News Scientists jumping off the warming train

[TheStatutoryApe]

I agree with that. I'm not convinced about some of the reasoning on CO2 for instance.

But then again there are those that would rather study the thing until the planet incinerates. What is the balance between prudence for future generations and unnecessary concerns?

The opportunities to be colossally right or wrong are staggering and border on being brilliantly circumspect or being inevitably futile regardless of what is undertaken to prevent or change things.

This is one of the issues I have with the AGW movement. So far most of the action I have seen taken to "fix" the problem has all been about money and not so much any realistic solutions. From taxes, fines, and the purchase of "CO2 credits" to everyone and their mother tauting their personal alternative energy schemes as a cure all. Some of these ideas are good but so far I have seen little in the way of comprehensive (and realistic) solutions while governments and others are cashing in on the popularity of the "green" trend.

Core samples have shown that the Earth has had more CO2 in the atmosphere at times in the past and has not "incinerated" (for example).

What I remember is that the core samples have shown historic fluctuations in CO2 levels and temperatures that have been higher but that current CO2 levels far outstripe any historic CO2 levels. The question asked then of course is: What then is the correlation between temperature and CO2 levels if temperatures have been higher than now with lower CO2 levels than now? Answer from AGW proponents of course is that the temperature changes are slow and CO2 levels have been increasing at a rate far faster than the climate can change in response.

 

[franznietzsche]

-Also, in the graphs they showed depicting the correlation between temperature and CO2 levels over Earth's history, it appeared that the spikes in temp preceded the spikes in CO2 levels, so that it almost seemed as if the raising of temperature causes a rise in CO2 levels and not the other way around.

A few things:

1) The physics of the greenhouse effect are not in dispute. Carbon dioxide has a higher opacity in infrared than a Nitrogen/Oxygen mix. If the opacity rises in a medium that must pump heat out radiatively, then the temperature gradient must rise. No one disputes these facts.

2) The Earth is a very complicated system with a number of cycles that moderate the concentrations of different substances in different places. Water cycle, carbon cycle, etc. All of these are affected by temperature (among many other variables).

3) The amount of energy that the Earth must radiate into space is equal to the amount of energy it absorbs from the sun, however this is not a constant. Albedo of the Earth is a variable--high albedo, less energy needs to be radiated thermally, lower albedo, more energy needs to be radiated.

So, if carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere, the opacity of the atmosphere to infrared radiation rises. All other things being equal this will cause the temperature to rise. If the temperature rise either a) alters the carbon cycle to lower the concentration back down, or b) alters the albedo to decrease the amount of incoming radiation then the effect will be damped, and possibly self-correcting. There are also mechanisms where the initial temperature rise can drive further increases in CO2 as well--gas solubility in water is a function of temperature for instance. The thing we do not understand well is how these various feedback mechanisms interact. The fact that carbon dioxide raises opacity in the infrared portion of the spectrum we know for a fact however.

The idea that rising temperatures would also raise carbon dioxide levels by altering the carbon cycle is not absurd. The idea that this fact is somehow evidence that increased carbon dioxide levels do not cause warming is absurd.

 

[LowlyPion]

Population reduction is by far the clearest way to control anthropogenic loading effects, but that requires humankind to entirely change its nature. Reproduction is too fundamental and no group or individual would want to be short changed.

If you think the Evangelicals got their undies double tucked in their creases over Gay Marriage, try moving them, or any other group for that matter, to a reproduction lottery based society.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Population reduction is by far the clearest way to control anthropogenic loading effects, but that requires humankind to entirely change its nature. Reproduction is too fundamental and no group or individual would want to be short changed.

If you think the Evangelicals got their undies double tucked in their creases over Gay Marriage, try moving them, or any other group for that matter, to a reproduction lottery based society.

Certainly. I have my doubts about the benefits of reducing the population in general though there are areas where it would be a definite benefit to living conditions if nothing else.

Perhaps its just my choice of news sources but I see a focus on penalizing people and companies for not conforming to certain standards. Personally I am a fan of incentive based policies. Maybe its already being done in some places but perhaps we could defer and eventually forgive student loans for persons who specialize in alternative energy sciences and take jobs in that sector. Significant tax breaks to companies that specialize in production and implimentation of alternative energy solutions, if it's not already being done. I would even support not taxing them at all if they could show that they are making significant progress in their sector.
The oil companies are eventually going to be outmoded and start to lose profits, save for any action they take to try preserving their importance, so it should not be hard to convince them they ought to be working on alternative energy sources and give them tax breaks if they make significant progress on that front. Maybe that could be dangerous now that I think about it.. I'm not sure.

 

[Phrak]

Population reduction is by far the clearest way to control anthropogenic loading effects, but that requires humankind to entirely change its nature. Reproduction is too fundamental and no group or individual would want to be short changed.

If you think the Evangelicals got their undies double tucked in their creases over Gay Marriage, try moving them, or any other group for that matter, to a reproduction lottery based society.

No, no. You forgot all about euthanasia. That will get rid of those pesky Christians.

