February 2015

Critique of Climate Change Adaptation:

DOD Can Improve Infrastructure Planning
and Processes to Better Account for
Potential Impacts
by Taylor Smith*
In May 2014, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled Climate
Change Adaptation: DOD Can Improve Infrastructure Planning and Processes to Better
Account for Potential Impacts.1 The authors write, We were asked to assess [the Department of
Defenses] progress in taking action to adapt its U.S. infrastructure to the challenges of climate
change. The request came from five Democratic members of the U.S. Senate: Barbara Boxer
(CA), Mark Begich (AK), Al Franken (MN), Jeff Merkley (OR), and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI).
The phrasing of the request suggests there
The following critique reveals GAO has
is no doubt climate change poses a
overlooked convincing evidence that
challenge the Department of Defense
what is called climate change is
(DOD) should be addressing. This bias is
not surprising since each of the elected
unlikely to have a greater effect on
officials who asked for the report has in
DODs infrastructure or Americas
the past made alarmist claims about the
military preparedness in general than past
causes and consequences of climate
changes in climate.
change and called for policies to increase
the cost of fossil fuels and subsidize the
development and use of alternative fuels such as biofuels, solar, and wind.

Taylor Smith is a policy analyst for The Heartland Institute. For a more complete bio, see page 20.

The report is available online at http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/663734.pdf. In the subsections below,

passages from that report are quoted. Page numbers are shown in parentheses.

2015 The Heartland Institute. Nothing in this report should be construed as supporting or opposing any
proposed or pending legislation, or as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heartland Institute.

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The GAO staff members who led the study are listed as Director of Defense Capabilities and
Management Brian J. Lepore, the primary contact, and Assistant Director Laura Durland. GAO
key contributors are listed as Frederick K. Childers, Roshni Dave, Michele Fejfar, Michael
Hix, Sarah Kaczmarek, Mary Koenen, Brandon Kruse, Amie Lesser, Amanda Manning, Celia
Rosario Mendive, Anne Stevens, Chris Stone, Joseph Thompson, Christopher Turner, Erik
Wilkins-McKee, and Michael Willems.
The following critique of GAOs study
reveals GAO has overlooked convincing
evidence that what is called climate
change is unlikely to have a greater
effect on DODs infrastructure or
Americas military preparedness in
general than past changes in climate.
GAO also overlooked evidence that shows requiring DOD to invest in mitigation or adaptation to
address phantom risks could divert resources from other more urgent needs, reducing military
preparedness.

Requiring DOD to invest in mitigation or

adaptation to address phantom risks could
divert resources from other more urgent
needs, reducing military preparedness.

1. Global Climate Models

The GAO report says:
According to the Third National Climate Assessment, scientists current understanding of
how the global climate is changing is based on both observations and projections
reached through the use of computer simulations, using global climate models, that
account for a variety of independent factors.
Generally, the models projections indicate that higher concentrations of greenhouse
gasses [sic] will result in greater climate change, thus increasing the degree to which the
nation, including its infrastructure, is exposed to risk. Nonetheless, uncertainty remains
about projections of future changes and most projections indicate ranges of change
rather than specific figures. The effects of increases in atmospheric concentrations of
greenhouse gases and temperature are expected to have varying impacts in the United
States. (page 7)

Rebuttal:
The Third National Climate Assessment (TNCA) is not a credible source. It relies heavily on the
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which itself has been
severely criticized for bias, reliance on non-peer-reviewed work from environmental activist
groups, and subordinating science to politics.2 TNCA repeats alarmist predictions such as
extreme weather, sea-level rises, and deaths due to heat waves found in the newsletters of

About the IPCC, website of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC),
accessed December 15, 2014, http://climatechangereconsidered.org/abouttheipcc/.

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advocacy groups and never mentions the sizeable scientific literature that questions and
contradicts those predictions. It calls for virtually all of the taxes, regulations, and subsidies
advocated by environmental advocacy groups and endorsed by the Obama administration. It was
reviewed and published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, an interagency
government body, whose motto includes the phrase, Empower the Nation with Global Change
Science.3 The document is political rather than scientific.
The purpose of TNCA is to provide cover for a massive regulatory intrusion, and concomitant
enormous costs in resources and individual liberty, scientists Patrick Michaels and Paul
Knappenberger wrote. History tells us that when scientists willingly endorse sweeping
governmental agendas fueled by dodgy science, bad things soon happen.4
Michaels and Knappenberger note TNCA
Global climate models form the scientific
relies heavily on non-peer-reviewed
basis of GAOs report. But this conarticles by unqualified groups such as the
fidence in climate models is misplaced.
Union of Concerned Scientists, Southwest
Climate Alliance, and Water Climate
Utility Alliance. It also uses an estimate of
climate sensitivity 40 percent higher than what more recent scientific literature points to. It even
contradicts the alarmist IPCC by claiming there has been an increase in the severity of storms in
recent decades, and TNCA never mentions there has been no statistically significant warming
trend in the past 15 to 18 years (depending on the statistical method used to determine trends), a
scientific fact presented in more detail below.
Global climate models (GCMs) are the basis of most of the forecasts contained in the TNCA and
IPCC reports, and they form the scientific basis of GAOs report. But this confidence in climate
models is misplaced.
While often sophisticated and useful instruments of science, GCMs fail to incorporate or
accurately represent all biological, chemical, and physical processes that influence climate over
long periods. Freeman Dyson, professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at
Princeton University, wrote in a 2007 essay for Edge.org: I have studied the climate models and
I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very
good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor
job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry, and the biology of fields and farms and
forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.5

U.S. Global Change Research Program, Overview: Climate Change Impacts in the United States, 2014,
accessed January 29, 2015, http://www.globalchange.gov/browse/reports/overview-climate-changeimpacts-united-states-third-national-climate-assessment.
4

Frederic L. Milliken, White House now a global warming alarmist, Lexington Libertarian, May 2014,
http://lexingtonlibertarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/white-house-now-global-warming-alarmist.html.
5

Freeman Dyson, Heretical thoughts about science and society, Edge, August 2007,
https://edge.org/conversation/heretical-thoughts-about-science-and-society.

