The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are often held up as representing “the consensus of scientists” - a pretty grandiose and presumptuous claim. And one that in recent days, weeks, and months, has been unraveling. So too, therefore, must all of the secondary assessments that are based on the IPCC findings - the most notable of which is the EPA’s Endangerment Finding - that “greenhouse gases taken in combination endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.”

Recent events have shown, rather embarrassingly, that the IPCC is not “the” consensus of scientists, but rather the opinions of a few scientists (in some cases as few as one) in various subject areas whose consensus among themselves is then kludged together by the designers of the IPCC final product who a priori know what they want the ultimate outcome to be (that greenhouse gases are leading to dangerous climate change and need to be restricted). So clearly you can see why the EPA (who has a similar objective) would decide to rely on the IPCC findings rather than have to conduct an independent assessment of the science with the same predetermined outcome. Why go through the extra effort to arrive at the same conclusion?

The EPA’s official justification for its reliance on the IPCC’s findings is that it has reviewed the IPCC’s “procedures” and found them to be exemplary. Below is a look at some things, recently revealed, that the IPCC “procedures” have produced. These recent revelations indicate that the “procedures” are not infallible and that highly publicized IPCC results are either wrong or unjustified - which has the knock-on effect of rendering the IPCC an unreliable source of information. Unreliable doesn’t mean wrong in all cases, mind you, just that it is hard to know where and when errors are present, and as such, the justification that “the IPCC says so” is no longer sufficient (or acceptable).

Himalayan Glaciers

The IPCC has actually admitted that, in at least one area, its procedures have failed:  “It has, however, recently come to our attention that a paragraph in the 938 page Working Group II contribution to the underlying assessment refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly. The Chair, Vice-Chairs, and Co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance. This episode demonstrates that the quality of the assessment depends on absolute adherence to the IPCC standards, including thorough review of “the quality and validity of each source before incorporating results from the source into an IPCC Report”. We reaffirm our strong commitment to ensuring this level of performance.

It turns out, that in this case of Himalayan glaciers (apparently a favored topic of the IPCC head Dr. Rajendra Pachauri for raising funds for a non-profit that he heads), the IPCC’s findings - that the glaciers would largely disappear by the year 2035 (and endanger the water supply for hundreds of millions of people, as well as lead to increased avalanches and mudslides) as a result of anthropogenic global warming - were apparently based on some comments made by one researcher to the press. Those statements were later included in a World Wildlife Fund report that was the source cited by the IPCC.

Dr. Pachauri vehemently denied accusations of bad procedures when they were first made, going as far as calling evidence supporting the accusations “voodoo science”. Now, with the IPCC’s admission of its errors, an apology is being sought from Dr. Pauchari becasue of his remarks. The latest scuttlebutt on this issue is that several folks in the IPCC knew of these problems for some time, but that they allowed them to perpetuate anyway and that other attempts to correct them by other IPCC scientists were lost in the mail. This doesn’t speak so highly for the “procedures.”

Attribution of Increasing Damages to Rising Temperatures

Another issue which has gotten the IPCC’s attention in recent days has been its attribution of increasing weather-related losses to rising temperatures from human activities. In this case, the IPCC decided to issue a statement in which it denied that its “procedures” went astray - despite clear and growing evidence to the contrary. Such a denial in the face of mounting evidence seems like it could do even more harm than actually admitting another goof (but then again, how many major goofs can the IPCC really admit to without having to scrap the whole thing?).

The problems contained in the IPCC assessment have been well-documented by a series of posts by Roger Pielke Jr. at his blog (here, here, here, and here). Pielke Jr. builds a pretty convincing case that the IPCC gave short shrift to the body of peer-reviewed literature that concluded that a clear linkage between the rising levels of weather-related damages and rising temperatures was not yet demonstrable. The rapidly growing effect of demographic changes (population, wealth, etc.) overwhelms the influence of the weather and confuses issues of attribution. Yet, somehow, the IPCC’s assessment established that increasing losses were linked to rising temperatures. Pielke Jr. traces this to a “single non-peer reviewed” study “cherrypicked” from a “workshop.” Dr. Pielke Jr. had this to say about the IPCC’s recent statement upholding its findings and its claims that “In writing, reviewing, and editing this section, IPCC procedures were carefully followed to produce the policy-relevant assessment that is the IPCC mandate”:

Carefully followed procedures? Let’s review: (a) The IPCC relied on an unpublished, non-peer reviewed source to produce its top line conclusions in this section, (b) when at least two reviewers complained about this section, the IPCC ignored their complaints and invented a response characterizing my views. (c) When the paper that this section relied on was eventually published it explicitly stated that it could not find a connection between rising temperatures and the costs of disasters. Pielke Jr. continued:

This press release from the IPCC would have been a fine opportunity to set the scientific and procedural record straight and admit to what are obvious and major errors in content and process. Instead, it has decided to defend the indefensible, which any observer can easily see through. Of course there is no recourse here as the IPCC is unaccountable and there is no formal way to address errors in its report or its errors and misdirection via press release. Not a good showing by the IPCC.

