table, concludes: “it is not currently possible to attribute changes in most extreme weather types to human influences.”'
The first paragraph of ChatGPT's response was:
"You’re right to call attention to that claim — it is misleading, and the DOE CWG’s argument in Section 8.5 misinterprets both the role and meaning of Table 12.12 in the IPCC AR6 WGI / Chapter 12. Below is a more precise breakdown of the issue, along with how the IPCC does actually address attribution of extreme events (in other chapters)."
Wow, that's amazing. I wonder how it knows that. Did it organically figure that out from previous knowledge and the snippet of the report or did they train on our Climate Experts' Review?
Yeah, pretty interesting. I'm afraid it's all a black box on some level, but IIUC, it has access to all peer-reviewed published material, and can apply metaliterate rules like J. Nielsen-Gammon's hierarchy of reliability. It also presumably can infer motivated reasoning in peer-reviewed and other existing material from historical context. I'm sure all that knowledge of how generative AI works is held by some human or another, and I'm comfortable assuming it all comes down to machine language eventually.
OTOH, if I find ChatGPT is making up things that contradict everything else I know after a prolonged scientific education and 37 years of grappling with climate-change disinformation online, my suspicions will be aroused. So far so good, although Grok may have indulged in journalistic false balance on one denialist excerpt I gave it. AI's epistemic credibility will require close watching.
"The new National Academies assessment contradicts the administration’s claims. The 136-page report, assembled by a committee of two dozen scientists, concludes that the original endangerment finding was accurate and “has stood the test of time.” It says that there is now even stronger evidence that rising greenhouse gas levels can threaten public health and well-being, and that new risks have been uncovered."
That's the message the country needs to hear, IMHO. The NAS was established by Congress in 1863, to advise the nation on scientific matters. No disrespect to Prof. Dessler, but he's not as high up in the metaliterate hierarchy of reliability, and probably about level with Brad Plumer for NYTimes readers.
No disrespect to Brad Plumer, but he's not a climate scientist, and he has not demonstrated a capacity to respond -- point by point, detail by detail, based on the relevant climate science but in a manner understandable by the average non-scientist -- to the indefensible claims being made by the CWG and those who are spreading related disinformation on the administration's behalf. Failure to respond in this manner to the garbage being spewed by the CWG's defenders is tantamount to conceding that their insupportable assertions are correct.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
ALERT: Lapse in Funding
Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted. The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov. Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.
" I suggest that the U.S. Government withdraw this report and instead establish a transparent assessment of climate science"
Riiiiight.
You are droll. Given how hard that group is working to establish the exact opposite, or do away with the subject entirely, this probably won't happen.
And yes, it IS straight out of Big Tobacco/Fossil Fuels/Petrochemicals playbook, a winning strategy for more than a half century.. . why would they change it?
This just seems like a dispute about definitions. I don’t see the error.
In the context of section 8, which is where the quote came from, they clearly define attribution to mean emergence in the sense that you and the IPCC define it: large enough to be differentiated from natural variability.
Here’s a couple of quotes to illustrate the point:
“Nonetheless a striking feature of that summary table is how few CIDs exhibit an anthropogenic signal sufficient to distinguish them from natural variability.”
And, commenting on Table 12.12, which is their Table 8.1, the full quote is:
“Table 8.1 makes the related point that it is not currently possible to attribute changes in most extreme weather types to human influences. Taking wind as an example, the IPCC claims that an anthropogenic signal has not emerged in average wind speeds, severe windstorms, tropical cyclones or sand and dust storms, nor is one expected to emerge this century even under an extreme emissions scenario. The same applies to drought and fire weather.”
They clearly understand the conceptual difference between what you define as attribution versus emergence, because they use chapter 6 to discuss the attribution evidence from the IPCC report (in your sense of the word) and then they argue against it. The quote you took is from their chapter 8 however.
No, they do not understand it. This quote, which you posted, is wrong: "Table 8.1 makes the related point that it is not currently possible to attribute changes in most extreme weather types to human influences."
They are using “attribute” in the ordinary parlance of the word, since they are writing for a non-technical audience. They clearly understand the difference between the technical definitions, since they devote chapter 6 to attribution evidence and chapter 8 to emergence evidence. They also define what they are talking about in chapter 8 as big enough to be unexplainable in terms of natural variation.
What's the value of "expert" reviewers if not to presume stuff? I mean other than to share their presumptions as celebrities on cable news programs obviously.
Andrew, I think by now given this administration's attitude towards climate science that any such errors are not by accident or lack of understanding. Any report that says climate change is in any way anthropogenic would not be published. The NPS has been ordered to remove any signs that discuss changes due to climate change (among other things Trump doesn't like https://grist.org/politics/why-trumps-purge-of-negative-national-park-signs-includes-climate-change/ ) so I wouldn't count on this being an "error" that could be corrected.
You'll be gratified to know that ChatGPT agrees with you. I entered the following fragment:
'Section 8.5 of the DOE CWG Report focuses on a single table in the IPCC report (Table 12.12 in the Sixth Assessment’s Working Group 1 Report) and, based on this table, concludes: “it is not currently possible to attribute changes in most extreme weather types to human influences.”'