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This has led to the failure of several IPCC forecasts made by GCMs that were falsified by realworld data. For example, an analysis of satellite and surface temperature data from 1983 to 2013
found more than 95 percent of climate models overestimated warming trends.6
In addition to temperature, large differences between GCM predictions and observational data
were found when analyzing other elements of weather such as clouds, permafrost, precipitation,
ocean currents, sea ice, and wind. Such differences were not acknowledged by GAO prior to
making its assessments of potential climate change impacts.
For example, thawing permafrost is mentioned throughout the study as a potential threat to
waterfront infrastructure and military training operations. The report reads: Officials stated that
if temperatures continue to rise as projected, permafrost thawing could become more severe.
This could further impact DOD training and may impact military readiness because DOD could
not easily find another location to replicate the training offered in this area. (page 14)
A 2005 paper in Permafrost and
Periglacial Processes found almost all
model assessments of changes in the
worlds permafrost have been insufficient.
The paper finds the impacts of possible
global warming in permafrost regions
cannot be understood fully without
consideration of a more realistic three7
layer model. Presently, permafrost assessments have been made using less sophisticated twolayer models, omitting examinations of important transition zone layers that can obscure models
assessments of future climate scenarios. If scientists predictions about incorporating such layers
are accurate, past permafrost trends are likely to continue into the future without much need for
alarm.

A 2005 paper in Permafrost and

Periglacial Processes found almost all
model assessments of changes in the
worlds permafrost have been
insufficient.

Scientists Anthony Lupo, William Kininmonth, and others write in the 2013 report, Climate
Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, To have any validity in terms of future projections,
GCMs must incorporate not only the many physical processes involved in determining climate,
but also all important chemical and biological processes that influence climate over long time
periods. Several of these processes are either missing or inadequately represented in todays
state-of-the-art climate models.8
GCMs also lack or incorrectly parameterize the fundamental processes by which surface
temperatures respond to radiative forcing the difference in energy absorbed by Earth compared

Roy W. Spencer, 90 CMIP5 Climate Models vs. Observations, 2013, http://www.drroyspencer.com/wpcontent/uploads/CMIP5-90-models-global-Tsfc-vs-obs-thru-2013.png.

7

Yuri Shur, Kenneth M. Hinkel, and Frederick E. Nelson, The transient layer: implications for
geocryology and climate-change science, Permafrost and Periglacial Processes 16 (2005): 517,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp.518/abstract.
8

Anthony Lupo, William Kininmonth, et al., Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science (Chicago,
IL: The Heartland Institute, 2013), p. 13, http://climatechangereconsidered.org.

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to the energy radiated back into space according to a 2008 paper published in Geophysical
Research Letters by Judith Lean and David Rind.9
Such findings create problems for the GAO report, especially because it says, U.S. average
temperature has risen fewer than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years. It is projected to
rise more in the future how much more depends primarily on the amount of heat-trapping gases
emitted globally and how sensitive the climate is to those emissions. (page 7)
It is true that future warming depends
heavily on climate sensitivity, but the
GAO report also should acknowledge not
much more than a dozen researchers have
studied climate sensitivity using actual
measurements.10

The most recent 15-year period has not

experienced any statistically significant
warming, despite being the same period
IPCC presumed radiative forcing from
increasing CO2 would be at its highest.

According to a 2013 study by Roy

Spencer and W.D. Braswell, climate sensitivity the amount of temperature increase due to the
doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere was found to be 1.3C
based upon various global measurements.11 In a paper for the Asia-Pacific Journal of
Atmospheric Science, Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi estimate climate sensitivity to be
in the range of 0.7C to 1.3C, with a mean of 1.1C for a doubling of CO2 concentration.
According to global temperature measurements developed by Spencer and John Christy, the
most recent 15-year period has not experienced any statistically significant warming, despite
being the same period IPCC presumed radiative forcing from increasing CO2 would be at its
highest. As Spencer points out, when the climate stove has been turned up the most (the last
15 years) is also when you least expect a lack of warming.12 The unexpected lack of warming is
illustrated in the graph below.
GCMs are widely understood in the climate science community to be too unreliable to form the
basis for public policy. Consequently, they should not be used as the basis for a GAO analysis of
DOD readiness or vulnerability to future climate conditions.

Judith Lean and David Rind, How natural and anthropogenic influences alter global and regional
surface temperatures: 1889 to 2006, Geophysical Research Letters 35 (2008): 10.1029/2008GL034864,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GL034864/abstract.
10

Roy W. Spencer, Statement to the Environment and Public Works Committee of the United States
Senate, July 18, 2013, http://www.drroyspencer.com/wpcontent/uploads/Spencer_EPW_Written_Testimony_7_18_2013_updated.pdf.
11

Roy W. Spencer and W.D. Braswell, The role of ENSO in global ocean temperature changes during
19552011 simulated with a 1D climate model, Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences 50
(February 2014): 22937, http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13143-014-0011-z.

