Arguments
Koonin providing clarity on climate?
Posted on 22 September 2025 by Ken Rice
This is a re-post from And Then There's Physics
It seems that the US Department of Energy has now disbanded the Climate Working Group that drafted the report that I discussed in this post. However, about a week ago, Steven Koonin – one of the authors of the report – had an article in the Wall Street Journal titled At Long Last, Clarity on Climate. Clarity is a bit of a stretch. Personally, I think it more muddied the waters, than brought clarity.
A general point that I didn’t really make in my previous post (and that has just been highlighted in a comment) is that it is explicitly focussed on the US. The richest country in the world probably is more resilient than most others and could well decide that it’s better to deal with the impacts of climate change than committing too much now to avoiding them. I happen to disagree with this as I think it ignores how the US has benefitted from something that will negatively impact others, ignores that countries can’t really exist in isolation, and ignores that there are potentially outcomes that even wealthy a country will struggle to deal with. However, I can see how some might conclude this, although it might be good if they were much more explicit.
What I thought I would do is try to address some of the claims and conclusions made in Steven Koonin’s article. There’s an element of truthiness to the article; some claims may be true, but they don’t really support the argument being made.
For example, he says:
While global sea levels have risen about 8 inches since 1900, aggregate U.S. tide-gauge data don’t show the long-term acceleration expected from a warming globe.
U.S. tide-gauges may indeed not show the expected long-term acceleration, but the rate of global sea level rise is indeed accelerating.
Similarly, he says that:
Data aggregated over the continental U.S. show no significant long-term trends in most extreme weather events. Claims of more frequent or intense hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and dryness in America aren’t supported by historical records.
Some of the statements (no long-term trends, historical records) may indeed be technically true. However, there are numerous studies that have shown that climate change has affected extreme events in Northern America. You can find many examples in this Carbon Brief article that has mapped how climate change affects extreme weather around the world.
He also claims that:
Natural climate variability, data limitations and model deficiencies complicate efforts to attribute specific climate changes or extreme events to human CO2 emissions.
I suspect these factors do indeed complicate efforts, but so what? It is complicated, but that doesn’t mean that studies haven’t been done that do indeed demonstrate that human CO2 emissions are driving climate change and influencing extreme events.
I’ll end this bit with a comment about something he says about climate models:
Complex climate models provide limited guidance on the climate’s response to rising carbon-dioxide levels. Overly sensitive models, often using extreme scenarios, have exaggerated future warming projections and consequences.
There is a hot model problem, but there are ways to correct for this, and climate models have generally been skillfull. Also, climate models are typically making projections – or conditional predictions – because the emission pathways are inputs to the models. Hence the result is telling us something about what might happen if we follow that emission pathway. The emission pathways that are considered range from ones where we soon start reducing emissions to ones where it continues increasing. To suggest that climate models have exaggerated future warming projections when the emission pathways are inputs seems a little confused.
I’m not writing this to try and change the minds of those who think the DOE climate report was excellent and who think that the authors are some of the best scientists in the field. That would be silly and naive. I’m partly writing this because it’s a rainy Saturday afternoon and it’s a topic I find interesting.
However, another reason is that I think it’s important to think about why people with relevant expertise can write something that seems intellectually weak and sloppy, but present it as if it’s a careful piece of work that’s provided clarity. Would be easy to conclude that it’s simply them being dishonest, but I’m not convinced it’s quite that simple or convenient.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the authors believe that they have written a good report and that what they’ve presented has provided some clarity. So, how do you have serious discussions about complex topics when people who are regarded as experts in the field can’t even decide on some of the scientific fundamentals, or the significant of what the scientific evidence suggests? I certainly don’t know the answer, but I do think it is something worth thinking about.
Links:
At Long Last: Clarity on Climate – Steven Koonins WSJ article.
The New DOE Climate Report – my earlier post on the DOE Climate Report, with a link to the report.
Trump’s Energy Department disbands group that sowed doubt about climate change – NPR article about the DOE CWG being disbanced.
Climate Change: Global Sea Level – NOAA webpage highlighting that the rate of global sea level rise is accelerating.
Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world – Carbon Brief article mapping attribution studies for extreme events.
The ‘hot model’ problem – my post about the hot model problem.
Evaluating the Performance of Past Climate Model Projections – paper by Hausfather et al.
Past warming trend constrains future warming in CMIP6 models – Tokarska et al. with a method for downweighting models based on how well the agree with past warming trends.
CO2 fluctuating 100 ppm over 100,000-year cycles is sufficient to cause sea-level to flluctuate 400 ft. This indicates just how delicate our ecosystem is to CO2 forcings.
CO2 is now increasing at a rate of 100 ppm every 40 years. Can we expect anything but difficulties from such a strong, upward, persistent push?