 

[Art]

Published today in which journals? How many of these journals do you keep track of and roughly how many papers do you read? I'm curious how much time a person needs to spend reading papers to be able to arrive at such conclusions. Could you cite references to some of these papers being published today that are virtually identical with the hype you described? I would like to read some of them, to get an idea of this hype.

By definition hype does not refer to scientific journals, it refers to the mass hysteria the media try to create in their reporting of the matter.

To 'sell' AGW to the public politicians need a press sympathetic to their viewpoint in order to push through unpopular legislation - tax increases and the like. It may surprise you to know but most of the public obtain their 'scientific' information from mainstream media sources rather than scientific journals and so the impact on the public conciousness from the mass media is far more important in practical terms than anything written in some relatively obscure journal.

Having said that every now and again even scientific journals cross over into the newspaper realm of hype - the publishing of the now infamous hockey chart being a good example.

 

[LowlyPion]

No, no. You forgot all about euthanasia. That will get rid of those pesky Christians.

We can always find less palatable ways to reach a sustainable humankind loading. Free markets is one way. Those without food and energy ... well. War is another.

Regardless of how though, we know eventually that it must be bounded. And regardless of what the pressures are that will result in such bounding, it will surely be accompanied by great unpleasantness whatever it may be - because unpleasantness is apparently the only way I see that humankind will likely ever agree to limit itself.

 

[Evo]

We can always find less palatable ways to reach a sustainable humankind loading. Free markets is one way. Those without food and energy ... well. War is another.

Regardless of how though, we know eventually that it must be bounded. And regardless of what the pressures are that will result in such bounding, it will surely be accompanied by great unpleasantness whatever it may be - because unpleasantness is apparently the only way I see that humankind will likely ever agree to limit itself.

So true. Aren't we a bit overdue for a pandemic that would bring the world's population back? We used to have constant wars wiping out entire populations, spread of disease, and severe weather controlled the rest. We are now in serious trouble from world overpopulation.

 

[NeoDevin]

We used to have constant wars wiping out entire populations, spread of disease, and severe weather controlled the rest.

So you're saying you should have voted for McCain and Palin?

 

[Andre]

So true. Aren't we a bit overdue for a pandemic that would bring the world's population back? We used to have constant wars wiping out entire populations, spread of disease, and severe weather controlled the rest. We are now in serious trouble from world overpopulation.

Really? The total number of people that died during WW-II was estimated to be anywhere in the order of magnitude of40-75 million on a total world population of problably some 2billion:

http://www.raisethehammer.org/images/world_population_growth.jpg

 

[Gokul43201]

By definition hype does not refer to scientific journals, it refers to the mass hysteria the media try to create in their reporting of the matter.

Okay, I thought you were referring to papers "published" in journals, so I thought you were saying that mainstream climatology papers are filled with AGW hype. I'd forgotten that the word 'publish' has a broader meaning.

 

[wolram]

Mean while back to the topic,

The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists.

How big is this (groundswell), should all the scientists in this forum take a poll?

 

[LowlyPion]

Mean while back to the topic,

The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists.

How big is this (groundswell), should all the scientists in this forum take a poll?

I think it's difficult to distinguish scientific groundswell from political groundswell and I question even the relevance of it.

For instance basing a perception of "groundswell" on a politically motivated and adopted report, (adopted by political ideologues I might add), looks to be less than prudent. It's not that it's necessarily invalid science, but rather I think it is a question of what science it actually represents.

Wouldn't we all be better served to be considering a groundswell of actual objective evidence, developing a preponderance and moving toward a no shadow of a doubt, than pondering its popularity, which I suspect is colored by political prejudice, admitted or not?

 

[Gokul43201]

Mean while back to the topic,

The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore.

Al Gore is not a scientist. Scientists do not need to rise up in opposition to him. At least, that's what I think.

How big is this (groundswell), should all the scientists in this forum take a poll?

How many people here are actually intimately familiar with a lot of the literature and methods of climate science. I think Andre probably is, and that's about it. If you want a poll, ask your question and I'll tell you what Andre's answer will be.

 

[LowlyPion]

Really? The total number of people that died during WW-II was estimated to be anywhere in the order of magnitude of40-75 million on a total world population of problably some 2billion:

I suspect that a next global war can be much more efficient than just a few 10's of millions. Though resulting crop collapses, and energy shortfalls can likely do even better.

The interesting thing about the graph is that it shows the "less developed" apparently don't progress to "developed". The question then is whether the discomfort they experience will be due to extreme factors (food, medicine, energy, violence) or becoming more developed and advanced and flattening through factors related to enlightenment as the developed nations tend to exhibit in the chart.

 

[Gokul43201]

The interesting thing about the graph is that it shows the "less developed" apparently don't progress to "developed". The question then is whether the discomfort they experience will be due to extreme factors (food, medicine, energy, violence) or becoming more developed and advanced and flattening through factors related to enlightenment as the developed nations tend to exhibit in the chart.

