Author worked on IPCC reports a decade prior to earning her PhD
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) press release issued last week talks about transparency and openness. But don’t be fooled. Preparation of the 5th assessment report – known internally as AR5 – isn’t even fully underway, yet the organization is up to its old tricks.
Take a look at the Notes to Editors on the second page of the press release. This is supposed to be the non-controversial stuff, the basic nuts and bolts. Instead, it’s spin, spin, spin. Here’s a sentence for you:
Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the IPCC reports.
Back in June, the IPCC released the list of people who’ve been selected to work on AR5. It said that list contained 831 names – not thousands. But the situation is really worse than that, since only those individuals assigned to Working Group 1 deal with hard science. (Working Group 2 speculates on how climate change might effect our world. Working Group 3 discusses what might be done in response.)
I’m having another “Alice down the rabbit hole” moment, in response to the Scientific American article, the explication of the article by its author Michael Lemonick, Scientific American’s survey on whether I am a dupe or a peacemaker, and the numerous discussions in blogosphere. My first such moment was in 2005 in response to the media attention associated with the hurricane wars, which was described in a Q&A with Keith Kloor at collide-a-scape. While I really want to make this blog about the science and not about personalities (and especially not about me), this article deserves a response.
The title of the article itself is rather astonishing. The Wikipedia defines heresy as: “Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma.” The definition of dogma is “Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from.” Use of the word “heretic” by Lemonick implies general acceptance by the “insiders” of the IPCC as dogma. If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic. The story should not be about me, but about how and why the IPCC became dogma.
Judith Curry’s epiphany is really reverberating now. That post will not go down well in some quarters internationally and lookout for damage control from Brian Walker and Gareth Renowden here in NZ.
Judith is now telling it like it is, pulling no punches, and catching the flack. Welcome to the world outside the “consensus”.
The tend toward power in the hands of economists is now the big battlefront, especially the climate-economic coupled models that will be in vogue for AR5.
If you needed any more evidence that the entire theory of manmade global warming was a scheme to redistribute wealth you got it Sunday when a leading member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told a German news outlet, “[W]e redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
Such was originally published by Germany’s NZZ Online Sunday, and reprinted in English by the Global Warming Policy Foundation moments ago:
UNITED NATIONS — United Nations leaders will demand “concrete results” from the looming Cancun climate summit as global warming is accelerating, a top UN organizer of the event said Monday.
Robert Orr, UN under secretary general for planning, said the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on global warming will be much worse than the last one.
Representatives from 194 countries are to meet in the Mexican resort city of Cancun from November 29 to December 10 for a new attempt to strike a deal to curb greenhouse gases after 2012.
Orr told reporters that negotiators heading for the Cancun conference “need to remind themselves, the longer we delay, the more we will pay both in terms of lives and in terms of money.”
He said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would make it clear to world leaders in Cancun “that we should not take any comfort in the climate deniers’ siren call.”
“The evidence shows us quite the opposite– that we can’t rest easy at all” as scientists agree that climate change “is happening in an accelerated way.”
“As preparations are underway for the next IPCC report, just about everything that you will see in the next report will be more dramatic than the last report, because that is where all the data is pointing.”
The fourth IPCC assessment released in 2007 said that global warming is “unequivocal” and mainly caused by human activity.
Its next report, involving contributions from thousands of scientists around the world, is due in 2014.
With many countries fearful of a repeat of last year’s bitter Copenhagen summit failure, Orr said that progress is possible in Cancun.
If governments “understand the peril that their populations are in, it is much easier to get over the political hurdles to do what you have to do,” he said.
The United Nations wants breakthroughs on verifying deforestation and financing to combat the lost of tropical forests.
Efforts to speed up technology transfers to combat global warming and financing projects to slow the phenomenon could also be advanced, Orr said.
Thirty billion dollars of emergency funding over three years was agreed at Copenhagen and a UN panel on how to raise 100 billion dollars a year from 2020 has already delivered its report.