12

Roy W. Spencer, supra note 10.

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Source: Roy W. Spencer, STILL Epic Fail: 73 Climate Models vs. Measurements, Running 5-Year
Means, June 6, 2013, http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vsmeasurements-running-5-year-means/.

2. Rising Temperatures
The GAO report says:
For instance, DOD associates rising temperatures with potential climate change impacts
such as thawing permafrost and wildfire risk. According to the [Climate Change
Adaptation]Roadmap, this may result in mission vulnerabilities such as reduced military
vehicle access and potential loss of cold weather training venues. In addition, DOD links
changes in precipitation patterns with potential climate change impacts such as changes
in the number of consecutive days of high or low precipitation as well as increases in the
extent and duration of droughts, with an associated increase in the risk of wildfire.
According to the Roadmap, this may result in mission vulnerabilities such as reduced
live-fire training due to drought and increased wildfire risk, reduced water availability,
and increased flood control or erosion prevention measures. (page 11)
Further, officials told us that they have noticed an increase in freezing rain due to rising
temperatures. In the past, colder temperatures typically produced snow as opposed to
freezing rain. This rain has affected targets that now require additional maintenance.

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Specifically, ice buildup from freezing rain can lock targets moving parts, breaking the
targets or stopping them from properly functioning. Depending on the severity of the ice
buildup, this may result in delays to training schedules. (page 14)
According to the Roadmap, changes in the Earths climate could include rising
temperatures and sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, and increased severity
and frequency of extreme weather events. Given these potential changes, DODs stated
approach is to minimize the vulnerabilities of its infrastructure to the impacts of these
phenomena in order to maintain mission readiness. This may also reduce DODs fiscal
exposure to the effects of climate change. (page 44)

Rebuttal:
The United Nations IPCC, following the
The United Nations IPCC overestimates
practice of environmental advocacy
the rise in global temperatures in past
groups, overestimates the rise in global
decades by relying on surface-based
temperatures in past decades by relying on
surface-based temperature records that are
temperature records that are not global,
not global, not reliable, and are subject to
not reliable, and are subject to
manipulation.13 IPCC fails to properly
manipulation.
account for the effects of land alteration,
such as urbanization, on surface
temperatures and temperature measurements. Even temperature effects of small towns such as
heat-radiating buildings, rooftops, and sidewalks can far outweigh the effects of greenhouse
gases.
The only truly global and reliable temperature data set is produced by satellites launched by
NASA that have produced data continuously since 1979. John Christy and Roy Spencer are
international authorities in interpreting these data, and they have determined there has been no
global warming for at least the past 18 years.14 See the graph below.
Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guelph in Canada, used a
sophisticated mathematical technique, heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation (HAC)-robust
trend confidence interval estimator, to control for errors often found in estimating trends. He
estimates the global warming pause has lasted 19 years.15

13

Anthony Watts, Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable? The Heartland Institute, March
2009, http://heartland.org/policy-documents/us-surface-temperature-record-reliable.

14

Roy W. Spencer, Latest Global Temps, December 2014, http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-globaltemperatures/.

15

Ross R. McKitrick, HAC-Robust Measurement of the Duration of a Trendless Subsample in a

Global Climate Time Series, Open Journal of Statistics 4 (2014): 52735,
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojs.2014.47050.

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Source: Roy W. Spencer, Latest Global Temps, December 2014, http://www.drroyspencer.com/latestglobal-temperatures/.

Even the United Nations IPCC, known to exaggerate the threat of climate change and certainty
of knowledge about its causes and consequences, admitted in its 2013 science report that there
has been no statistically significant warming for the past 15 years. The report says the [global
mean surface temperature] trend over 19982012 is estimated to be around one-third to one-half
of the trend over 19512012.16The IPCC authors proceed to refer to this stagnating trend as the
hiatus in global mean surface temperature. In the Summary for Policymakers of that report,
the authors admit the rate of warming from 19982012 was virtually undetectable, increasing at
a rate of 0.05C per decade.17
No scientist can say with certainty whether global temperatures will rise or fall in coming
decades. Predictions of rising temperatures have been contradicted by actual data so far. A
growing number of climate scientists believe Earth is at the onset of a cooling period that may
last for the next 15 years or longer.18

16

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science
Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC. (Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press, 2013), Chapter 9, Evaluation of Climate Models, pp. 76972.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL.pdf.
17

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Summary for Policymakers: Fifth Assessment
Report, September 27, 2013, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessmentreport/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf.

18
P. Gosselin, Global Cooling Consensus is Heating Up, NoTricksZone, December 28, 2010,
http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/28/global-cooling-consensus-is-heating-up-cooling-over-the-next-1-to-3decades/. See also Lawrence Solomon, A global cooling consensus, Financial Post, October 31, 2013,
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/31/lawrence-solomon-a-global-cooling-consensus/.