Basically, with regards to this issue, the IPCC “consensus of scientists” isn’t even the consensus of the leading scientists actively studying the topic, but reflects the wishful thinking of one or two chapter authors and, no doubt, the IPCC designers, as well.

Medieval Warm Period

Many more examples of the IPCC “procedures” can be found courtesy of the Climategate emails.

For instance, in Chapter 6, the paleoclimate chapter of the IPCC’s most recent Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), it is the strong sentiment of one of the chapter’s coordinating lead author, Jonathan Overpeck, that he wants to dismiss the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) - a period of relatively high temperatures that occurred about a thousand years ago. If the MWP were found to be as warm as recent conditions, then the possibility that natural processes may play a larger role in recent warming is harder to ignore - thus the need to dismiss it. The task of doing so fell on Keith Briffa, who developed the contents of a special box in IPCC AR4 Chapter 6 that was apart from the main text and which focused on the WMP. Here’s the advice issued to Briffa by Overpeck:

“I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature. The sceptics and uninformed love to cite these periods as natural analogs for current warming too - pure rubbish.

So, pls DO try hard to follow up on my advice provided in previous email. No need to go into details on any but the MWP, but good to mention the others in the same dismissive effort.”

Briffa attempted to complete his task by presenting a well-chosen collection of data that showed that while some proxy temperature reconstructions did show a warm period about 1,000 years ago, others did not. He concluded that a more complete picture indicated that the higher temperatures during the MWP were “heterogeneous” (regionalized), while the warming of the late 20th century has been “homogeneous” (i.e. much broader in spatial extent) -confirming that current conditions were likely unprecedented during the past 1,300 years. Briffa received congratulations for a job well done by Overpeck:

[A]ttached is Keith’s MWP box w/ my edits. It reads just great - much like a big hammer. Nice job.”

Thus, that conclusion driven by Overpeck’s desires, written by Briffa, perhaps reviewed by the chapter’s other authors (with varying degrees of knowledge about the subject), is now preserved as “the consensus of scientists”.

But apparently, that consensus isn’t accepted by other leading paleoclimate researchers. In a peer-reviewed article published in 2009 in the journal Climatic Change, paleo-researchers Jan Esper and David Frank carefully re-examined the same proxy temperature reconstructions used by Briffa and came to conclude that the IPCC was unwarranted in declaring that the temperatures during the MWP were more heterogeneous than now. Here is the abstract from that paper:

In their 2007 report, IPCC working group 1 refers to an increased heterogeneity of climate during medieval times about 1000 years ago. This conclusion would be of relevance, as it implies a contrast in the spatial signature and forcing of current warmth to that during the Medieval Warm Period. Our analysis of the data displayed in the IPCC report, however, shows no indication of an increased spread between long-term proxy records. We emphasize the relevance of sample replication issues, and argue that an estimation of long-term spatial homogeneity changes is premature based on the smattering of data currently available. See also the CO2 Science Medieval Warm Project Findings that show this was a global, very real warm period with support by 801 individual scientists from 476 separate research institutions in 43 different countries here.

Summary

So here we have multiple examples of the IPCC “procedures” and how “the consensus of scientists” is formed. In one case, the “consensus” was formed from comments made by a single scientist to the press; in another, the IPCC “consensus” conflicts with the consensus of scientists actually active in the topic of concern; and in the third case, the IPCC “consensus” is driven by the desires of one of the coordinating lead authors, and is now disputed by other members of the field. Others examples seem to be coming to the light daily (see here about conclusions regarding future agricultural productivity in Africa, or here about the IPCC pushing preconceived ideas).

In light of what we now know, I suggest that from now on, all IPCC products come with the following warning label: “The findings of the IPCC reports were developed in advance and furthered by a careful selection from whatever material could be found to support them. In some cases, supporting material was developed or fabricated where none could otherwise be located. As such, these findings may not necessarily reflect the true state of scientific understanding. Use at your own risk.” See post here.

See Pachauri confront his critics in this interview. Also see in this report how the Stern Report, a pillar of the global warming movement was quietly changed after first publication after the claims made could not be justified with scientific evidence. The Stern Review on the economics of climate change, which was commissioned by the Treasury, was greeted with headlines worldwide when it was published in October 2006. It contained dire predictions about the impact of climate change in different parts of the world.

There’s been an ongoing attack on the credibility of federal climate monitoring efforts that has been partly inspired by Anthony Watts. In 2007, Mr. Watts, a former TV weather forecaster, began recruiting legions of volunteers across the United States to inspect the thousands of weather stations - some in people’s back yards or in parking lots - that have for generations produced the raw data feeding into federal and independent efforts to track climate trends. The result was SurfaceStations.org. Its rogues gallery of photos of particularly suspect weather stations has been credited by many meteorologists and climatologists as a wake-up call for the need for better monitoring (an issue that affects many other realms, from monitoring acid rain to tracking flood risks):

The revelations fueled charges that all that asphalt and the like was inflating temperature estimates and thus conclusions that the nation’s climate was warming over all. One result was Mr. Watts’ far more popular blog, Watts Up With That, which has arguably become the dominant pipeline for any news or commentary challenging conclusions that greenhouse gases could dangerously disrupt climate.

