[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2890-2891]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I would like to add to the remarks I 
made a moment ago about climate change to respond to some statements 
that have been made recently on the Senate floor on this subject.
  As those of us who are advocates in the cause of doing something 
about climate change know, the polluters and their advocates have an 
advantage: They only have to create doubt, they only have to create 
debate in order to create delay and allow the polluters to continue 
making money at the expense of the rest of us. That means the 
arguments, frankly, don't have to be true; they just have to be made. 
Then they can say there is still debate, then they can say there is 
still controversy, both of which are self-fulfilling prophecies. But 
they are not real, and some of what has been said is pretty flagrant.
  One of the lead Senate deniers came to the floor the other day to 
challenge President Obama. President Obama said this in his State of 
the Union Address:

       But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all 
     come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and 
     floods--all are now more frequent and intense.

  My denier colleague quoted him. And to quote my colleague, he said--
referring to the President:

       The President said, yes, it's true that no single event 
     makes a trend. But the fact is that the 12 hottest years on 
     record have all come in the last 15. That is just flat wrong.

  So why don't we just take a look and see where the President got his 
information so we can put this into some perspective. The President got 
his information from NASA. Maybe people in this body are more capable 
than NASA at dealing with scientific things, but when you consider that 
NASA has put an explorer on the surface of Mars, I think they are 
entitled to some credence about basic science. And they agree--in fact, 
Reto Ruedy, a program manager at the Goddard Institute, has laid out 
the actual years. Some of these are statistical ties because they are 
equally hot.
  The No. 1 and 2 hottest years, according to them, are 2010 and 2005. 
The No. 3 through 8 hottest years are 2007, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 
2009. The 9th through 12th hottest years recorded are 2012, 2011, 2001, 
and 2004. If you go to the 13th year, it is 2008. The 14th and the 15th 
are 1997 and 1995. All of the 15 hottest years on record are 1995 and 
thereafter. The top 12, all have happened 1998 and thereafter.
  It is not just NASA's data set that confirms this. NOAA also looks at 
the same information. They come at it a little bit differently--and 
they do have a difference. I will concede that. NOAA considers 2012 to 
be the 10th warmest year on record instead of the 9th. That is the 
difference between NASA and NOAA. And we are talking about records 
going back to 1880, so it is a broad data set.
  If you look at NOAA's data, it actually shows that 14 of the past 15 
years were the hottest on record. Ditto the National Center for 
Atmospheric Research.
  Of course, as many of us know, in political life there is a group out 
there called Politifact that takes a look at claims that are made in 
the public debate and politics, and they assign them ``true'' to 
``pants on fire.'' They looked at the President's claim that the 12 
hottest years on record have come in the last 15 years. They gave the 
President a ``true.'' Indeed, they said:

       Obama was actually overcautious in his statement, so we 
     rate his statement true.

  So we have one denier--a Senator--against NASA, against Politifact, 
against NOAA, and against the National Center for Atmospheric Research. 
I think it is pretty clear who has the facts on their side.
  This is the other statement that was made:

       I don't think anyone disagrees with the fact that we 
     actually are in a cold period that started about 9 years ago.

  Let's look at the facts. This is the temperature data. The green 
represents the actual data. The red line is a statistically derived 
mean of all that information. It is something that is done

[[Page 2891]]

mathematically. It is not amenable to argument; it is not amenable to 
debate. You can do it using different methods, but it is clear from 
that data set that we are in fact in a warming period, not a cooling 
period.
  So how do you get to say that in 9 years we are in a cooling period? 
Well, if you go back a few years here, you see there are some high 
points, and if you pick just those high points and then you go forward 
9 years, you can draw a graph that goes down. But you have to be very 
careful how you pick your points to create that illusion. You can 
actually do it, if you want, repeatedly in the data. You could pick 
this point and have it go down. You could pick this point and have it 
go down. You could pick this point and have it go down, and this, and 
this.
  For each one of those points, you could say: Well, during this 
period, it was actually a cold period. It was actually a cooling 
period.
  But when you look at the actual information and when you look at the 
statistically driven mean that cuts through all the data, it is pretty 
clear that to try to look at it this way is playing tricks with the 
data. It is playing games and trying to fool people. It is twisting and 
distorting the data.
  I think that is a less-than-honest application of these facts. So if 
that is the sort of misleading statistical trick the polluters and 
their advocates have to resort to, that is just another reminder that 
it really is time for us to wake up and get to work on this. There is 
no credible scientific debate over what carbon pollution is doing to 
our atmosphere and our oceans, and it is pretty darned clear that it is 
warming--and warming pretty fast.
  I appreciate the opportunity for this clarification.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Politifact article that I referred to in my remarks be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Barack Obama Says the 12 Hottest Years on Record Have Come in the Last 
                                15 Years

       During his State of the Union address, President Barack 
     Obama touted the country's progress in reducing carbon 
     pollution emissions but added that recent advances in fuel 
     efficiency and renewable energy have not done enough to curb 
     climate change.
       ``For the sake of our children and our future, we must do 
     more to combat climate change,'' Obama said. ``Now, it's true 
     that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 
     hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat 
     waves, droughts, wildfires, floods--all are now more frequent 
     and more intense.''
       In 2012, the country experienced severe weather threats 
     including drought, a devastating Hurricane Sandy and severe 
     thunderstorms. We decided to fact-check whether the 12 
     hottest years on record have all come since 1998.
       The White House directed us to NASA's Goddard Institute for 
     Space Studies, which tracks global surface temperatures. The 
     institute concluded that 2012 was the ninth-warmest year on 
     record, with 2010 and 2005 being the all-time highs.
       For the contiguous United States, 2012 was the country's 
     warmest year yet. It beat the previous record by one degree 
     Fahrenheit.
       Reto Ruedy, a program manager at the Goddard Institute, 
     told PolitiFact that the institute's data produces the 
     following ranking of hottest years. Items on the same line 
     are statistically tied.
       1-2: 2010, 2005
       3-8: 2007, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2009
       9-12: 2012, 2011, 2001, 2004
       13: 2008
       14: 1997
       15: 1995
       This analysis shows that 13 of the warmest years have 
     occurred in the past 15 years. Alternately, one could say 
     that 12 of the warmest years came in the last 13.
       We see a few other issues to note.
       The NASA data set isn't the only one available. The 
     National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also analyzes 
     global surface temperatures using its own methodology. The 
     two measurements diverge somewhat--NOAA considers 2012 the 
     10th-warmest year on record since records began in 1880, 
     rather than the ninth.
       However, NOAA's data for land and ocean temperature 
     anomalies shows that 14 of the past 15 years were the hottest 
     on record.
       There are other ways one could measure ``hottest years.'' 
     Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for 
     Atmospheric Research, agreed with the 13-of-15 calculation. 
     But he added that the NASA and NOAA values refer to global 
     mean surface temperature. ``One could define `hottest' in 
     other ways, such as by how much Arctic sea ice there is,'' he 
     said.


                               Our ruling

       Obama said, ``The 12 hottest years on record have all come 
     in the last 15.'' Data from NASA shows 13 of the hottest 
     years on record have come in the last 15, and by a different 
     data set produced by NOAA, 14 of the hottest years on record 
     have come in the last 15. Obama was actually over-cautious in 
     his statement, so we rate his statement True.

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