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Professor Judith Curry, a climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric
Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says the world may be approaching a period
similar to 19651975, when there was a clear cooling trend. Professor Anastasios Tsonis of the
University of Wisconsin said, We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for
the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped.19
The Russian Academy of Sciences says its members believe cooling is more likely to occur in
the future than warming is.20

The absence of a warming trend at a

No scientist can say with certainty
time when CO2 levels are rising rapidly
is not predicted by the alarmists theory
whether global temperatures will rise or
that claims CO2 concentrations have a
fall in coming decades.
major impact on global temperature. The
lack of correlation between stable
temperatures and rising CO2 levels during the past 15 to 18 years proves nothing on its own, but
a stronger challenge to alarmists theory is that there has been little or no connection historically
between CO2 levels and global temperature.21
During the Holocene era, global temperatures were as warm as, if not warmer than, today
despite approximately 30 percent lower atmospheric CO2 levels. Similarly, Earth experienced a
warming period during the Middle Ages (usually referred to as the Medieval Warm Period)
despite CO2 levels far lower than todays.22
Scientific evidence of a link between CO2 and global temperature, as opposed to climate models
that simply assume such a link exists, is rare and weak at best. The best science suggests CO2 is a
weak greenhouse gas frequently trumped by solar cycles, known patterns of ocean currents,
and yet-to-be-understood climate processes.23 Future global temperatures cannot be assumed to
rise simply because human CO2 emissions are expected to rise. Thus, DOD and other sources of
CO2 emissions cannot hope to reduce future warming by reducing their emissions.

19

Reference to Curry and quotation appear in Hayley Dixon, Global warming? No, actually were cooling,
claim scientists, The Telegraph, September 8, 2013,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/10294082/Global-warming-Noactually-were-cooling-claim-scientists.html.
20

P. Gosselin, Russian Academy of Sciences Experts Warn of Imminent Cold Period: Global Warming is
a Marketing Trick, NoTricksZone, April 11, 2013, http://notrickszone.com/2013/04/11/russian-academyof-sciences-experts-warn-of-imminent-cold-period-global-warming-is-a-marketing-trick/.
21

Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical
Science (Chicago, IL: The Heartland Institute, 2013), http://climatechangereconsidered.org.

22

Ibid., Chapter 7, Observations: Extreme Weather, pp. 809986.

23

Ibid.

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3. Risk to Infrastructure
The GAO report says:
Some types of extreme weather events, such as heat waves and regional droughts, have
become more frequent and intense during the past 40 to 50 years. (page 7)
According to a Navy official, raising the height of the wall is a risk-reduction strategy to
address the frequency of extreme weather events happening at the shipyard. (page 18)
More frequent and more severe extreme weather events and associated impacts may
result in increased fiscal exposure for DOD. (page 20)
[E]xtreme precipitation events may lead to potential vulnerabilities such as increased
maintenance costs for roads, utilities, and runways and increased flood-control
measures. (page 22)
According to DOD officials and documents, one factor in the evaluation of the
vulnerability of critical infrastructure is the impact of the types of extreme weather events
that may become more frequent or severe due to climate change. (page 27)
In a 2013 report, we stated that extreme weather events and climate change pose risks to
physical infrastructure and discussed observed climate change impacts in the United
States. Specifically, we noted that according to assessments by the National Research
Council and the United States Global Change Research Program changes in the
climate have been observed in the United States and its coastal waters and are projected
to grow in severity in the future, thereby increasing the vulnerability of infrastructure.
We found that decision makers had not systematically incorporated climate change
impacts into infrastructure planning because, among other reasons, available climate
change information did not easily fit into their infrastructure planning process. (page 53)

The best available research says there has

not been a trend toward more frequent
and more damaging weather events.

Rebuttal:

Increased frequency of extreme weather

events could affect military infrastructure
and preparedness in the ways the report
describes. However, the best available scientific research says there has not been a trend toward
more frequent and more damaging weather events in recent decades and it is not possible to
forecast their frequency and destructiveness in the future.
According to Benjamin Zycher, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute,24

24

Benjamin Zycher, Hes explaining and hes losing, The Hill, July 18, 2014,
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/212618-hes-explaining-and-heslosing#ixzz39AsPdxgO.

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 There has been no temperature trend over the past 15 years, notwithstanding the
predictions of the models.

The past two years have set a record for the fewest tornadoes ever in a similar period, and
there has been no upward trend in the frequency of strong (F3 to F5) tornadoes in the
United States since 1950.25

The number of wildfires is in a long-term decline.26

It has been eight years since a Category 3 or higher hurricane landed on a U.S. coast; a
similar period devoid of an intense hurricane making landfall has not been observed since
1900.27

The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season was the least active in 40 years, with zero major
hurricanes.28

There has been no upward trend in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones,29 and
tropical cyclone energy is near its lowest level since reliable measurements began by
satellite in the 1970s.30

There is no long-term trend in increases of sea level.31

The record of changes in the size of the Arctic ice cover is far more ambiguous than often
asserted, because the satellite measurements began at the outset of the warming period
from roughly 1980 through 1998.32

25

National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Annual Count of
Strong to Violent Tornadoes (F3+), 1954 through 2012,
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/EF3-EF5.png.
26

Anthony Watts, What global warming really looks like Michael Oppenheimer FAIL, June 28, 2012,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/28/what-global-warming-really-looks-like-michael-oppenheimer-fail/.
27

National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Continental United
States Hurricane Strikes 19502011, 2011, http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/images/2011Landfalling-Hurricanes-11x17.pdf.
28

Jillian MacMath, Atlantic Hurricane Season Closes Without Any Major Hurricanes, AccuWeather,
November 30, 2013, http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/2013-atlantic-hurricaneseason/20467725.
29

Jessica Weinkle, Ryan Maue, and Roger Pielke Jr., Historical Global Tropical Cyclone Landfalls,
Journal of Climate 25 (2012): 47324, http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00719.1.
30

Ryan Maue, Global Tropical Cyclone Activity, Weatherbell Analytics, updated January 28, 2015,
http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical.php.
31

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Global Linear Relative Mean Sea Level (MSL) trends
and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) in mm/year and in ft/century,
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslGlobalTrendsTable.htm.

