The policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Bob Ward, talks to Nature Climate Change about the need for climate scientists to actively engage with the public.
Why is the temperature slowdown a communication challenge?
The story of the slowdown in the public discourse is dominated by a concerted campaign that tries to undermine the case for action on climate change. Unfortunately, the scientists have been a bit naive about the issue and very slow at responding to this campaign. Sceptics have used the slowdown to say that global warming has stopped. The scientists have fallen into that trap by using completely inadequate language. Hiatus, for example, is a terrible word — it refers to a temporary stop. Even though the scientists have tried to emphasize the temporary nature of the phenomenon, the sceptics' interpretation that the warming effect has stopped has created confusion and has persuaded many that there is no reason for concern until, if and when, warming starts again.
What should have happened?
Climate scientists should have become involved with the communication of this slowdown sooner and more actively and should have taken a different angle. Instead of discussing the possible causes of the slowdown, something of which they can't be certain at present, they should have re-emphasized what is still largely agreed by the scientific community — that the heating effect is still happening and whatever is temporarily counteracting the long-term warming trend is not reversing it.
Scientists weren't expecting the slowdown, is that why they were so unprepared?