The panel recommended taxes on carbon emissions and international transport, including air tickets.
Orr said no one should expect “the final deal” in Cancun.
But he said: “The time has come for some decisions on issues and therefore we do want some concrete results.”
“The evidence shows us quite the opposite– that we can’t rest easy at all” as scientists agree that climate change “is happening in an accelerated way.”
Yes scientists agree – but the climate most certainly does not.
CANCUN: United Nations scientists are to consider putting mirrors in space and sprinkling iron filings in the sea to cut global warming, the climate change summit in Cancun has heard.
The announcement is a signal that the world’s leading climate scientists are losing faith in the prospects of a global deal to stop temperature rise by limiting emissions.
Speaking at the summit, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the panel’s next report on global warming would not only look at the threat of rising temperatures but also consider ”geo-engineering” options that could reverse warming.
There are already low expectations for the summit, being held at this beach resort on Mexico’s east coast.
Representatives from more than 190 countries are meeting at the Moon Palace Hotel to try to find a way to limit emissions so that temperature rises stay below 2 degrees.
The IPCC is responsible for setting out the scientific basis for the talks.
Addressing the opening conference, Dr Pachauri said if humanity continued to produce greenhouse gases at the current rate the world could experience catastrophic warming within 50 years.
He said the threat was so great that the fifth assessment report (AR5), due to be presented to the United Nations in 2014, would look at ”geo-engineering options”.
Later this year IPCC ”expert groups” will meet in Peru to discuss geo-engineering. Options include putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or covering Greenland in a massive ”blanket” so it does not melt.
Sprinkling iron filings in the ocean ”fertilises” algae, which absorbs CO2 and ”seeding clouds” means that sunlight is blocked. Other options include artificial ”trees” that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, and human-made volcanoes that spray sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun’s rays back into space.
Critics have argued that the process could make climate change worse through unintended consequences.
Continues……..
——————————————————————————————————————–
Almost every mitigation measure these idiots impose results in unintended consequences;-
REDD rorts in Indonesia
HFC reduction gaming in China
Carbon credit VAT tax fraud in Europe
Geo-engineering just has to be a fools invention by the dumbest “experts” in the universe, guaranteed to join the list of unintended consequences.
UN secretary general will redirect efforts to making more immediate gains in clean energy and sustainable development
In a strategic shift, Ban will redirect his efforts from trying to encourage movement in the international climate change negotiations to a broader agenda of promoting clean energy and sustainable development, senior UN officials said.
Donna Laframboise has an interesting post on the political nature of the IPCC
The Sneaky, Not-So-Secret Purpose of the IPCC
…
But if one persists all the way through to the fifth and final paragraph on that page, matters get a bit more complicated:
By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content.
This sentence makes it clear that, despite the lofty rhetoric about knowledge and science, the IPCC actually serves a political purpose. It is a means to an end. It is the process by which the nearly 200 governments who belong to the United Nations agree on a single, official climate science perspective.
Note that the paper has NOT been retracted.
————————————————————————————————————————–
As an aside, I see Spencer has taken to adding a little interest to the UAH Global Temperature Update for August, 2011, saying:-
“Note that this month I have taken the liberty of adding a 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel). This is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.”
Comment On The Resignation of Wolfgang Wagner As Editor-In-Chief Of The Journal “Remote Sensing” In Response To The Publication Of Spencer And Braswell (2011)
“I have read the Spencer and Braswell paper in detail, and while I agree that some of the media exposure has been exaggerated and misplaced, the science in their paper appears robust. I certainly can be wrong, but I do not see a fatal flaw in what they did (i.e. an error such that the paper should have been rejected).
If their analysis is robust (even if minor technical errors exist), it is going to make Wolfgang Wagner look very biased. The ultimate arbitrator of the Spencer and Braswell analysis and conclusions will be in the peer-reviewed literature not on weblogs, or whether or not the Chief Editor of a journal decides to resign over a paper.