"In 2019, the Trump Administration proposed to create a "Presidential Committee on Climate Security" at the National Security Council that would conduct an "adversarial" review of the scientific consensus on climate change. Koonin was actively involved in recruiting others to be part of this review. The committee was scrapped in favor of an initiative not "subject to the same level of public disclosure as a formal advisory committee".[39][40][41]
From Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Koonin
It seems so many societies are distracted and divided and disinformationed to elect malignant leaders.
Evan @ 1 100,000 year cycles are caused by the Milankovitch cycles of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. CO2 fluctuations were the result of ocean temperature changes. It is hypothesized that at the beginning of ice ages increased dissolution of CO2 in cold water, the result of the temprature dependence on Henry's Law, slows cooling by reducing CO2. Evolving CO2 from warm water at the end of an ice age enhances the rate of warming.
This time is different. This is the first time in the history of the planet that CO2 and other GHG concentrations are increasing rapidly due to emissions from human activities.
Everyone dies. That is natural. When someone causes someone else to die, that is immoral.
Ken Rice is lenient with the authors of the DOE Climate Impacts report and with Secretary Chris Wright. Chris Wright states in the Foreword: “I chose them for their rigor, honesty, and willingness to elevate the debate. I believe it faithfully represents the state of climate science today.” I care more about substance than credentials. My public comments included: “The Foreword highlights that the purpose of the Critical Review is to challenge and counter mainstream science. It certainly does not represent the state of climate science today. Rather, it provides a rationalization for weakening current policies for combatting climate change. The authors are neither representative of the scientific community nor diverse.”
The science is not that complex. The report is full of misrepresentation, distraction, and obfuscation. It is not worthy of an undergraduate term paper let alone a critical review of science by PhDs. Many points have been thoroughly discussed and debunked here on the SkS website. My comments included:
1) “Section 2.1 is oversimplistic. CO2 is rarely the limiting nutrient. It discusses photosynthesis as a benefit but ignores adverse effects resulting from CO2 as the primary cause of climate change including drought, extreme temperatures, excess rain, and cropland relocation.”
2) “CO2 below 180 ppm is an irrelevant distraction to the discussion of modern global warming.”
3) “Changing ‘ocean acidification’ to ‘ocean neutralization’ is semantic posturing that does not change the effects. To say that pH reduction is not acidification until the pH drops below 7.0 it is not meaningful.”
4) “Implying that the IPCC uses data manipulation to satisfy preferences is baseless accusatory language. The change in radiative forcing due to the Earth’s orbit around the sun is negligible within the period of modern global warming. The change due to sunspot activity is measured and found to be negligible.”
5) “Comparing 3 W/m2 to 240 W/m2 is misleading and diminishes the significance of 3 W/m2. It is an example of science denialism by distraction, obfuscation, and omission. Straightforward, fundamental physics including conservation of energy and radiant energy calculations combined with atmospheric properties allow the effects of anthropogenic forcing to be isolated by calculation. The calculated spectra of energy loss to space is verified by satellite measurements (Hanel, et al.,1972) (Brindley & Bantges, 2015). 3 W/m2 is sufficient to cause and continue observed global warming. The anthropogenic forcing is not determined by difference of two large, measured numbers and does not rely on just satellite estimates of radiative energy flows. There is very little uncertainty about the effects of increasing gas concentrations.
The effect of clouds is the largest uncertainty in climate models. However, average cloud cover does not change without a driving force. Therefore, the effect of increasing GHG can be isolated by holding clouds constant. Specific humidity will rise with increasing surface temperature, resulting in positive water vapor feedback. This can affect clouds."
Others have submitted many more excellent comments, but I have made my point. The science can be explained and understood by most scientific-minded people who are interested in learning. One does not need a PhD in climate science to understand the flaws in the DOE report.
Disbanding the CWG may not be a sign of progress. It may be a way to avoid the lawsuit by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists that would restrict the use of the report.
There is more to understand regarding immoral behaviour related to current human caused climate change impacts than Charlie Brown briefly noted at the end of his comment @3. Morality includes ‘someone being harmed’.
People are harmed in many ways. Morality is involved when a person could have, but did not, ‘learn what is harmful and responsibly freely choose to not be harmful to themselves or others’.
The most immoral people knowingly mislead in ways that tempt other people to avoid learning how to be less harmful and more helpful to others. Their ‘freedom to be harmfully misleading‘ is an important freedom. Lots can be learned from the actions of the harmful misleaders. Ensuring that that freedom to be misleading results in more people learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others is essential for humanity, or any collectively governed sub-set of humanity, to have a sustainable improving future.
Charlie Brown@3. Yes, I understand the Milankovitch cycles well. Yes, warming starts a very complicated feedback cycle, but CO2 is a magnifier. CO2 is a primary cause of the temperature fluctuations through complex feedback cycles.
But my point is that we live in an ecosystem that is very delicately balanced, and just 100 ppm of CO2 is enough to cause huge swings in sea level and temperature. This time around, regardless of the cause, we are pushing the system way beyond anything experienced during the ice age cycles.