Now, though, a new study by Matthew Menne and other scientists at the National Climatic Data Center, the federal office charged with tracking climate trends, directly challenges the underpinnings of arguments that Bad Weather Stations = Faulty Climate Conclusions. In essence, the paper, On the Reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record (pdf), concludes that the instrument issues, as long acknowledged, are real, but the poor stations tend to have a slight cool bias, not a warm one.

Although the pending paper and antecedents have been debated before, the firmness of the new findings came to my attention via Jeff Masters’ excellent Wunderblog. There’s more useful analysis of the new paper on the Deltoid blog and Skeptical Science.

The findings are robust enough that a frequent critic of climate overstatement, Chip Knappenberger, has provisionally endorsed the findings and thrown cold water on the idea that bad weather stations undercut the picture of a warming continent.

I’ve seen a lot of Anthony Watts’ presentations and pictures of poorly sited thermometers, but never an analysis to conclusively show that there is a warm bias in the adjusted U.S. temperature record as a result. Yes, many sites are poorly situated and the temperature they read is impacted by things other than the larger-scale weather - but also, such things are being corrected for (or at least an attempt is being made to correct for them) by the various producers of a U.S. temperature history (i.e. Menne et al. at NCDC). So, while the raw data are undoubtedly a mixture of climate and non-climatic influences, the adjusted data presumably have more of a climate signal. The recent paper by Menne et al., seems to bear this out. Anthony Watts and colleagues, no doubt have an analysis of their own in the works. It’ll be interesting to see what their results show. The results from Menne et al. suggest that while a picture may be worth a thousand words, it is the data which actually tells the story. I await a formal analysis from Watts et al. and the story that it may tell.

I consulted Mr. Watts and with David Easterling at the National Climatic Data Center, who supervises the researchers who wrote the new paper, to get added perspective on the new paper. Here’s what they had to say:

Dr. Easterling of the climate center said, among other things, that Mr. Watts had been invited to participate in writing the paper, given that it drew on his weather-station data. “We invited him a number of times to participate in the work,” he said. “He declined.” Dr. Easterling said that the new analysis shows that the adjustments that are made to account for shifting patterns of climate-data collection (the same adjustments are among the targets of those challenging global warming evidence) are robust.

“I don’t want to disparage Watts,” Dr. Easterling added. “He did do us a service by highlighting the fact there are a lot of issues with some of these stations. We are trying to address these issues.” He said that, going forward, the evolving Climate Reference Network will largely eliminate the need for such adjustments in any case.

Mr. Watts sent a long illustrated e-mail making some points, which I set up as a Google Document here.

In addition, he wrote the following long note, in which he contradicts Dr. Easterling’s description of the exchanges between the federal center and Mr. Watts over participation in the paper. In it, he says a rebuttal is in the works. Stay tuned.

From Anthony Watts:

The appearance of the Menne et al paper was a bit of a surprise, since I had been offered collaboration by NCDC’s director in the fall. In typed letter on 9/22/09 Tom Karl wrote:

“We at NOAA/NCDC seek a way forward to cooperate with you, and are interested in joint scientific inquiry. When more or better information is available, we will reanalyze and compare and contrast the results.”

“If working together cooperatively is of interest to you, please let us know.”

I discussed it with Dr. Pielke and the rest of the team, which took some time since not all were available due to travel and other obligations. It was decided to take up NCDC on a collaboration offer.

On November 10, 2009, I sent a reply letter via Federal Express to Mr. Karl, advising him of this. In that letter I also reiterated my concerns about use of the preliminary data (43% surveyed), and spelled out very specific reasons why.

We all waited, but there was no reply from NCDC to our reply to offer of collaboration by Mr. Karl from his last letter.

Then we discovered that Menne et al had submitted a paper to JGR Atmospheres using my preliminary data and it was in press. This was a shock to me since I was told it was normal procedure for the person who gathered the primary data the paper was based on to have some input in the review process. Pielke concurs as you know.

NCDC uses data from one of the largest volunteer organization in the world, the NOAA Cooperative Observer Network. Yet NCDC director Karl, by not bothering to reply to our letter about an offer he initiated, and by not giving me any review process opportunity, extends professional discourtesy to my own volunteers and my team’s work.

==============

I’ll point out that NCDC threw up a roadblock early on in the project, one that required a legal argument to overcome.

To interest volunteers, we had to publish imagery of what had been found so far, as a way to garner interest. With no funding, there was no other option, this is why social networking was employed. Within two weeks of that announcement on Pielke’s blog of the project starting, on or about 6/24/07 NCDC removed information which had been previously publicly available on their station metadatabase.

Dr. Pielke outlines the issue here.