You NEED to watch this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244338529080

 

[Phrak]

We can always find less palatable ways to reach a sustainable humankind loading. Free markets is one way. Those without food and energy ... well. War is another.

Um.. That was intended as sarcasm. How you've managed to mix global warming, evangelicals, homosexuality, and population growth in one bag is far more than I want to know.

Regardless of how though, we know eventually that it must be bounded. And regardless of what the pressures are that will result in such bounding, it will surely be accompanied by great unpleasantness whatever it may be - because unpleasantness is apparently the only way I see that humankind will likely ever agree to limit itself.

Guess what?, there are examples around the world of negative population growth, industrialized countries that are not the result of world totalitarian pressure. I don't share your progressive elitism.

 

[Jang Jin Hong]

The total thermal energy in atmosphere of the Earth is function of the radiated energy from the sun. So the temperature of Earth is mainly affected by sun.

 

[NeoDevin]

The total thermal energy in atmosphere of the Earth is function of the radiated energy from the sun. So the temperature of Earth is mainly affected by sun.

It's a function of the energy absorbed from the sun, as well as the energy radiated by the Earth.

 

[LowlyPion]

You NEED to watch this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244338529080

Thanks. That was an interesting exposition.

 

[mheslep]

You NEED to watch this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244338529080

Wow, any idea what data display package he's using there? I've never seen it before.

 

[Gokul43201]

Gapminder - Trendalizer

http://www.gapminder.org/about-gapminder/

You can play with an online version of it at the Gapminder Home link from the website linked above. Really neat, ain't it?

Thanks to arildno, for first posting this link here.

 

[drankin]

hmmm, this global warming is sure a pain in the... neck. Snow in Louisiana? Many of us layfolk are going to have to see some actual warming in order to jump on the AGW train.

 

[mheslep]

Gapminder - Trendalizer

http://www.gapminder.org/about-gapminder/

You can play with an online version of it at the Gapminder Home link from the website linked above. Really neat, ain't it?

Thanks to arildno, for first posting this link here.

Oh, that is Rosling's own creation then.

Edit: so hitting play over time I notice something particularly spooky. Clearly various countries, as outliers, here and there, have their mortality rates spike with wars and other reversals of fortune. But there is one instant in time where one can see the survival rate of basically the entire world drop markedly, together: the 1918 flu pandemic.

 

[Gokul43201]

hmmm, this global warming is sure a pain in the... neck. Snow in Louisiana? Many of us layfolk are going to have to see some actual warming in order to jump on the AGW train.

Have you seen any actual wavefunctions? Please let me know when you do, so I can open a door to the quantum mechanics train.

 

[wolram]

Al Gore is not a scientist. Scientists do not need to rise up in opposition to him. At least, that's what I think.

How many people here are actually intimately familiar with a lot of the literature and methods of climate science. I think Andre probably is, and that's about it. If you want a poll, ask your question and I'll tell you what Andre's answer will be.

I agree, may be Andre is the only one who's vote would carry any weight, i all so think it is wrong for an uninformed person to criticize the science.
This is why i thought looking for a trend would be worth while, if there is a trend for scientists to leave the IPCC, then to me that would suggest being a member is not helping their career.

 

[LowlyPion]

I agree, may be Andre is the only one who's vote would carry any weight, i all so think it is wrong for an uninformed person to criticize the science.
This is why i thought looking for a trend would be worth while, if there is a trend for scientists to leave the IPCC, then to me that would suggest being a member is not helping their career.

I wouldn't think the one would have to do with the other.

Unless of course your science and your thinking is based more on consensus than on determining and establishing facts.

Hopefully the IPCC isn't filled with the former and devoid of the latter.

 

[Proton Soup]

i keep seeing this term passed around: "climate science". what i don't see is ABET accreditation of "climate science" as a curriculum. when i go to google for assistance and search for accreditation "climate science", i see a lot of message board posters referring to "accredited climate scientists", but this seems to be synonymous with "people i agree with".

my impression, until convinced otherwise, is that "climate science" has no standards, rigor, or discipline. a climate scientist is whatever a climate scientist says it is.

 

[Phrak]

i keep seeing this term passed around: "climate science". what i don't see is ABET accreditation of "climate science" as a curriculum. when i go to google for assistance and search for accreditation "climate science", i see a lot of message board posters referring to "accredited climate scientists", but this seems to be synonymous with "people i agree with".

my impression, until convinced otherwise, is that "climate science" has no standards, rigor, or discipline. a climate scientist is whatever a climate scientist says it is.

It's a wide multidiciplinary activity. Which means that for any given paper, a minority of so-call climate scientists can understand one another.