Having served as a Chief Editors for the Journal of Atmospheric Science and the Monthly Weather Review this very unusual behavior. The place to refute a published paper is in peer-reviewed papers, not in blogs (or the media). If the paper is not robust, it appropriately should be responded to by paper, not by the resignation of the Editor. In my view, he made a poor decision which has further damaged the scientific process of vetting new research results.”
This will really get interesting when Dessler’s paper comes out that “undermines Spencer’s arguments about the role of clouds in the Earth’s energy budget” (as Trenberth, Abraham and Gleick put it).
What it All Means
This cloud issue has become very contentious because, if we (or those working on the cosmic ray effect on clouds) are correct, it means Mother Nature is perfectly capable of causing her own climate change.
And this possibility cannot be permitted by the IPCC, because it then begs the question of whether climate change — both past and future — is more natural than anthropogenic. What is particularly discouraging is that the vast majority of scientists contacted by reporters to comment on our paper clearly had not even read the paper. They just repeated what other scientists had said. And I doubt even those original scientists read it. All they know is that it dissed the climate models, and so it must be wrong.
[We have even had papers rejected by peer reviewers who we KNOW didn’t read the paper. They objected to “claims” we never even made in our paper. This is the sad state of peer review when a scientific discipline is so politicized.]
And:-
At the end of the day, the dirty little secret is that there is still no way to test the IPCC climate models for their feedback behavior, which means there is no way to know which (if any of them) is even close to being correct in its predictions for the future.
The very fact that the 20+ climate models the IPCC tracks still span just as wide a range of feedbacks as climate models did 20 years ago is evidence by itself that the climate community still can’t demonstrate what the real cloud feedbacks in the climate system are. Otherwise, they would tune their models accordingly.
The disconcerting conclusion is that global warming-related policy decisions are being guided by models which still have no way to be tested in their long-term predictions.
Hot off the press: Dessler’s record turnaround time GRL rebuttal paper to Spencer and Braswell
Posted on September 6, 2011 by Anthony Watts
I’ve been given an advance copy, for which I’ve posted excerpts below. This paper appears to have been made ready in record time, with a turnaround from submission to acceptance and publication of about six weeks based on the July 26th publication date of the original Spencer and Braswell paper. We should all be so lucky to have expedited peer review service. PeerEx maybe, something like FedEx? Compare that to the two years it took to get Lindzen and Choi out the door. Or how about the WUWT story: “Science has been sitting on his [Spencer’s] critique of Dessler’s paper for months”.
If anyone needs a clear, concise, and irrefutable example of how peer review in climate science is biased for the consensus and against skeptics, this is it.
I’m sure some thorough examination will determine if the maxim “haste makes waste” applies here for Dessler’s turbo treatise.
Cloud variations and the Earth’s energy budget
A.E. Dessler
Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
Now, thanks to some foraging from guest poster Les Johnson at Watts Up With That? it seems we may have our answer. Needless to say, it doesn’t reflect well on the mores of the Brotherhood of Climate Alarmists.
Johnson was particularly intrigued by the fact that on resigning Wagner wrote an especially fulsome apology for his error to Kevin Trenberth. That’s Kevin Trenberth as in the hardcore Alarmist scientist who starred in this infamous Climategate email:
I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPPC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
That’s also Kevin Trenberth as in the Climate Torquemada so committed to his religion he believes that the “null hypothesis” should be reversed: ie that sceptics should be forced to prove that CAGW doesn’t exist, rather than alarmists being forced to prove it does. You can’t prove a thing doesn’t exist: ergo Trenberth wants the impossible.
Why would Wagner feel compelled to grovel to this particular man after his venial (or not as the case may be) slip?
Could it, wonders Johnson, be another case of that old story, wearisomely familiar throughout the global multi-trillion dollar Climate Change industry, titled “Follow The Money?
The connection on the other side? Trenberth and Wagner? Well, Wagner is apparently the director of a group that wants to start a Soil Moisture Network. For this, they have asked the help of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX).