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 The Palmer Drought Severity Index shows no trend since 1895.33

Flooding in the United States over the past century has not been correlated with increases
in greenhouse gas concentrations.34

Scientists Craig Idso, Robert M. Carter,

S. Fred Singer, and Willie Soon examined
the final version of the IPCCs Summary
for Policymakers (SPM) of its Fifth
Assessment Report, and found IPCC has
low confidence in predictions of more
frequent or intense weather, effectively walking back on previous, more alarmist, claims.35

Flooding over the past century has not

been correlated with increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.

An extensive review of this literature appears in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical
Science. The authors observe that, on all time scales, air temperature variability decreases as
mean air temperature rises. Therefore, the authors write, the claim that global warming will
lead to more extremes of climate and weather, including of temperature itself, seems
theoretically unsound; the claim is also unsupported by empirical evidence.36
Idso and Madhav Khandekar reviewed several peer-reviewed papers examining North America
precipitation trends. They write, Clearly, moisture extremes in North America much greater
than those observed in the modern era have occurred [previously]. Recent trends are neither
unusual nor manmade; they are simply a normal part of Earths natural climatic variability.
North America is like Africa, Asia, and Europe: Precipitation variability in the Current Warm
Period is no greater than what was experienced in earlier times.37
The Third National Climate Assessment, a compilation of alarmist claims and cherry-picked
datapoints gathered to support President Barack Obamas campaign against fossil fuels, admits,
There has been no universal trend in the overall extent of drought across the continental U.S.

32

Amazing Arctic Reconstructions, World Climate Report, March 10, 2011,

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/03/10/amazing-arctic-reconstructions/.
33

Climate Prediction Center, National Weather Service, Drought Monitoring,

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/monitoring_and_data/drought.shtml.

34

R.M. Hirsch and K.R. Ryberg, Has the magnitude of floods across the USA changed with global CO2
levels? Hydrological Sciences Journal 57 (2012): 19,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02626667.2011.621895#.VJCvffldXGA.

35

Craig Idso, Robert M. Carter, S. Fred Singer, and Willie Soon, Scientific Critique of IPCCs 2013
Summary for Policymakers (Chicago, IL: The Heartland Institute, 2013), p. 5, http://heartland.org/policydocuments/scientific-critique-ipccs-2013-summary-policymakers.
36

Craig Idso, et al., supra note 22.

37

Craig Idso, et al., supra note 35.

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since 1900, and when averaging over the entire contiguous U.S., there is no overall trend in
flood magnitudes.38
Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor in the
Investing in unreliable renewable energy
Environmental Studies Program at the
resources is wasteful, unnecessary based
University of Colorado-Boulder, has
on sound science, and potentially
written extensively on the lack of
scientific evidence connecting warming
dangerous.
temperatures to extreme weather events.
There is a broad consensus in the
scientific literature that the evidence for connections between climate change and disasters is
incredibly weak, as reflected in the 2012, 2013, and 2014 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC).39 He also writes, there is precious little evidence to suggest that
the blame for the increasing tally of disaster costs can be placed on more frequent or extreme
weather events attributable to human-caused climate change.40
Although specific regions experienced significant changes in the intensity or number of extreme
weather events in the twentieth century, there was no relationship between such events and
global warming over the past 100 years. Any increase in DODs fiscal exposure to extreme
weather events is more likely due to the increased number and size of structures that exist and
has very little to do with weather variations.
DOD may believe it is wise to reinforce infrastructure in areas where violent weather has
occurred in the past and is likely to occur in the future, but there is no scientific basis for
assuming such conditions will be more likely in the future due to increasing CO2 emissions or
that reducing CO2 emissions or using alternative fuels might affect tomorrows weather.

4. Risk to Mission Readiness

The GAO report says:
According to the Roadmap, changes in the Earths climate could include rising
temperatures and sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, and increased severity
and frequency of extreme weather events. Given these potential changes, DODs stated
approach is to minimize the vulnerabilities of its infrastructure to the impacts of these
phenomena in order to maintain mission readiness. This may also reduce DODs fiscal
exposure to the effects of climate change. (page 44)

38

Quoted by Roger Pielke, Jr., The Right Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change (Tempe, AZ:
Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, 2014), p. 3.

39

Ibid., p. 6.

40

Ibid.

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Rebuttal:
Much of the analysis presented in the previous section regarding the risk posed by severe
weather to military infrastructure applies to this imagined threat to mission readiness as well.
There has been no increase in severe weather in recent decades, regardless of whether the causes
were natural or man-made, and therefore there is no climate change threat to mission
readiness.
Moreover, if mission readiness were as
vulnerable to climate change as described
in the report (e.g., loss of soft-ground
training locations, increased cost to
infrastructure reinforcement), such
vulnerability suggests an overhauling of
procurement procedures and design
standards may be a more appropriate
response than adopting policies aimed at reducing CO2 emissions.

