7. Gavin Schmidt on observing, attributing and communicating climate change

Challenging Climate

We speak with Dr. Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and co-founder of the RealClimate climate science blog. Gavin’s research focuses on understanding the past, present and future of the climate system and the impacts of the various drivers of climate change. In this episode we take a deep dive on the science of climate change covering how it is observed, detected and attributed. Along the way Gavin debunks several climate skeptic talking points and discusses the changing challenges of climate communication.
Links:

• Gavin's profile at NASA GISS.
• The RealClimate blog.
• The IPCC on humanity's unequivocal influence on the climate.
• The Oridivician (Not Oligocene) was the geological age that Gavin was referring to.
• The Smithsonian project to document 500 million years of global-mean temperature (Science).
• Gavin giving the Stephen Schneider Lecture in 2013: What should a climate scientist advocate for?

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Chapters

1. 7. Gavin Schmidt on observing, attributing and communicating climate change (00:00:00)

2. Welcome and Gavin’s background (00:02:30)

3. calculating global-mean temperature (00:07:54)

4. why human influence on the climate is now unequivocal (00:17:28)

5. how the global warming hiatus evaporated (00:21:39)

6. pollution, volcanoes and variations in the sun (00:27:17)

7. The climate of the past (00:36:24)

8. Did James Hansen jump the gun? (00:44:13)

9. Is climate denial dead? (00:47:27)

10. What is the legitimate scope of debate for climate action? (00:52:09)

11. Is there too much focus on worst case scenarios in journalism and activism? (00:57:23)

12. Wrap-up (01:01:42)