Given the timing, (five days later after Mr. Karl’s e-mail below), it is now seen as an attempt to thwart the SurfaceStations project. Mr. Karl comments to colleagues in an e-mail about the project:

From: “Thomas.R.Karl”
To: Phil Jones

Subject: Re: FW: retraction request
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:21:57 -0400
Cc: Wei-Chyung Wang
Thanks Phil,
We R now responding to a former TV weather forecaster who has got press, He has a Web site of 40 of the USHCN stations showing less than ideal exposure. He claims he can show urban biases and exposure biases. We are writing a response for our Public Affairs. Not sure how it will play out.
Regards, Tom

(From http://www.eastangliaemails.com)

Clearly Mr. Karl viewed the SurfaceStations project as a threat, as this e-mail coincides with the timing of portions of the public metadata disappearing. A week later, after launching some legal arguments against NCDC, they relented and restored access, which I documented here.

=====================

As for the Menne paper itself, I’m rather disturbed by their use of preliminary data at 43 percent, especially since I warned them that the data set they had lifted from my Web site (placed for volunteers to track what had been surveyed, never intended for analysis) had not been quality controlled at the time. Plus there’s really not enough good stations with enough spatial distribution at that sample size. They used it anyway, and amazingly, conducted their own secondary survey of those stations, comparing it to my non-quality-controlled data, implying that my data wasn’t up to par. Well of course it wasn’t! I told them about it and why it wasn’t. We had to resurvey and rerate a number of stations from early in the project. This came about only because it took many volunteers some time to learn how to properly ID them. Even some small towns have 2-3 COOP stations nearby, and only one of them is USHCN. There’s no flag in the NCDC database that says “USHCN”, in fact many volunteers were not even aware of their own station status. Nobody ever bothered to tell them. You’d think if their stations were part of a special subset, somebody at NOAA/NCDC would notify the COOP volunteer so they would have a higher diligence level?

If doing a stations survey was important enough for NCDC to do to compare to my data now for their paper, why didn’t they just do it in the first place?

We currently have 87 percent of the network surveyed (1067 stations out of 1221), and it is quality controlled and checked. I feel that we have enough of the better and urban stations to solve the “low-hanging fruit” problem of the earlier portion of the project. Data at 87 percent looks a lot different than data at 43 percent.

The paper I’m writing with Dr. Pielke and others will make use of this better data, and we also use a different procedure for analysis than what NCDC used.

=====================

Menne mentioned a “counterintuitive” cooling trend in some portions of the data. Interestingly enough, former California State climatologist James Goodridge did an independent analysis of COOP stations in California that had gone through modernization, switching from Stevenson Screens with mercury LIG thermometers to MMTS electronic thermometers. He writes:

Hi Anthony,
I found 58 temperature station in California with data for 1949 to 2008 and where the thermometers had been changed to MMTS and the earlier parts were liquid in glass. The average for the earlier part was 59.17F and the MMTS fraction averaged 60.07F.
Jim

A 0.9F (0.5C) warmer offset due to modernization is significant, yet NCDC insists that the MMTS units are tested at about 0.05 cooler. I believe they add this adjustment into the final data. Our experience shows the exact opposite should be done and with a greater magnitude. I can provide Jim’s contact info if interested.

When our paper is completed (and hopefully accepted in a journal), we’ll let science do the comparison on data and methods, and we’ll see how it works out. Could I be wrong? Quite possibly. But everything I’ve seen so far tells me I’m on the right track.

Anthony

The ball is clearly in Mr. Watts’s court. The peer-reviewed literature awaits.

From the “A goat ate my homework” excuse book:

More major embarrassment for New Zealand’s ‘leading’ climate research unit NIWA tonight, with admissions that it “does not hold copies” of the original reports documenting adjustments to New Zealand’s weather stations.

The drama hit the headlines worldwide in late November when serious questions were raised about the “adjustments” NIWA had made to weather records. The adjusted data shows a strong warming trend over the past century, whereas unadjusted records had nowhere near as much warming.

NIWA promised to make its data and corrections fully available, but responding to an Official Information Act request their legal counsel has now admitted it cannot provide copies of the original adjustment records.

Now, a news release from the Climate Science Coalition is blowing the NIWA climate scientists out of the water.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has been urged by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC) to abandon all of its in-house adjustments to temperature records. This follows an admission by NIWA that it no longer holds the records that would support its in-house manipulation of official temperature readings.

In December, NZCSC issued a formal request for the schedule of adjustments under the Official Information Act 1982, specifically seeking copies of “the original worksheets and/or computer records used for the calculations”. On 29 January, NIWA responded that they no longer held any internal records, and merely referred to the scientific literature.

“The only inference that can be drawn from this is that NIWA has casually altered its temperature series from time to time, without ever taking the trouble to maintain a continuous record. The result is that the official temperature record has been adjusted on unknown dates for unknown reasons, so that its probative value is little above that of guesswork. In such a case, the only appropriate action would be reversion to the raw data record, perhaps accompanied by a statement of any known issues,” said Terry Dunleavy, secretary of NZCSC.

“NIWA’s website carries the raw data collected from representative temperature stations, which disclose no measurable change in average temperature over a period of 150 years. But elsewhere on the same website, NIWA displays a graph of the same 150-year period showing a sharp warming trend. The difference between these two official records is a series of undisclosed NIWA-created ‘adjustments’.