GEWEX in 2010 announced the appointment, by acclamation, of Kevin Trenberth, as its new Chairperson. (page 3 of this newsletter). On Page 4, is the announcement that the Soil Moisture Network (which is the department Wagner runs) is looking for help. Not, coincidentally, on Page 5 is an article on how cloud albedo is overestimated in models, thus it’s worse than we thought.
Dessler’s views from Bryan Walker’s “Jolting Contrasts” Hot Topic article:-
Dessler:
“Humans have loaded the atmosphere with so much carbon at this point that essentially no weather that occurs is unrelated to climate change any more.
In many cases we can’t specifically say with accuracy how climate change has affected; in other cases – the weather we’re having in Texas right now – we do have a pretty good idea of how climate change is impacting that.
We can say pretty clearly that we’re making the present weather in Texas worse and that, I think, is the best way to think about it.
Climate multiplies weather so if you have a heat wave, climate change makes it worse. I wouldn’t think about particular events being caused; I would think about particular events being worsened”
…
“can’t specifically say with accuracy”
“can say pretty clearly”
Team cheerleader Bryan of course (complete with pom poms), doesn’t see the non-scientific subtlety because according to him Dessler is one of “a couple of intelligent and knowledgeable American scientists which regular Hot Topic commenter Bill had recommended”.
“…and that, I think, is the best way to think about it”
“I wouldn’t think about particular events being caused; I would think about particular events being worsened”
Walker obliges accordingly:-
…what the science “truly is”
Proving Joseph Goebbels correct in the process:-
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”
“Climate worsens weather”
Interesting idea. I can accept (from a basic Physics point of view) that the presence of humans in a closed system will affect that system. Of course, we can’t know what that effect is unless we remove the humans.
However, does the idea of “worsens” actually exist in the scientific literature?
if I magically make a day warmer, does it make the day worse?
If I magically make more rain come through my super powers, does it make it worse or better? The farmers might like it, the shoppers not so.
It is obvious to many people what is going on behind the scenes. The next IPCC report (AR5) is now in preparation, and there is a bust-gut effort going on to make sure that either (1) no scientific papers get published which could get in the way of the IPCC’s politically-motivated goals, or (2) any critical papers that DO get published are discredited with any and all means available.
UN Seeks New Powers to Remake World at Rio Sustainability Summit
The United Nations plans to use its upcoming UN Conference on “Sustainable Development” (UN CSD or Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro to amass a vast array of unprecedented new powers and literally re-shape civilization, the global economy, and even peoples’ thoughts, according to official documents. All of it will be done in the name of transitioning toward a so-called “green economy.”
Pachauri declares, “Whatever we do is available for scrutiny at every stage.” The all-important IPCC Summary for Policy Makers is rewritten line-by-line by politicians behind closed doors over days.
And get this: the actual report is released weeks after the Summary is released. Pachauri explains that’s because “we necessarily have to ensure that the underlying report conforms to the refinements [made by the politicians in the Summary]”.
That’s right: the scientific report is “refined” to fit the Summary written by politicians and is then later released. No scrutiny of the process or the changes is allowed.
When convenient, Pachauri puts himself above the political fray, “We in the IPCC do not prescribe any specific action, but action is a must.”
However, he has declared “a radical value shift” is needed and a “new value system” required. “I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible forum the need to bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development. That’s the real issue. Climate change is just a part of it”.
There you have it. A pretend mantle of scientific rigour shrouding a deep and dark social, economic and political agenda.
New, improved “gold standard” IPCC: Business as (conflicted as) usual
Meanwhile, out in the twitter-universe, Andrew Weaver, the Lead Author of Working Group 1′s Chapter 12 for the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), who had recently declared his candidacy for the BC Green Party has proudly announced that he has “accepted the position [of] Deputy Leader” of the BC Green Party:
IPCC AR5 co-ordinating lead author blames global warming for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis:-
“There is wide scientific consensus that the increased number and intensity of climate change induced natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tsunamis and hurricanes, is of alarming concern,” said Ruppel, though adding that not all climate events lead to disasters.
