John Church and the rising ocean

John Church in Hobart. “Most countries who
 value science would be proud and happy
 to have a world-class scientist
like him,” says a German colleague.

Global warming sceptics often claim that climate science is perpetuated by collusion, but the most powerful driver of science is disagreement. Dissent was the impetus for oceanographer John Church, who has spent 36 years with the CSIRO, entering the conversation around future sea levels in the 1990s.

Reading journal papers, he decided the rises being projected were way too big. The numbers just didn't seem right. "So we did our own work," Church says, "and came up with smaller numbers, but not that much smaller. Actually quite similar to where they are now."

Sea-level scientists are a fractious bunch; Church's job for a while now has been to steer them to consensus on the most hard-fought, white-knuckle chapter in the story of the warming Earth. As a lead author on two of the past three reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the state of the planet, Church investigates what the melting of polar ice and warmer waters mean for the world's coastlines.

He's also an author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers. The latest, in the esteemed journal Nature, laid out the case that humans have been the dominant force in accelerating the rise in sea levels since 1970.

Read Jo Chandler’s Good Weekend story in today’s Melbourne Age - “John Church and the rising ocean.”

Planned CSIRO staff cuts/changes damn Australia's Paris promises

CSIRO scientist and expert on sea level rise,
John Church, argues the public has been
misled and Australia will miss its Paris
agreed to emission reduction targets.

Australia will break a commitment made at the Paris climate summit less than two months ago if CSIRO goes ahead with its plan to axe its research programs, one of the agency's leading scientists has warned.

John Church, a globally recognised expert on sea level rise and one of CSIRO's most decorated researchers, said organisation chief Larry Marshall had misled the public by claiming there was now less need for climate research because the problem had been "proven".

It came as US scientist James Hansen, sometimes described as the father of climate change awareness, suggested the decision to cut the jobs was wrong.  

Read Adam Morton’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “'Misleading, inaccurate and in breach of Paris': CSIRO scientist criticises cuts.”