“Late last year our coalition published a paper entitled ‘Are We Feeling Warmer Yet?’ and asked NIWA to disclose the schedule detailing the dates and reasons for the adjustments. The expressed purpose of NZCSC was to replicate the calculations, in the best traditions of peer-reviewed science.

“When NIWA did not respond, Hon Rodney Hide asked Oral and Written Questions in Parliament, and attended a meeting with NIWA scientists. All to no avail, and the schedule of adjustments remained a secret. We now know why NIWA was being so evasive - the requested schedule did not exist.

“Well qualified climate scientist members of our coalition believe that NIWA has forfeited confidence in the credibility of its temperature recording procedures, and that it cannot be trusted to try to cover up its own ineptitude by in-house adjustments. What is needed is open access in the public domain to all of the known reasons for post-reading adjustments to enable independent climate analysts to make their own comparative assessments of temperature variations throughout New Zealand since the middle of the 19th century,” said Mr Dunleavy.

I kid you not, you could write a book about these shenanigans.

Icecap Note: See the early NZ temperature issue in the SPPI report Surface Temperature Records: Policy-Driven Deception?  here. See this letter exchange between the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition and the NIWA here, here and here. For those that say such challenges are uncalled for, if NIWA and the other national and global data center were more open with their data (raw and adjusted) and documented the adjustments made for groups like the NZCSC or Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts or the many others looking at the data to review and replicate, issues would have been uncovered years ago and confidence in the data sets would be much higher. We would have a more solid basis for the policy decisions that the world’s governments feel compelled to make based on dodgy data sets.

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

Climategate Necessary to Cover Incorrect Climate Basics of IPCC
By Dr. Timothy Ball, Canada Free Press

Canada and the US announced new targets for carbon reduction that are completely unnecessary. It is madness and ultimately destructive to western society but what the perpetrators want. Despite exposure of the complete corruption of the science they continue to assume CO2 is a problem. UN Climate chief Yves De Boer said, “what’s happened, it’s unfortunate, it’s bad, it’s wrong, but I don’t think it has damaged the basic science.”

British Climate Secretary Ed Miliband said, “It’s right that there’s rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it’s somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that’s there,” It’s not one mistake but a complete fabrication of every aspect of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. In addition, science is only correct when accurate predictions are made and the IPCC have been wrong in every single one. Miliband’s thinking helps explain why the UK is on the brink of economic disaster and needs a diversion. It is said, despite the disclosures, because the objective of eliminating fossil fuels and destroying industrial economies is still pursued. What they don’t understand or choose to ignore is that the basic science was wrong from the start.

Climategate Corruption: Custom Made Science

Corruption disclosed was necessary because the science and the evidence didn’t fit what they wanted. They made the science fit the political goals and stopped at nothing to achieve the end. They succeeded, because beyond manipulations that duped politicians, media and most of the public, they knew many scientists who participated did not understand climate science. Blinded by career ambitions and large funding they ignored what was going on or lacked the expertise to know. Now some scientists incorrectly claim the basic evidence is still valid.

Politicians and political leaders worldwide accepted and adopted these reports as their political Bible. Most of them still don’t understand what went on and therefore failed to react properly. Scientists in political positions support them in their chosen ignorance manifest in inappropriate reactions.

Save My Job

John Beddington, science advisor to the UK government and professor of applied population biology demonstrates his lack of understanding of climate science. He says, “It’s unchallengeable that CO2 traps heat and warms the Earth and that burning fossil fuels shoves billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. But where you can get challenges is on the speed of change.” There are serious questions about the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. For example, the IPCC claimed CO2 stays in the atmosphere for up to 100 years but we know that this residency time is wrong.  It is between five and six years. The duration was an essential part of the political game to increase pressure for action: even if we stopped CO2 production right now the impact would be felt for decades. There’s also the troubling fact that in every record of any duration for any time in the Earth’s history temperature change precedes CO2 change. We have little idea of the greenhouse effect when we have no understanding of the role of water vapor. His argument about the speed of change is not an issue either. They made it one by claiming current change is faster than in the past. It isn’t.

Beddington’s comments show he doesn’t understand the scientific method.  He said, “I don’t think it’s healthy to dismiss proper skepticism.” How does he distinguish between skepticisms? What is “proper”? All scientists are skeptics and all of their questions and inputs are healthy. The CRU gang and government agencies actively excluded skeptics and skepticism. The use of the term is dismissive and in a backhanded way acknowledges their behavior.

Complaints about the control, typified by CRU Director Phil Jones’s statement he would keep certain papers out even if it meant changing the peer-reviewed process, led to an external review process. It was a sham, a public relations exercise allowing them to say they were inclusive of skeptics, when they changed virtually nothing. I could never discover who chose the reviewers. Virtually none of the corrections amendments and additions proposed by the external reviewers were included. One review editor claimed he had eliminated files when pushed for an accounting.

Powerful Players Still Active

Recently a paper published in Science announces, “climate scientists have overlooked a major cause of global warming and cooling, a new study reveals today.” No they haven’t, only the scientists involved in the IPCC have overlooked it. We then have a quote from Dr. Susan Solomon of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapor near the surface but this is different it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect.”