Prematurely transitioning reliable and

convenient fuel sources to inefficient and
more costly alternatives would curb
operational capabilities and could be
detrimental to military readiness.

Much, if not all, of military equipage is powered by fossil fuels, including gasoline, JP-5 (yellow
kerosene jet fuel), and F-76 (military diesel). Fossil fuels remain the common denominator for
the worlds energy potential now and in the foreseeable future. Prematurely transitioning reliable
and convenient fuel sources to inefficient and more costly alternatives, as the Department of the
Navy and Department of Agriculture do with their Farm-to-Fleet programs, would curb
operational capabilities and could be detrimental to military readiness.
Retired Navy veterans Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, Vice Admiral Edward S. Briggs, and
Captain Donald K. Forbes write:
Military preparedness rests upon guaranteed access to energy supply for training and
deployment of needed forces in both peace and war. Availability of abundant national
fossil fuel sources for military missions ensures protection of maritime commerce,
support for U.S. diplomacy, defense of common interests abroad, lasting political and
defense coalitions, maintenance of forward presence in contested regions, and, when
necessary, projection of offensive military power.41
These Navy officers are undoubtedly correct. The real threat to American military preparedness
is not some hypothetical risk that temperatures might someday resume the warming patterns of
the late twentieth century and then the even-less-plausible risk that this higher temperature will
cause more extreme weather. Neither is likely to happen. The bigger risk is that policies adopted
during the height of the global warming scare, many of them solely for symbolic or political
purposes, will compromise American military power. This doesnt seem to be of much concern
to the elected officials who requested the GAO report, and their indifference is reflected in the
report GAO produced for them.

41

Thomas B. Hayward, Edward S. Briggs, and Donald K. Forbes, Climate Change, Energy Policy, and
National Power (Chicago, IL: The Heartland Institute, 2014), pp. 245, http://heartland.org/policydocuments/climate-change-energy-policy-and-national-power.

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5. Use of Alternative Fuels

The GAO report says:
We have previously reported that changes in the Earths climate attributable to increased
concentrations of greenhouse gases may have significant environmental and economic
impacts in the United States. Proposed responses to climate change include reducing
greenhouse gas emissions through regulation, promoting low-emissions technologies,
and adapting to the possible impacts by planning and improving protective
infrastructure. (page 6)

Rebuttal:
The Obama Administration is seeking to use DOD to help wage its war on coal, part of its
announced strategy of weaning the nation away from fossil fuels. DOD, like other executive
agencies, makes public statements that seem to validate the claims and predictions of global
warming alarmists. It also has been directed to spend scarce funds on expensive alternative
energy projects to help pave the way to commercialization, pursuant to the largely discredited
infant industries economic theory.42
In 2011, the U.S. Army Corps of
Fossil fuel resources are far more
Engineers issued a power purchase
affordable and reliable than alternatives
agreement (PPA) authorizing $7 billion in
spending on alternative energy sources
available to the Department of Defense.
(biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind). In
2014, the program had 79 contracts to
purchase power from third parties.43 Importantly, DOD is not committed to spend $7 billion
more than it otherwise would in order to boost alternative energy use. Alternative fuels are used
only when the price is less than current utility costs or if the proposal provides for additional
energy security for a military base in the event of grid failure.44 This seems to be a reasonable
policy.
Fossil fuel resources are far more affordable and reliable than alternatives available to DOD.
Research from the Brookings Institution has found wind and solar are the two least cost-effective
low-CO2 emissions technologies available. According to the study, nuclear was the second least
cost-effective low-CO2 emissions technology available, after hydroelectric. Although nuclear

42

Travis S. Fisher, Before the Kansas Senate Standing Committee on Utilities, testimony, March 2014,
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/ier-testimony-for-the-kansas-senate-standing-committee-onutilities/.
43

Tina Casey, Department of Defense Goes Big on Wind, Solar, and Biomass, Clean Technica,
February 21, 2014, http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/21/7-billion-military-renewable-energy-initiativegathers-steam/.
44

Redstone Arsenal, Redstone Arsenal Solar Project Task Order Under MATOC, July 2014,
http://www.asaie.army.mil/Public/ES/oei/docs/RedstoneArsenalFactSheet.pdf.

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power is still unfairly subsidized, small modular nuclear reactors which are relatively small,
reliable, and scaleable at military installations are a vastly superior strategy for reducing CO2
emissions than other non-carbon-based sources of energy.45
The Brookings study found solar was the least cost-effective, costing on net 18.74 cents per
kWh. The cost of solar was more than three times as much as wind energy, the second most
costly low-emission technology, which cost 5.64 cents per kWh.46 The National Conference of
State Legislatures says power from most large, utility-scaled solar installations still costs about
35 percent more than electricity from natural gas plants. Many other experts estimate the
levelized cost is even higher.47
An ample amount of evidence
demonstrates physical limitations, not a
lack of funding, have prevented solar
power from scaling up and becoming
competitive in the marketplace. Solar
power is diffuse, has low density, and is
intermittent, which is why it stands little
or no chance of competing with the abundant and reliable power produced by coal, natural gas,
nuclear minerals, and oil, each of which consumes less land and is available at affordable prices.
These natural limits make it unlikely solar power will be anything more than a niche player for
the foreseeable future.

Solar power is diffuse, has low density,

and is intermittent. It cannot compete
with the abundant and reliable power
produced by fossil fuels.