So you promted me to research the current IPCC "participants". (There's a loaded word. They are not members. They are downrated from this status.) I won't call them climate scientists, just yet. These individuals are selected by UN member nations. What criteria, if any does the UN impose on these individuals for participation? Over the years, I have found none. In the past, these individuals have ranged from diplomates to economists to scientists. I believe the majority have typically been scientists. The current hord numbers about 2000.

http://www.ipccfacts.org/participants.html"

 

[Proton Soup]

http://www.ipccfacts.org/participants.html"

i guess it's just a coincidence that their linked documents are missing since http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....cord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6" is out

 

[Phrak]

i guess it's just a coincidence that their linked documents are missing since http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....cord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6" is out

The article also seems to indicate that some of the former patsies were not happy being used.

I haven't yet found a list of IPPC members in any recent year, but I found this short PDF link which is purported to be a list of contributing authors to the 2005 IPCC "National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Guidlines.

Just as amazingly, the academic credentials of the authors are missing. Based upon their affiliations, it looks far more like a list of government, industry, and foundation burocrates than scientists.

http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/meeting/pdfiles/Sydney_Par_20051217.pdf"

But when all is said, IPP signatories are window dressing to add bulk to a report, and give it appearance of credibility. In the past the final authority as to report content has been the UN facilitator. If he fails to convince the delegates to the desired consensus, he is not bound to follow it. This was written into the rules at one time, ~1996.

 

[wolram]

Phrak.
I am sure i agree with you, for an amateur at least ,to find information on how the ipcc works and it contributors is difficult, this organisation is not in any way transparent, may be the warmers can tell why this is so.

Edit.
Is there anyone here that can take us through the review process, from initial draft to final draft, and who had input?

 

[Evo]

Edit.
Is there anyone here that can take us through the review process, from initial draft to final draft, and who had input?

Here is the report that was hidden from the Public by the IPCC. The IPCC was forced to release it after a Freedom of Imformation lawsuit. This is the draft were the IPCC cherrypicked what they wished to use for the final report to the public.
Please link to the IPCC page here that was provided. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7794905?n=2&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25

Seriously you should read this. When ever someone said the data could be wrong, that previous records had been ignored, etc... The were told that sorry, can't be included, not enough space. But when someone says Great job! They are included with a note: Thanks!

Issue citing scientific issues and concerns:

This is a concise but highly informative overview of the meteorological and
oceanographic aspects of climate change. The major shortcoming is that it almost
completely ignores biospheric aspects of climate change - there is only one brief mention
(page 1-23 lines 37-38, as if this were a new and esoteric aspect of the issue. However,
there is a rich history of research in this field, much of it from the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme but also from elsewhere. There is a section on the
cryosphere, but the biosphere is at least as important as the cryosphere, both as a source offeedbacks and drivers of climate change and also as an indicator of climate change.
While biogeochemical processes obviously have their own chapter for the first time, I
strongly feel that in Chapter 1 there should also be a section on a historical overview of
biospheric topics of equal prominance to the cryosphere section.
[Richard Betts]

IPCC response:

Noted. Space restrictions were severe and prevent such detailed treatments. We chose to present some areas in more depth rather than to cover more areas more shallowly.

Oh, as in Data cherry picking

Positive blurb with no science:

Good and self-contained overview of history of climate change science. Congratulations!
[Manola Brunet]

IPCC response:

Noted. Thanks

And again scientific concerns about the validity of data and accuracy of assumptions

I am glad that the historical overview clearly recognises the past en also very present problems with unphysical corrections necessary to obtain a realistic climate state in state of the art models i.e. section 1.5.9 page 22 line 42 to page 23 line 38 on flux adjustments and tuning of radiative parameters. The inclusion of a whole section (1.5.8 page 21 line 8 and further) on cloud modelling and climate sensitivity and the large uncertainties in that area is also a very much welcomed element.

Some worry remains however concerning the discrepant statements that climate is a large system that comprises of many nonlinear dynamical subsystems that are coupled by many feedbacks which makes it hard to test hypothesis in an “experiment like” fashion, while on the other hand it seems to implicitly be assumed that models provide correct results and prognoses of climate are indeed possible despite serious uncertainties about magnitude and sometimes sign of mechanisms.[Florens De Wit]

IPCC reject reason, with no science to back it up:

Noted. Compliments appreciated, but
we reject the assertion that “it seems to implicitly be assumed that models provide correct results.”

baseless compliment with no science:

I found this chapter to be a nice summary of the history and the present day understanding of global warming issues, and thus, I have just a few minor suggestions.
[Michael Alexander Alexander]

IPCC response:

Noted. Thanks

This goes on and on.

 

[Gokul43201]

Evo, I just don't see the connection between your annotations to the quotes and the actual quotes themselves.

The first complaint was about "including a section on a historical overview of biospheric topics". It had nothing to do with any data, or the cherrypicking thereof.

On the third quote you say it was rejected with "no science to back it up". What? How do you back up an admission that your models need not provide correct results with "science"? Or were they supposed to point to all the page numbers where they did not speak of this implicit assumption (not that that would be backing it up with "science" either)? I thought you would be happy to read such an admission. Apparently not.

 

[Evo]

Evo, I just don't see the connection between your annotations to the quotes and the actual quotes themselves.

The first complaint was about "including a section on a historical overview of biospheric topics". It had nothing to do with any data, or the cherrypicking thereof.