No, the current climate models do not do a remarkable job. In fact the entire issue of water vapor as a greenhouse gas is essentially ignored and badly handled. Dr. Solomon was a co-chair of the Working Group 1, the Scientific Group of the IPCC.  This means responsibility for the content of their report. Solomon was in direct communication with the people at CRU. Dr. Solomon failed to identify the serious problems now being disclosed. How does the certainty of the Reports and especially the Summary for Policymakers fit with this statement by Solomon? “We call this the 10/10/10 paper, 10 miles above your head, there is 10% less water vapor than there was 10 years ago. Why did the water vapor decrease? We really don’t know, we don’t have enough information yet.”

Despite this Solomon must play down the limitations the findings imply saying, “this isn’t an indication that predictions on global warming are overstated”. Yes it is, and the cooling trend since 2002 while CO2 levels increased is another. “This doesn’t mean there isn’t global warming.” “There’s no significant debate that it is warmer now than it was 100 years ago, due to anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gases.” The only place were that statement is true is in the computer models of the IPCC and we know they are useless.  As CRU and IPCC member Trenberth said on October 12 2009, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Solomon apparently found an answer by claiming the upper level water vapor, “very likely made substantial contributions to the flattening of the global warming trend since about 2000.” And that is probably what the research is all about.

Dr. Solomon was also involved in the claim that CFCs were destroying the ozone when there was never any evidence. In fact, UV interacting with oxygen creates ozone but they incorrectly assumed UV was constant. We now know it varies by up to 200%.

Destructive Policies Are a Self-Perpetuating Behemoth

The hypothesis that CO2 was causing warming was accepted as fact before scientific testing began. They blocked most testing and challenges, but it never was the cause. As the evidence accumulated this was the case Climategate became necessary to corrupt and falsify. Now dismissal of Climategate ignores how the fundamental science is wrong. Climategate became necessary to achieve the political objective. Politicians and scientists who bought into the objectives don’t want to believe Climategate or abandon the benefits of appearing green, advancing careers, making money, or imposing taxes and political control on everybody to destroy western economies and democracy.  Read more here.

See Surface temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception? here.

A senior Canadian climate scientist says the United Nations’ panel on global warming has become tainted by political advocacy, that its chairman should resign, and that its approach to science should be overhauled.

Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria, says the leadership of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has allowed it to advocate for action on global warming, rather than serve simply as a neutral science advisory body.

“There’s been some dangerous crossing of that line,” said Weaver on Tuesday, echoing the published sentiments of other top climate scientists in the U.S. and Europe this week.

“Some might argue we need a change in some of the upper leadership of the IPCC, who are perceived as becoming advocates,” he told Canwest News Service. “I think that is a very legitimate question.”

Weaver also says the IPCC has become too large and unwieldy. He says its periodic reports, such as the 3,000 page, 2007 report that won the Nobel Prize, are eating up valuable academic resources and driving scientists to produce work on tight, artificial deadlines, at the expense of other, longer-term inquiries that are equally important to understanding climate change.

“The problem we have is that the IPCC process has taken on a life of its own,” says Weaver, a climate-modelling physicist who co-authored chapters in the past three IPCC reports. “I think the IPCC needs a fundamental shift.”

Weaver’s comments follow a series of recent revelations about the scientific credibility of the IPCC’s work. The panel admitted last week that its 2007 report wrongly asserted that Himalayan glaciers likely would melt by 2035. That alarming claim created concern across southern and eastern Asia, whose major rivers are fed by the glaciers.

While the content of IPCC reports is supposed to be rigorously checked by a scientific, peer-review system, those rules weren’t followed in this case. The glacier-melting claim was kept in the report even though some glacier experts considered it preposterous.
The claim originated with an Indian glaciologist, Syed Hasnain, who works for a research company in India headed by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC’s chairman.

British newspaper reports say Pachauri’s company used the false glacier claim to win multi-million-dollar research grants from the U.S. and Europe. The scientist responsible for the Asia chapter in the IPCC report also told a British newspaper that he included Hasnain’s glacier claim for political purposes. “We thought,” said IPCC author Murari Lal, according to The Mail on Sunday, “that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”

The damage to the IPCC’s credibility caused by the “glaciergate” affair, and by last December’s “climategate” scandal, have provided months of fodder for critics who have long been skeptical of the IPCC’s warnings.

Weaver says Pachauri, the panel’s chairman, should resign, not only for his recent failings but because he was a poor choice to lead the IPCC to begin with.

Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph, Ont., and a well-known IPCC critic, says the panel’s scientific failings, and its willingness to cross the line into advocacy, will eventually percolate into the policy arena. “The halo has come off the IPCC,” he says. “At the time of the 2007 report, there were very few politicians willing to question statements from the IPCC. Now, as this plays out, people will start to be embarrassed to cite the IPCC.”

Weaver says the vast majority of the science in the IPCC reports is valid, and that the glacier revelations - “one small thing,” in a 3,000 word document, as he calls it - shouldn’t be used to discredit other parts of the report.