Wind power is beset with similar physical limitations. Like solar power, wind power is
intermittent: It cannot produce power at a constant and reliable rate. Wind power will be
permanently inhibited by low capacity factors that cause higher costs.48 For example, anticyclonic weather conditions in Germany in December 2013 made it difficult for both wind and
solar power to generate any significant amount of energy. Conventional power stations were
required to generate 95% of the nations electricity supply.49
Power lines are another major investment rarely considered before making low-emissions
technology investments. Because wind and solar farms are land-intensive and often built in arid
or rural locations far away from where power is consumed, massive transmission infrastructure is

45

Steve Magnuson, Advocates Tout Small Nuclear Reactors for Military Installations (UPDATED),
National Defense, June 2013, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2013/June/Pages/
AdvocatesToutSmallNuclearReactorsforMilitaryInstallations.aspx.
46

Charles Frank, Why the Best Path to a Low-Carbon Future Is Not Wind or Solar Power, Brookings,
May 20, 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/05/20-low-carbon-wind-solarpower-frank.
47

Julie Lays, Hot on the Horizon, State Legislatures Magazine, January 2014,
http://www.ncsl.org/bookstore/state-legislatures-magazine/hot-on-the-horizon.aspx#8.

48

Jay Lehr, The Rationale for Wind Power Wont Fly, The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2013,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324310104578507242336481504.
49

Daniel Wetzel, Renewables fiasco: doldrums and clouds bring green electricity production to a halt,
The Global Warming Policy Forum, December 12, 2013, http://www.thegwpf.com/renewables-fiascodoldrums-clouds-bring-green-electricity-production-halt/.

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needed to transmit power from the generation source to the consumption source. Such power
lines can stretch for hundreds of miles, and because low-emissions technologies like wind and
solar produce less power, the costs of building and maintaining such lines often outweigh the
benefits of using wind or solar. Power lines are also vulnerable to military strikes, terrorist
attacks, and sabotage, and wind, solar, and biomass technologies are land-intensive, making
them more vulnerable to extreme weather events.
These disadvantages do not affect
The U.S. military, with its abundant
conventional power, where a comparably
technological, scientific, and financial
smaller coal- or gas-fired plant produces
resources, has a massive platform to
power that can be more conveniently
located close to a military base, where
steward energy innovation.
much power is needed. Providing
electricity to troops in the field, however,
may be a case where distributed power generation, such as solar panels or portable wind power
generators, may be more efficient and practical than attempting to carry or transport conventional
fuels.
The U.S. military, with its abundant technological, scientific, and financial resources, has a
massive platform to steward energy innovation. Research and development is a legitimate
function of DOD and other government agencies. However, investing in unreliable renewable
energy resources for purposes other than those that support the departments mission is wasteful,
unnecessary based on sound science, and potentially dangerous when it diverts funding from
higher priorities.

6. Arctic Sea Ice

The GAO report says:
In its Fiscal Year 2012 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, the Department of Defense
(DOD) identified climate change phenomena such as rising temperatures and sea levels
as potentially impacting its infrastructure, and officials at sites GAO visited or contacted
noted actual impacts they had observed. For example, according to DOD officials, the
combination of thawing permafrost, decreasing sea ice, and rising sea levels on the
Alaskan coast has increased coastal erosion at several Air Force radar early warning
and communication installations. (unnumbered introductory page)
For example, the Navy states that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world
and as a result significant retreat of sea ice will accelerate throughout this century,
causing previously unreachable areas to be increasingly open for maritime use. (page 9)

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Rebuttal:
[T]hawing permafrost, decreasing sea ice, and rising sea levels affect military infrastructure
and readiness. But once again, the questions to be asked are whether there has been an upward
trend of these conditions in recent decades and whether it is possible to forecast their occurrence
or pace in the future. The best available scientific research says the answer to both questions is
no.
According to the authors of Climate
Change Reconsidered II: Physical
Science,50 the melting of Arctic sea ice
and polar icecaps is not occurring at
unnatural rates and does not constitute
evidence of a human impact on climate.
Both the Antarctic51 and Greenland52
icecaps are close to balanced. Deep ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland show climate
change occurs within major glacial-interglacial cycles and as shorter decadal and centennial
events with high rates of warming and cooling, including abrupt temperature steps. Observed
changes in temperature, snowfall, ice flow speed, glacial extent, and iceberg calving in both
Antarctica and Greenland appear to lie within the limits of natural climate variation.

The melting of Arctic sea ice and polar

icecaps is not occurring at unnatural
rates and does not constitute evidence of
a human impact on climate.

According to National Aeronautics and Space Administration/National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (NASA/NOAA) satellite data, Antarctic sea ice at year-end 2014
was significantly above the 34-year average, despite rising CO2 concentrations in the
atmosphere.53 Similarly, data from the European Space Agency CryoSat-2 satellite show Arctic
sea ice volumes in 2014 were above the average set over the previous five years, and sharply
above the recent lows of 2011 and 2012.54
Valley glaciers wax and wane on multidecadal, centennial, and millennial time-scales, and no
evidence exists that their present, varied behavior falls outside long-term norms or is related to

50

Craig Idso, et al., supra note 21, Chapter 5, Observations: The Cryosphere.