The first paragraph of ChatGPT's response was:
"You’re right to call attention to that claim — it is misleading, and the DOE CWG’s argument in Section 8.5 misinterprets both the role and meaning of Table 12.12 in the IPCC AR6 WGI / Chapter 12. Below is a more precise breakdown of the issue, along with how the IPCC does actually address attribution of extreme events (in other chapters)."
Wow, that's amazing. I wonder how it knows that. Did it organically figure that out from previous knowledge and the snippet of the report or did they train on our Climate Experts' Review?
Yeah, pretty interesting. I'm afraid it's all a black box on some level, but IIUC, it has access to all peer-reviewed published material, and can apply metaliterate rules like J. Nielsen-Gammon's hierarchy of reliability. It also presumably can infer motivated reasoning in peer-reviewed and other existing material from historical context. I'm sure all that knowledge of how generative AI works is held by some human or another, and I'm comfortable assuming it all comes down to machine language eventually.
OTOH, if I find ChatGPT is making up things that contradict everything else I know after a prolonged scientific education and 37 years of grappling with climate-change disinformation online, my suspicions will be aroused. So far so good, although Grok may have indulged in journalistic false balance on one denialist excerpt I gave it. AI's epistemic credibility will require close watching.
Please consider doing an op-ed that responds to Steve Koonin's piece, and explains in 1+1=2 terms why he and the DOE CWG are utterly wrong.
The Wall Street Journal would never print it.
Worth a try, I think. And if they won't publish it, another newspaper would.
The New York Times published this news item by Brad Plumer, one of their longtime science reporters, a couple of weeks ago: "Top Scientists Find Growing Evidence That Greenhouse Gases Are, in Fact, a Danger" (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/climate/national-academies-climate-trump.html):
"The new National Academies assessment contradicts the administration’s claims. The 136-page report, assembled by a committee of two dozen scientists, concludes that the original endangerment finding was accurate and “has stood the test of time.” It says that there is now even stronger evidence that rising greenhouse gas levels can threaten public health and well-being, and that new risks have been uncovered."
That's the message the country needs to hear, IMHO. The NAS was established by Congress in 1863, to advise the nation on scientific matters. No disrespect to Prof. Dessler, but he's not as high up in the metaliterate hierarchy of reliability, and probably about level with Brad Plumer for NYTimes readers.
No disrespect to Brad Plumer, but he's not a climate scientist, and he has not demonstrated a capacity to respond -- point by point, detail by detail, based on the relevant climate science but in a manner understandable by the average non-scientist -- to the indefensible claims being made by the CWG and those who are spreading related disinformation on the administration's behalf. Failure to respond in this manner to the garbage being spewed by the CWG's defenders is tantamount to conceding that their insupportable assertions are correct.
This one used the naughty "E" word
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
ALERT: Lapse in Funding
Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted. The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov. Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.
(Updated October 1, 2025 8:22 a.m.)
" I suggest that the U.S. Government withdraw this report and instead establish a transparent assessment of climate science"
Riiiiight.
You are droll. Given how hard that group is working to establish the exact opposite, or do away with the subject entirely, this probably won't happen.
And yes, it IS straight out of Big Tobacco/Fossil Fuels/Petrochemicals playbook, a winning strategy for more than a half century.. . why would they change it?
I wrote a response to this piece.
Andy has introduced a definition of ToE at odds with IPCC and things go downhill from there
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/bunk-from-the-brink
Andy if you'd like to write a response, I am happy to publish it
Comments welcomed
This just seems like a dispute about definitions. I don’t see the error.
In the context of section 8, which is where the quote came from, they clearly define attribution to mean emergence in the sense that you and the IPCC define it: large enough to be differentiated from natural variability.
Here’s a couple of quotes to illustrate the point:
“Nonetheless a striking feature of that summary table is how few CIDs exhibit an anthropogenic signal sufficient to distinguish them from natural variability.”
And, commenting on Table 12.12, which is their Table 8.1, the full quote is:
“Table 8.1 makes the related point that it is not currently possible to attribute changes in most extreme weather types to human influences. Taking wind as an example, the IPCC claims that an anthropogenic signal has not emerged in average wind speeds, severe windstorms, tropical cyclones or sand and dust storms, nor is one expected to emerge this century even under an extreme emissions scenario. The same applies to drought and fire weather.”
They clearly understand the conceptual difference between what you define as attribution versus emergence, because they use chapter 6 to discuss the attribution evidence from the IPCC report (in your sense of the word) and then they argue against it. The quote you took is from their chapter 8 however.
No, they do not understand it. This quote, which you posted, is wrong: "Table 8.1 makes the related point that it is not currently possible to attribute changes in most extreme weather types to human influences."
They are using “attribute” in the ordinary parlance of the word, since they are writing for a non-technical audience. They clearly understand the difference between the technical definitions, since they devote chapter 6 to attribution evidence and chapter 8 to emergence evidence. They also define what they are talking about in chapter 8 as big enough to be unexplainable in terms of natural variation.
"presumably", they say. 🙄
What's the value of "expert" reviewers if not to presume stuff? I mean other than to share their presumptions as celebrities on cable news programs obviously.