“There is not a global conspiracy to drum up false evidence of global warming,” he says. But Weaver admits the IPCC needs to change, for the sake of climate science, and for its own credibility. He also says the IPCC must stop producing huge, all-encompassing reports on every aspect of climate science and instead re-organize itself into a series of small, highly-focused groups, each tasked with examining a single specific scientific question and none required to publish their conclusions on quick deadlines. And he says IPCC officials must cease being “over enthusiastic” in pushing for policy changes. “Nobody should be using particular pieces of information to advance an agenda,” says Weaver. “The IPCC cannot be an advocate, because it’s not tasked to do that.”

On this point, Weaver and McKitrick agree. “The IPCC is not going to be able to recover from this unless there’s an honest attempt to reform their procedures,” says McKitrick. “They need to start doing what they’ve always claimed to do - to be balanced, and open, and scientifically rigorous.”

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Another Scientist Speaks out on Manufactured Science
By Marc Morano, Climate Depot featuring Dr. John Christy

Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007. - (For more on UN scientists turning on the UN years ago, see Climate Depot’s full report here.)

Christy has since proposed major reforms and changes to the way the UN IPCC report is produced. Christy has rejected the UN approach that produces “a document designed for uniformity and consensus.” Christy presented his views at a UN meeting in 2009. The IPCC needs “an alternative view section written by well-credentialed climate scientists is needed,” Christy said. “If not, why not? What is there to fear? In a scientific area as uncertain as climate, the opinions of all are required,” he added.

‘The reception to my comments was especially cold’

[The following is excerpted from Andrew Revkin’s January 26, 2009 New York Times blog Dot Earth. For full article go here.]

Excerpt: Last March, more than 100 past [UN IPCC] lead authors of report chapters met in Hawaii to chart next steps for the panel’s inquiries. One presenter there was John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, who has focused on using satellites to chart global temperatures. He was a lead author of a section of the third climate report, in 2001, but is best known these days as a critic of the more heated warnings that climate is already unraveling under the buildup of heat-trapping gases.

At the Hawaii meeting, he gave a presentation proposing that future reports contain a section providing the views of credentialed scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature whose views on particular points differ from the consensus. He provided both his poster and summary of his three-minute talk. In an e-mail message to me, he described the reaction this way (L.A. is short for lead author; AR5 is shorthand for the next report, coming in 2013-14.):

Christy: “The reception to my comments was especially cold ... not one supporter, though a couple of scientists did say I had a “lot of guts” to stand up and say what I said before 140 L.A.s. I was (and still am) calling for the AR5 to be a more open scientific assessment in which those of us who are well-credentialed and have evidence for low climate sensitivity (observational and theoretical) be given room to explain this. We should have the same standards of review authority too. When a subject is excruciatingly complicated, like climate, we see that opinion, overstatement, and appeal-to-authority tend to reign as those of a like-mind essentially take control in their self-constructed echo-chamber. The world needs to see all sides of the evidence. We in the climate business need to understand humility, not pride, when looking at a million degrees-of-freedom problem. It’s just fine to say, ‘We don’t know,’ when that is the truth of the matter.”

I (Revkin) also asked Christy, “Do you see a way forward for this enterprise (presuming you see these recent issues as serious problems but not a fatal indictment)?”

Christy said: “I think people would read AR5 if it were a true scientific assessment, complete with controversies [described] by the experts themselves. Policymakers will find it uncomfortable, because the simple fact remains that our ignorance of the climate system is enormous. Otherwise, it will be a repeat of what we are now seeing (and what many folks like me knew years ago), that the process has morphed into an agenda-approving exercise.”

Can the IPCC Allow a Section of Alternative Views Authored by Equally Credentialed Climate Scientists? - March 2009 - Presented to UN IPCC Scientists

By Dr. John R. Christy - University of Alabama in Huntsville

I want you all to understand this: No one is holding a gun to my head and no one is paying me money either above or under the table to arrive at the conclusions I (and others) have come to.

I propose that the IPCC allow for well credentialed climate scientists to craft a chapter on an alternative view presenting evidence for low climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases than has been the IPCC’s recent message - all based on published information. In other words, I am proposing that the AR5 be a true Scientific Assessment, not a document designed for uniformity and consensus. In a scientific area as uncertain as climate, the opinions of all are required. Three quick examples are on the poster.

First, the iconic mean surface temperature is a poor proxy for detecting greenhouse gas influences for reasons shown. And, this metric is not well-observed in any case.

Secondly, many of the so-called metrics of human-induced climate change are not changing at rates policymakers have assumed and the media promotes with the indulgence of the IPCC Leadership. And, other variables showing change are still within the magnitudes of long-term natural variations.

Thirdly, confidence that the climate system is highly sensitive to greenhouse gases can been shown to be overstated due to assumptions about how the sensitivity is calculated. Latest measurements clearly suggest a strong negative feedback in the short wave – in other words, in warming episodes, clouds respond to cool the climate. Another problem with popular sensitivity estimates is the dependence on essentially one century of an oblique greenhouse-proxy (mean surface temperature) combined with the notion that all of the natural, multi-decadal variability can be defined so accurately that the left-over warming is assumed to be human-induced. The investigation rather should examine all levels of natural variability that have been observed and seek to defensibly eliminate those as possible causes.