Professor Oliver C Ruppel is professor of Law at Stellenbosch University, specialising in Public International Law and Diplomacy, World Trade Law, Regional Integration Policy, Sustainable Development Law and International Environmental Law. He serves as AR5 co-ordinating lead author for the Chapter on Africa of the UN IPCC, Working Group II.
WGII is where the BS really gets going at the IPCC.
Leaving aside the tsumanis, asteroids, etc caused by global warming, Pielke Jr reminds us that:
US floods have not increased over a century or longer (same globally).
US hurricane landfall frequency or intensity have not increased (in US for over a century or longer).
US intense hurricane landfalls are currently in the longest drought (7 years+) ever documented.
US tornadoes, especially the strongest ones, have not increased since at least 1950.
US drought has decreased since the middle of the past century.
US East Cost Winter Storms show no trends (here also).
Disaster losses normalized for societal changes show no residual trends (US, other regions or globally).
Trends in the costs of disasters are not a proxy for trends in climate phenomena.
The IPCC is comprised of three working groups. Working Group 3 is led by Ottmar Edenhofer, an economist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Three days ago that institute posted an announcement on its website calling for “expert reviewers” to provide feedback to Working Group 3′s draft report. The first paragraph of that announcement includes the following:
“The scientists who are organizing this process ask for voluntary contributions from experts across all sectors, from scholars to business people or NGO representatives”
AR5 is also likely to underpin efforts to create a global emissions deal in 2015, making its findings particularly relevant with the next major UN climate summit just four months away.
The IPCC has already run a series of seminars for journalists in an attempt to clarify what it sees as important issues, while PR firm Havas is advising the UN Foundation on how best to explain the report’s findings.
AR5 release schedule:
Working Group I: 23-26 September 2013
Working Group II: 25-29 March 2014
Working Group III: 7-11 April 2014
[…] In Nature magazine, IPCC’s Ottmar Edenhofer claimed, that despite Greenpeace presence there was no ‘bias’ or ‘conflict’. Though press releases sold the Greenpeace scenario the report looked at large ‘bodies of literature’, Greenpeace’s material was but 1 of ‘over 160′ scenarios analysed, was published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the ‘decision’ to make Greenpeace ‘one of the four’ scenarios made by ‘a team’.
At the time, none of these could be verified. Draft reports and reviewer comments were nowhere to be found. Everyone was left holding just the press releases and the excuses. It was months before drafts were released.
The draft reports
Examining the drafts shows a different picture. The Greenpeace/Teske work was in the IPCC report even before it was published and right from the first order draft (FOD). In the FOD Chapter 10, the IPCC did not compare several different scenarios as was claimed. There were just two. One of them was Greenpeace’s, straight from the pressure group pamphlet.
In the next five years, the global warming paradigm may fall apart if the models prove worthless
Ross McKitrick, Special to Financial Post |
[…]
There are five key points to take away from this situation.
First, something big is about to happen. Models predict one thing and the data show another. The various attempts in recent years to patch over the difference are disintegrating. Over the next few years, either there is going to be a sudden, rapid warming that shoots temperatures up to where the models say they should be, or the mainstream climate modeling paradigm is going to fall apart.
Second, since we are on the verge of seeing the emergence of data that could rock the foundations of mainstream climatology, this is obviously no time for entering into costly and permanent climate policy commitments based on failed model forecasts. The real message of the science is: Hold on a bit longer, information is coming soon that could radically change our understanding of this issue.
Third, what is commonly called the “mainstream” view of climate science is contained in the spread of results from computer models. What is commonly dismissed as the “skeptical” or “denier” view coincides with the real-world observations. Now you know how to interpret those terms when you hear them.