The major shortcoming is that it almost
completely ignores biospheric aspects of climate change - there is only one brief mention
(page 1-23 lines 37-38, as if this were a new and esoteric aspect of the issue. However,
there is a rich history of research in this field, much of it from the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme but also from elsewhere. There is a section on the
cryosphere, but the biosphere is at least as important as the cryosphere, both as a source offeedbacks and drivers of climate change and also as an indicator of climate change.
While biogeochemical processes obviously have their own chapter for the first time, I
strongly feel that in Chapter 1 there should also be a section on a historical overview of
biospheric topics of equal prominance to the cryosphere section.

Do you prefer "picking and choosing what you will and will not incude so the end data meets your criteria" instead of "cherry picking"?

]On the third quote you say it was rejected with "no science to back it up". What? How do you back up an admission that your models need not provide correct results with "science"? Or were they supposed to point to all the page numbers where they did not speak of this implicit assumption (not that that would be backing it up with "science" either)? I thought you would be happy to read such an admission. Apparently not.

Some worry remains however concerning the discrepant statements that climate is a large system that comprises of many nonlinear dynamical subsystems that are coupled by many feedbacks which makes it hard to test hypothesis in an “experiment like” fashion, while on the other hand it seems to implicitly be assumed that models provide correct results and prognoses of climate are indeed possible despite serious uncertainties about magnitude and sometimes sign of mechanisms

IPCC reply.

we reject the assertion that “it seems to implicitly be assumed that models provide correct results.”

They gave no reason for the rejection. It does not meet their goals, so rejected without any substantiation of why.

 

[Gokul43201]

Do you prefer "picking and choosing what you will and will not incude so the end data meets your criteria" instead of "cherry picking"?

They devoted a whole chapter to it! What they were cherrypicking was what to highlight in the introduction and what not to, probably because they know a lot of people won't get past the introduction (or if they do, they'll head straight to the conclusions). There is no data analysis in the introduction, and hence no scope to cherrypick data.

IPCC reply. They gave no reason for the rejection. It does not meet their goals, so rejected without any substantiation of why.

If you tell me I make an assumption of so-and-so in my paper, and I've made no such assumption, what substantiation should I give you that I have not made this assumption? And what does not meet which specific goals?

If you tell me that I failed to make a necessary assumption, I could at least point you to the part where I did include that assumption, if I want to refute your assertion. But if you tell me that I have made an assumption that was illegitimate, then you should at least point out to me where this assumption or its direct consequence appears in the document. What am I supposed to say? "Nowhere on page 1 is this assumption made. Nowhere on page 2 ..."

But in any event, even for the converse case you can only refute the assertion by pointing to a counterexample, you can't really refute it with science. It's a simple question of "did I make an assumption or not".

 

[NeoDevin]

The major shortcoming is that it almost
completely ignores biospheric aspects of climate change - there is only one brief mention
(page 1-23 lines 37-38, as if this were a new and esoteric aspect of the issue. However,
there is a rich history of research in this field, much of it from the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme but also from elsewhere. There is a section on the
cryosphere, but the biosphere is at least as important as the cryosphere, both as a source offeedbacks and drivers of climate change and also as an indicator of climate change.
While biogeochemical processes obviously have their own chapter for the first time, I
strongly feel that in Chapter 1 there should also be a section on a historical overview of
biospheric topics of equal prominance to the cryosphere section.

They were complaining about the history of it not being included in Chapter 1, not that it wasn't taken into consideration in general.

Edit:

Go to http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/ipcc/ for the comments on each chapter. Note that the one you (Evo) linked to, are the comments on the first order draft of chapter 1 only. Also note that the title of chapter 7 is "Couplings Between Changes in the Climate System and Biogeochemistry". Sure sounds like they were "picking and choosing" not to include the data you're referring to.

Edit 2:

You have to scroll down at the link I provided, to the section titled "Browse the Collection". From there you can follow the links to the comments on the first and second drafts of each chapter.

 

[Evo]

Read the whole thing and decide for yourself.

Thursday, 10 July 2008
By Tom Harris and John McLean

It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over: “2500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis.”

But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper. Here’s the real situation.

Like the three IPCC “assessment reports” before it, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released during 2007 (upon which the UN climate conference in Bali was based) includes the reports of the IPCC’s three working groups.

Working Group I (WG I) is assigned to report on the extent and possible causes of past climate change as well as future “projections”. Its report is titled “The Physical Science Basis”.

The reports from working groups II and III are titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” and “Mitigation of Climate Change” respectively, and since these are based on the results of WG I, it is crucially important that the WG I report stands up to close scrutiny.

There is, of course serious debate among scientists about the actual technical content of the roughly 1000-page WG I report, especially its politically motivated Summary for Policymakers which is often the only part read by politicians and non-scientists. The technical content can be difficult for non-scientists to follow and so most people simply assume that if large numbers of scientists agree, they must be right.