An alternative view is necessary, one that is not censured for the so-called purpose of consensus. This will present to our policymakers an honest picture of scientific discourse and process. I submit this proposal because our level of ignorance of the climate system is still enormous and our policymakers need to know that. We have much work to do. See Marc’s post and much more here.

[Also see: Shock Revelation: UN scientist admits fake data was used in IPCC report ‘purely to put political pressure on world leaders’]

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been heavily criticized for erroneous projections. In the following editorial, climate researchers Richard Tol, Roger Pielke and Hans von Storch call for a reform of the IPCC and the resignation of its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri.

We have seen a crisis of confidence gathering momentum around climate science in recent weeks. Following the unauthorized release of e-mails from the University of East Anglia, showing climate scientists not at their best, now comes a flurry of attention to errors in official reports and accusations of conflicts of interest.

The crisis centers on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the United Nations Environment Programme and World Meteorological Organization, and its chair, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri. Without significant institutional reform, the IPCC, and climate science as a whole, risks more than just bad press. It risks losing its credibility and trust.

The IPCC was set up to advise policymakers on issues of climate science and policy, with a stated goal to be “policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive”. The executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change explains that “the credibility of climate change policy can only be based on credible science.” The IPCC seeks to meet its rigorous standards of academic integrity through a thorough review process “to ensure an objective and complete assessment of current information.”

The IPCC Has Failed

The ideals of the IPCC are both worthwhile and hard to live up to. Academics have all of the foibles that are seen in every other profession. Politicians and advocates seek to politicize scientific advice, often preferring to hide behind “the science” rather than explain the normative choices behind tough decisions. Such factors make it important for scientific advisory institutions to have rigorous and transparent policies to ensure trust and the credibility of their work. The IPCC has failed in this respect.

The IPCC’s shortfalls are illustrated with the behavior of Pachauri, its chair since 2002. In recent months, Pachauri has participated in overt political advocacy, such as by calling on people to eat less meat and on the United States government to pass a certain climate policy. He has endorsed 350 parts per million as the right target for the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, despite the IPCC offering no recommendation on such a target. Being a scientific advisor sometimes means recusing yourself from engaging in the political processes that you are advising. We expect no less from intelligence agencies advising the military and medical professionals advising governments on health and safety.

When the e-mails were stolen or leaked from the University of East Anglia, they revealed, among other things, the intent of IPCC authors to violate IPCC procedures. Pachauri first said that all was fine, then announced an investigation, and then cancelled it.

The Glacier Error is not Unique

When the latest IPCC report said glaciers could disappear from the Himalayas by 2035, with major ramifications for the water supply in South Asia, it generated headlines around the world. That prediction proved to be grossly in error. It revealed a serious breach of the organization’s own standards of review. When the error was initially publicized, Pachauri declared that the IPCC does not make mistakes and viciously attacked people who disagreed, before the sheer weight of evidence made him admit the error.

Another IPCC scientist claims to have been aware of the error in 2006, but was unable to have it corrected. The glacier error is not unique. That such a large body of work contains some errors is unavoidable. An appropriate mechanism to deal with false or contested knowledge claims is needed, but has not been implemented.

The whole situation became more bizarre when it emerged from the investigations of Richard North that Pachauri’s Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) has built a large research effort on Himalayan glaciers on the back of the error in the IPCC report. TERI is also the beneficiary of considerable sums from companies with a financial interest in climate policy, resulting from payments for Pachauri’s advice or authority. Astoundingly, it appears that Pachauri has not broken any rules for the simple reason that there is no code of conduct governing conflicts of interest for IPCC participants and leaders.

The Credibility of Climate Science is at Stake

The IPCC has started the preparations for the next major report, to be released in 2014. It may be advisable to pause for wholesale institutional reform. The IPCC needs guidelines for the behavior of its officials, and those guidelines must be enforced. With a policy on conflict of interest similar to those in place in leading scientific advisory institutions, it seems obvious that the IPCC would need a new chairperson. The IPCC needs to adhere to its own standards for appointing experts and reviewing material that it reports. It needs to make its procedures for appointments more transparent. The IPCC peer-review should be made more robust, with quality assurance overriding deadlines. A formal mechanism should be put in place to correct errors after publication. Such reform will be a large and difficult task. But the credibility of climate science depends upon it.

It will take many electoral cycles and all major countries to address the problems associated with climate change. Partisan advice will be unpicked, sloppy research will be exposed. New observations and theory will change aspects of the current understanding. Sustaining a climate policy that is effective, acceptable and durable can only be based on sound and impartial advice from institutions that do their science sustainably over many decades. The IPCC was supposed to provide that advice, but its standards have slipped, its procedures have turned out to be insufficient and its credibility has been questioned.

Climate policy matters, and so too does the IPCC. Its importance means that reform is needed before the reputation of all of climate science is irreparably damaged. See more here.

Richard Tol is a research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Roger Pielke Jr. is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Hans von Storch is director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the GKSS Research Center in Geesthacht and and a climate researcher at the Institute of Meteorology at the University of Hamburg.