Fourth, we often hear (from no less an authority than Obama himself, among many others) slogans to the effect that 97% of climate experts, 97% of published climate science papers, and all the world’s leading scientific societies agree with the mainstream science as encoded in climate models. But the models don’t match reality. The climate science community has picked a terrible time to brag about the uniformity of groupthink in its ranks.
Finally, the IPCC has proven, yet again, that it is incapable of being objective. Canadian journalist Donna LaFramboise has meticulously documented the extent to which the IPCC has been colonized by environmental activists over the years, and we now see the result. As the model-versus-reality discrepancy plays out, the last place you will learn about it will be in IPCC reports.
‘Peer-reviewed or Not, the IPCC Accepts Our Conclusion’
By Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger
[…]
Among many interesting statements in the draft SPM, this one particularly caught our eye:
“[Climate] Models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10–15 years. There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by unpredictable climate variability, with possible contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic, and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from too strong a response to increasing greenhouse-gas forcing. [italics in original, bold added by us]”
We found this interesting because back in 2010, we, along with several co-authors, wrote a paper titled “Assessing the consistency between short-term global temperature trends in observations and climate model projections.” In that paper, we demonstrated that climate models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10-15 years. We also wrote that this was the result of some combination of inadequacies in the evolution of anthropogenic forcing (including aerosols), natural variability (both that which is captured and that which is insufficiently handled by climate models), as well as the strong possibility that climate models were producing too much warming for a given amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
[…]
Notably, at the time of our paper, we were the only ones who were suggesting that the responsibility for the mismatch between observations and projections laid with the climate models. The two extant papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature at the time (Easterling and Wehner, 2009; Knight et al., 2009) both concluded that the climate models (and their take on natural variability) could explain the observed slowdown (or in some cases, complete stoppage) in the rise of the earth’s average surface temperature during this recent period.
Our results arguing for climate model deficiencies forwarded the existing science in a way that the IPCC ultimately accepted.
In the time since we wrote our paper, several others have reached similar conclusions, most notably, the just-published paper in the prestigious journal Nature Climate Change by John Fyfe and colleagues (2013) titled “Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years” which concluded:
“Recent observed global warming is significantly less than that simulated by climate models. This difference might be explained by some combination of errors in external forcing, model response and internal climate variability.”
Now for the rest of the story.
Our paper was repeatedly rejected by the scientific journals and consequently was never published in the form of a peer-reviewed article.
The reviewers were horrified that we characterized the mismatch between the observations and the model projections as being a “cause for concern” regarding climate model performance.
Now, three years later, the possibility that the models are to blame is so well accepted that it is included in the Summary for Policymakers (or at least the leaked draft) of the new IPCC report.
It is our hunch (see Section VIII) that the reason our paper was rejected was not (as we can now see) that it was wrong, but instead was because of who we are.
As the IPCC struggles with its inconvenient truth – the pause and the growing discrepancy between models and observations – the obvious question is: why is the IPCC just starting to grapple with this issue now, essentially two minutes before midnite of the release of the AR5?
[…]
My blog post on the Fyfe et al. paper triggered an email from Pat Michaels, who sent me a paper that he submitted in 2010 to Geophysical Research Letters, that did essentially the same analysis as Fyfe et al., albeit with the CMIP3 models.
[…]
Drum roll . . . the paper was rejected. I read the paper (read it yourself), and I couldn’t see why it was rejected, particularly since it seems to be a pretty straightforward analysis that has been corroborated in subsequent published papers.
The rejection of this paper raised my watchdog hackles, and I asked to see the reviews. I suspected gatekeeping by the editor and bias against the skeptical authors by the editor and reviewers.
[…]
Three years later, it seems pretty obvious and widely acknowledged that climate models have been unable to correctly capture the earth’s surface temperature evolution over the past several decades. Lucia continues to do good work on this subject; head over to her blog for a technical discussion on this topic and the Michaels et al. paper.
And we see where ‘pause denial’ has led the IPCC, potentially to a crisis point in the AR5. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out in Stockholm next week.