Consensus never proves the truth of a scientific claim, but is somehow widely believed to do so for the IPCC reports, so we need to ask how many scientists really did agree with the most important IPCC conclusion, namely that humans are causing significant climate change - in other words the key parts of WG I?

The numbers of scientist reviewers involved in WG I is actually less than a quarter of the whole, a little more than 600 in total. The other 1900 reviewers assessed the other working group reports. They had nothing to say about the causes of climate change or its future trajectory. Still, 600 “scientific expert reviewers” sounds pretty impressive. After all, they submitted their comments to the IPCC editors who assure us that “all substantive government and expert review comments received appropriate consideration”. And since these experts reviewers are all listed in Annex III of the report, they must have endorsed it, right?

Wrong.

For the first time ever, the UN has released on the Web the comments of reviewers who assessed the drafts of the WG I report and the IPCC editors’ responses. This release was almost certainly a result of intense pressure applied by “hockey-stick” co-debunker Steve McIntyre of Toronto and his allies. Unlike the other IPCC working groups, WG I is based in the US and McIntyre had used the robust Freedom of Information legislation to request certain details when the full comments were released.

An examination of reviewers’ comments on the last draft of the WG I report before final report assembly (i.e. the “Second Order Revision” or SOR) completely debunks the illusion of hundreds of experts diligently poring over all the chapters of the report and providing extensive feedback to the editing teams. Here’s the reality.

A total of 308 reviewers commented on the SOR, but only 32 reviewers commented on more than three chapters and only five reviewers commented on all 11 chapters of the report. Only about half the reviewers commented on more than one chapter. It is logical that reviewers would generally limit their comments to their areas of expertise but it’s a far cry from the idea of thousands of scientists agreeing to anything.

Compounding this is the fact that IPCC editors could, and often did, ignore reviewers’ comments. Some editor responses were banal and others showed inconsistencies with other comments. Reviewers had to justify their requested changes but the responding editors appear to have been under no such obligation. Reviewers were sometimes flatly told they were wrong but no reasons or reliable references were provided.

In other cases reviewers tried to dilute the certainty being expressed and they often provided supporting evidence, but their comments were often flatly rejected. Some comments were rejected on the basis of a lack of space - an incredible assertion in such an important document.

The attitude of the editors seemed to be that simple corrections were accepted, requests for improved clarity tolerated but the assertions and interpretations that appear in the text were to be defended against any challenge.

An example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that “hundreds of IPCC scientists” are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years”.

In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”. Of the comments received from the 62 reviewers of this critical chapter, almost 60 per cent of them were rejected by IPCC editors. And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.

Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article - Dr Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada. Concerning the “Greenhouse gas forcing …” statement above, Professor McKitrick explained “A categorical summary statement like this is not supported by the evidence in the IPCC WG I report. Evidence shown in the report suggests that other factors play a major role in climate change, and the specific effects expected from greenhouse gases have not been observed.”

Dr Gray labeled the WG I statement as “Typical IPCC doubletalk” asserting “The text of the IPCC report shows that this is decided by a guess from persons with a conflict of interest, not from a tested model”.

Determining the level of support expressed by reviewers’ comments is subjective but a slightly generous evaluation indicates that just five reviewers endorsed the crucial ninth chapter. Four had vested interests and the other made only a single comment for the entire 11-chapter report. The claim that 2500 independent scientist reviewers agreed with this, the most important statement of the UN climate reports released this year, or any other statement in the UN climate reports, is nonsense.

“The IPCC owe it to the world to explain who among their expert reviewers actually agree with their conclusions and who don’t,” says Natural Resources Stewardship Project Chair climatologist Dr Timothy Ball. “Otherwise, their credibility, and the public’s trust of science in general, will be even further eroded.”

That the IPCC have let this deception continue for so long is a disgrace. Secretary General Ban Kai-Moon must instruct the UN climate body to either completely revise their operating procedures, welcoming dissenting input from scientist reviewers and indicating if reviewers have vested interests, or close the agency down completely.

Until then, their conclusions, and any reached at the Bali conference based on IPCC conclusions, should be ignored entirely as politically skewed and dishonest.

Tom Harris is an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition.

John McLean is climate data analyst based in Melbourne, Australia.

 

[Gokul43201]

I saw the name Ross McKitrick in that quote and decided not to read it (not now, at least). Ross McKitrick is a nut, not that that means he can not have valid objections to stuff in the IPCC reports, but I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw the 2007 report.

Besides, what I was pointing out was only what appeared to me as a discord between the things you were quoting and what you were saying about them. I don't have any opinion I care to expound on about the overall conduct of the IPCC.

 

[NeoDevin]

I saw the name Ross McKitrick in that quote and decided not to read it (not now, at least). Ross McKitrick is a nut, not that that means he can not have valid objections to stuff in the IPCC reports, but I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw the 2007 report.

Gokul, I can summarize it for you:

"The 2500 scientists who reviewed it, did not each review each draft of every chapter, and some of the recommendations were rejected for various reasons. For these reasons, we shouldn't trust the report."

