{"id":21273,"date":"2018-04-25T07:23:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T12:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/?p=21273"},"modified":"2018-04-25T07:25:22","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T12:25:22","slug":"the-alsup-aftermath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/archives\/2018\/04\/the-alsup-aftermath\/","title":{"rendered":"The Alsup Aftermath"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The presentations from the Climate Science tutorial<\/a> last month have all been posted (links below), and Myles Allen (the first presenter for the plaintiffs) gives his impression of the events.<\/em>
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Guest Commentary by Myles Allen<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, I had an unusual \u2014 and challenging \u2014 assignment: providing a one-hour \u201ctutorial” on the basic science of human-induced climate change to a Federal District Court in San Francisco. Judge William Alsup had requested this tutorial to bring him up to speed on the fundamental science before proceedings begin in earnest in a case brought by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, on behalf of the people of California, against a group of major fossil fuel companies, addressing the costs of climate change caused, they argue, by products those companies have sold.<\/p>\n

The format was straightforward \u2014 two hours each for the plaintiffs and the defendants, and the judge had provided us with a series of questions on the essential physics that he wanted addressed, as well as requesting a timeline<\/a> of how our understanding of climate change has evolved over the past 150 years. My presentation was followed by Professors Gary Griggs, showing detailed projections of sea-level rise and its impacts on California<\/a>, and Don Wuebbles, presenting key findings from the latest US National Climate Science Special Report<\/a> (also speaking for the plaintiffs). Between Gary and Don, the Court heard from Theodore Boutrous<\/a>, a lawyer speaking on behalf of Chevron, one of the defendants.<\/p>\n

The case was fairly widely covered, (here\u2019s an example<\/a>) and most of the attention was, understandably, on what the oil companies had to say: the fact that Gary, Don and I agreed with the IPCC was hardly ever likely to be newsworthy. But I\u2019ve had a few requests since about what I presented \u2014 including from some students who spotted that a carefully compressed summary of climate change science might be quite handy revision material. So, with exam season nearly upon us, here it is \u2014 or at least, here is what I would have presented if I\u2019d got through it all: in preparing this material, I had completely failed to anticipate the number and depth of Judge Alsup\u2019s questions, so we only got as far as the Charney Report. <\/p>\n

Prior to the hearing, Andrew Dessler on Twitter, Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate and Oliver Milman at the Guardian all had a crack at the judge\u2019s questions:<\/p>\n

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Here are answers to questions posed by the Judge Alsup re: climate science (https:\/\/t.co\/DLFDT70PdL<\/a>). Turns out answers to those questions are actually pretty well known. 1\/<\/p>\n

— Andrew Dessler (@AndrewDessler) March 8, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n