51

H. Jay Zwally, et al., Mass changes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and shelves and
contributions to sea-level rise: 19922002, Journal of Glaciology 51 (2005): 50927,
http://www.igsoc.org/news/pressreleases/Zwally509.pdf. See also H. Jay Zwally and Mario B. Giovinetto,
Overview and assessment of Antarctic Ice-Sheet mass balance estimates: 19922009, Surveys in
Geophysics 32 (2011): 35176, http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10712-011-9123-5.pdf.
52

Ola M. Johannessen, et al., Recent ice-sheet growth in the interior of Greenland, Science 310 (2005):
10136, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/310/5750/1013.short.

53

The Cryosphere Today, http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/. See especially the Current Northern

Hemisphere Sea Ice Area graph,
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png.
54

Levi Winchester, Ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is 'not melting', says global warming expert, Express,
December 25, 2014, http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/548516/North-South-poles-not-melting-DrBenny-Peiser.

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human CO2 emissions.55 During the past 25,000 years, glaciers around the world have fluctuated
broadly in concert with changing climate, at times shrinking to positions and volumes smaller
than today. This fact notwithstanding, mountain glaciers around the world show a wide variety of
responses to local climate variation and do not respond to global temperature change in a simple,
uniform way.
Any melting that has occurred in the Arctic has occurred in the mountain glaciers and not at any
unnatural rate that would indicate any human impact. According to data collected by the
University of Oslos Ole Humlum, the global sea ice of today is similar to that first measured by
satellite observation in 1979 and greater than the ice cover of past warmer times.56
Regarding sea levels, the authors of
In short, there is no evidence that changes
Climate Change Reconsidered II:
in Arctic ice or sea levels are any
Physical Science found the Argo buoy
different today than they were in decades
network shows no significant ocean
57
warming over the past nine years.
past, or that they are likely to change
Though the range of natural variation has
significantly in years ahead.
yet to be fully described, evidence is
lacking for any recent changes in global
ocean circulation that lie outside natural variation or were forced by human CO2 emissions.
Local sea-level change occurs at widely variable rates around the world, typically between about
+5 and -5 mm/year. Global (eustatic) sea level, knowledge of which has only limited use for
coastal management, rose at an average rate of between 1 and 2 mm/year over the past century.
Satellite altimeter studies of sea-level change indicate rates of global rise since 1993 of more
than 3 mm/year, but complexities of processing and the infancy of the method preclude viewing
this result as secure.
Rates of global sea-level change vary in decadal and multidecadal ways and show neither recent
acceleration nor any simple relationship with increasing CO2 emissions. Pacific coral atolls are
not being drowned by extra sea-level rise; rather, atoll shorelines are affected by direct weather
and infrequent high tide events, El Nio/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sea-level variations, and
impacts of increasing human populations.
In short, there is no evidence that changes in Arctic ice or sea levels are any different today than
they were in decades past, or that they are likely to change significantly in years ahead. DOD
officials must already know this, since they know near-record accumulations of sea ice in the
Arctic this year closed sea routes, contrary to predictions made by some global warming
experts that there would be no ice at all at the North Pole by now.

55

Donald J. Easterbrook, Evidence-based Climate Science (Amsterdam: Elsevier, Inc., 2011).

56

Ole Humlum, Monthly Antarctic, Arctic and global sea ice extent since November 1978,
http://www.climate4you.com/.
57

R.S. Knox and D.H. Douglass, Recent energy balance of Earth, International Journal of Geosciences
1 (November 2010): 13, http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/KD_InPress_final.pdf.

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Conclusion
Specific rebuttals aside, the GAO report is flawed primarily because it is based on a false
premise: that all climate phenomena are getting worse over time. The reality is far more
complicated than that.
A growing number of scientists believe the planet is on the verge of a climate cooling trend, even
as atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, calling into question the fundamental basis for the
global warming hypothesis, the claim CO2 levels are tightly correlated with global temperature
trends. The connection between rising CO2 concentrations and extreme weather events like
hurricanes, droughts, and floods is equally dubious.
Many of the climate change indicators
cited by GAO do not follow its narrative
linking increased CO2 emissions to a more
dangerous and volatile climate that puts
the countrys national security at risk.
DOD should reconsider its policy
prescription of increased investments in adaptation or mitigation measures. Implementation of
such measures by DOD without a sound, unbiased science backing is wasteful, premature, and
not conducive to a strong national defense or mission readiness.

The science is quite clear. There is no

climate change crisis that DOD should
be attempting to address.

DOD should not sacrifice convenient and proven energy availability, which plays a key role in
national security efforts, out of fear that global warming will cause changes in ice or sea levels
that are unprecedented or require special preparations. The fear is unjustified, and the science is
quite clear. There is no climate change crisis that DOD should be attempting to address.

###
Taylor Smith is a policy analyst for The Heartland Institute specializing in energy, climate, and
environmental regulation. He is coauthor with James M. Taylor of a previous Heartland Policy
Brief titled PricewaterhouseCoopers Too Late Report: Poor Science, No Practical Solutions
(2012). He received a BA degree in American Studies, International Studies, and Political
Science from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2011.
Smith is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Councils Energy, Environment, and
Agriculture Task Force, and his work has appeared in major publications across the United
States, including in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Boston Globe, Denver Post,
Washington Examiner, Washington Times, and elsewhere.

2015 The Heartland Institute. Distributed by The Heartland Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan public policy
research organization. Nothing in this report should be construed as reflecting the views of The Heartland
Institute, nor as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of legislation. Additional copies of this Policy Brief are
available for $2.95 from The Heartland Institute, phone 312/377-4000, fax 312/377-5000, email
think@heartland.org; Web http://www.heartland.org.

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