 

[Evo]

I saw the name Ross McKitrick in that quote and decided not to read it

You saw his name on one sentence. I suggest that you read it. You might learn something you didn't know.

BTW, Ross McKitric is one of the people responsible for successfully debunking Mann's Global Warming Hockey Stick.

Ross McKitrick is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. McKitrick gained his doctorate in economics in 1996 from the University of British Columbia, and in the same year was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph, Ontario. He has been an Associate Professor since 2001 and since 2002 Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, a Canadian free-market public policy think tank.[1]

McKitrick co-wrote the 2002 book Taken By Storm with Christopher Essex. It was a runner-up to the Donner Prize 2002 as the Best Canadian Book on Public Policy.[2] He has since published further research on palaeoclimate reconstruction. Some of these papers were cowritten with Stephen McIntyre, including "Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance."[3] He continues to publish research in economics, usually in the area of environmental policy.

McKitrick has (1997-2005) authored or coauthored 16 peer-reviewed articles in economics journals, and four in science journals (as well as two in Energy and Environment). Outside academia, in addition to co-authoring Taken by Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming he has also written a number of opinion pieces in newspapers and magazines, many of which have also written about McKitrick.[4] In his latest work, he is lead author of "Stationarity of Global Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions:Implications for Global Warming Scenarios." along with Mark Strazicich.[5]


[edit] Global warming related activities
Being active in the field of environmental economics and policy analysis, in addition to his role as a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute and co-authorship of Taken By Storm, has involved McKitrick in the debate over the subject of global warming. Below are some of the more contentious issues that have received attention, on a national scale in the mass media or involving government agencies and panels.


[edit] Criticism of Mann et al 1998
Main article: Hockey stick controversy
From a statistical perspecitve, McKitrick and McIntyre (MM) in the 2003 paper "Corrections to the Mann et al. (1998) "Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series"[6] examined the Michael E. Mann, Ray Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes (MBH) 1998 paper, "Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing Over the Past Six Centuries."[7] As a result Mann et al. published a corrigendum[2]. McIntyre and McKitrick say the corrigendum failed to address some of their methodological concerns, and the two claim that Nature responded to their concerns about the corrigendum in an unsatisfactory way.[3]

A panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) endorsed, with a few reservations, the MBH paper. One of the panel's reservations was that "...a statistical method used in the 1999 study was not the best and that some uncertainties in the work 'have been underestimated,' and it particularly challenged the authors' conclusion that the decade of the 1990s was probably the warmest in a millennium." However, they also said that "'an array of evidence' supported the main thrust of the paper", leading to even more confusion on the situation.[4]

A subsequent investigation, undertaken at the request of Republican Senator Joe Barton and headed by prominent statistics professor and NAS member Edward Wegman of George Mason University [5] supported the statistical criticisms by McKitrick and McIntyre, saying "It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their methodology was faulty at the time of writing the paper. We found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling."[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_McKitrick

 

[Gokul43201]

You saw his name on one sentence.

Let me quote it:

And of the 62 expert reviewers of this chapter, 55 had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial.

Two of these seven were contacted by NRSP for the purposes of this article - Dr Vincent Gray of New Zealand and Dr Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Canada.

The article is at least partly based on the testimony of two "impartial" "experts", one of whom is McKitrick.

I suggest that you read it. You might learn something you didn't know.

Odds are, if I read most anything written anywhere, I will learn something I didn't know. It still doesn't change my argument, which was about your descriptors of the quotes, and not about the behavior of the IPCC.

BTW, Ross McKitric is one of the people responsible for successfully debunking Mann's Global Warming Hockey Stick.

Thanks for the info.

Here are a few links about Ross McKitrick's level of expertise and impartiality (they include complete email exchanges with McKitrick):

http://timlambert.org/2004/04/mckitrick/
http://timlambert.org/2004/04/mckitrick2/
http://timlambert.org/2004/05/mckitrick3/
http://timlambert.org/2004/07/mckitrick5/

One such exchange:

Dear Mr. McKitrick,

I was referred to your web page on temperatures being affected by
economic variables. One question struck me forcibly as I read through,
and particularly after seeing the map of stations you selected. That
is, you mentioned using only about 10% of an already sparse data set,
but I could find no comments as to how it is you selected this small
minority. In looking at the map, it seems that 3 stations are from
Minnesota (or very close), with none from Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa,
Missouri, Indiana, or Michigan. Notably missing across the midwestern
US were Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Milwaukee.
Even odder is to see (as best the graphics conveyed) no stations in
Canada, particularly through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or upper
Ontario or Quebec. On the other hand, 7 stations it seems are from Sudan.

Climatology is an area with historic and serious problems of data
gaps and voids, so folks there do tend to treasure the few data points
they have. To take only 10% of an already small data set normally
includes an extensive justification discussion.

Could you explain? Or let me know when a fuller discussion is included
in your paper?

Thank you,
Robert Grumbine

-----------------

Dear Mr. Grumbine

I did not supervise the selection of stations, instead I instructed my
RA to pick at least one station from as many regions as he could. We are
limited by the availability of stations in continuous operation from
1979-2000. Starting from about 20N and 30E (east africa) there are very
few stations that meet this criterion over a large geographical spread.
Of those that do, most are in Sudan for some reason. However the site
that makes the data available
(http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/station_data/ ) does not
identify the station by country. I didn't even realize the role of Sudan
until you pointed it out. My RA had to look up in an atlas afterwards to
see where the stations were located for the purposes of identifying the
economic covariates, and I only worked with data stripped of country
identifiers.
...

We were talking about cherrypicking?

Ross McKitrick is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. [etc, etc]

I couldn't care less.

And speaking of economists, here's an article you linked, earlier in this thread, in this post. It says:

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, ...

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him.

Dr. Pachauri has PhDs in Economics and Industrial Engineering. He taught Economics at NC State as an Asst. Prof. and then as visiting faculty.

But hey, he's a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, and McKitrick is an impartial expert.

It's easy to attach labels.

I don't want to spend any more time talking about someone who doesn't know what an RMS value does.

 

[Evo]

Dr. Pachauri has PhDs in Economics and Industrial Engineering. He taught Economics at NC State as an Asst. Prof. and then as visiting faculty.

But hey, he's a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, and McKitrick is an impartial expert.

Except that McKitrick was successful at debunking the hockeystick through rigorous studying of the facts.

What has Pachauri done in this area?

 

[Gokul43201]

I saw the name Ross McKitrick in that quote and decided not to read it (not now, at least). Ross McKitrick is a nut, not that that means he can not have valid objections to stuff in the IPCC reports, but I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw the 2007 report.

Besides, what I was pointing out was only what appeared to me as a discord between the things you were quoting and what you were saying about them. I don't have any opinion I care to expound on about the overall conduct of the IPCC.

Except that McKitrick was successful at debunking the hockeystick through rigorous studying of the facts.

Even, if that's true (you'll see it's not, if you read what's in those links), it doesn't mean he's not a nut. And I said:

Ross McKitrick is a nut, not that that means he can not have valid objections to stuff in the IPCC reports...

What has Pachauri done in this area?

He's never eaten an animal? I don't know! I don't particularly care. I never said that Pachauri was an expert. I'm done with this discussion - you folks can carry on without me.

 

[drankin]

All the IPCC stuff aside, I just want to say that it snowed in Seattle over the weekend. It's been really really cold up here in the NW as well as other parts of the US.

No matter what people theorize and conclude about the planet "incinerating" in the near future, I just don't see it. I don't even see a hint of it.

I imagine if you get enough scientists together and they are convinced (sincerely) that an eminent peril is a reality, enough evidence could be scrounged up to make it look like a fact. Even if it isn't. Human nature, really.

 

[NeoDevin]

Well, since you're using anecdotal evidence for your case, I should point out that we only just got snow here in Edmonton, Alberta a couple weeks ago. Most years we have snow by mid October and it's here to stay. Last couple of years we've had little snow and warm winters.

Get your head out of the sand and actually look at the data.

Evo, I pointed out that you took the quotation out of context, and misconstrued it's meaning (intentionally or not, I don't know), and you just quickly move along to the next article, without further comment. Not only that, your next article has nothing to say about the data's validity. All it says is that not every scientist reviewed each chapter, and a few of the recommendations were rejected. From what little of the comments I have read through (linked in my earlier post), the rejections were all understandable, and mostly on format issues (where to cover which topic, etc). Can you point to a single significant complaint about the science or conclusions in the comments I linked to which was ignored out of hand, with no reason given?

 

[drankin]

Well, since you're using anecdotal evidence for your case, I should point out that we only just got snow here in Edmonton, Alberta a couple weeks ago. Most years we have snow by mid October and it's here to stay. Last couple of years we've had little snow and warm winters.

Get your head out of the sand and actually look at the data.

Get your head out of the data and look out the window!

The weather is always changing! One year it's mild the next it's harsh. Over the course of a decade it's more extreme, the next it's less extreme. You can point the data any damn direction you want. Get the whole world in a damn crisis that never existed. When the data turns into EVIDENCE the rest of the freezing public will be interested.

Sensationalism and hype. Sure the climate is changing, it's always been changing...

 

[NeoDevin]

If you have a point to make, drankin, make it. Preferably with some evidence to back it up. Otherwise you're not contributing, you're just spamming.

 

[drankin]

If you have a point to make, drankin, make it. Preferably with some evidence to back it up. Otherwise you're not contributing, you're just spamming.

I just made my point!?

I'm contributing common sense. Evidence? That's what we are all asking for.

Is the planet warming due to human contribution? That would be a direct question. Do you have evidence to support an answer?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

If you have a point to make, drankin, make it. Preferably with some evidence to back it up. Otherwise you're not contributing, you're just spamming.

Whether you accept it as a valid source or not I would not know but it appears to be the only posting on the topic that isn't a conservative blog.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/...es-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/