Your last point is extremely valid. I work with engineering models and recently the suspicion in some customers minds caused by the failure of climate models has begun to rub off on engineering applications where models, which have been verified and used in applications over long periods, are used.
We are increasingly having to justify the validity of our engineering models as a result failure of the pseudo scientific climate models which have received so much publicity in the press recently.
‘Conflict-of-Interest in the IPCC’s New Chapter 7’
Donna Laframboise, March 21, 2014
[…] Andrew Challinor is one of eight lead authors for Chapter 7. (There are also two chapter heads, 10 contributing authors, and two Review Editors.) According to the headline on a University of Leeds media release issued this week, Challinor’s latest, hot-off-the-press research paper demonstrates that Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than we thought.
The media release tells us that this new research
“feeds directly into the Working Group II report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, which is due to be published at the end of March 2014.”
It’s unclear what is meant by the “feeds directly into” claim. IPCC personnel aren’t supposed to be promoting their own careers or advancing pet hypotheses. Their job is to objectively examine the scientific literature already in existence.
But here’s where the conflict-of-interest comes in……………
Chapter 7 [WGII] has eight lead authors, two coordinating lead authors (chapter heads), and 10 contributing authors. That makes 20 authors altogether. So why are three of these individuals United Nations employees?
‘IPCC dispute simmers over economic costs of climate change’
Peter Hannam, SMH, March 27, 2014
[…]
Andy Pittman, director of the University of NSW’s Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, said that while climate science “is scaffolded on phenomenally sound foundations”, economists dealt with competing assumptions of human behaviour .
Economics “does not have the luxury of those projections being anchored in something that is immutable like the laws of physics”, Professor Pittman said.
“scaffolded on phenomenally sound foundations” ???
scaf·fold (skăf′əld, -ōld′)
n. 1. A temporary platform, either supported from below or suspended from above, on which workers sit or stand when performing tasks at heights above the ground.
2. A raised wooden framework or platform. 3. A platform used in the execution of condemned prisoners, as by hanging or beheading.
tr.v. scaf·fold·ed, scaf·fold·ing, scaf·folds
1. To provide or support with a raised framework or platform.
2. To place on a raised framework or platform.
Maybe when Pittman says climate science “is scaffolded on phenomenally sound foundations” he means the financial backing behind it, because the actual science behind AGW is very shaky indeed as evidenced by the fact that all of the IPCC predictions have failed to eventuate. Or perhaps he’s just lying his ass off to cover up the fact that he’s fighting an increasingly losing battle.
>”I don’t think the IPCC’s forcing expression, dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co), has quite reached immutable law status just yet Andy.”
From The Hockey Schtick:
‘Dana’s unremarkable global warming predictions debunked’
Paid CAGW propagandist Dana Nuccitelli has an article today in the Guardian and at the SS site gushing about a paper published in 1972 he claims made “a remarkably accurate global warming prediction” “of the next 30 years.” However, examination of the paper reveals complete ignorance of the logarithmically declining “radiative forcing” of CO2, and in fact demonstrates that “radiative forcing” from CO2 is less than half that currently claimed by the IPCC.
[…]
3. The paper should have used a logarithmic equation, such as the IPCC/Myhre equation for CO2 forcing with alleged water vapor amplification:
5.35*ln[CO2ending/CO2starting]
which has a huge erroneous fudge factor of 5.35 that assumes increased water vapor will cause a positive feedback and increase total radiative forcing from CO2 & water vapor by a factor of 3.8 times. In reality, increased water vapor has a negative feedback cooling effect that more than exceeds any warming effect of CO2. The wet adiabatic lapse rate is only one-half of the dry rate, proving that water vapor has a net cooling effect. Satellite observations also prove the net climate feedbacks are negative, not positive as this paper and the IPCC assumes.
4. Even if one falsely assumes 100% of the global warming from 1850-2000 was due to increased CO2, the fudge factor in the IPCC/Myhre formula should be
x = 0.6/[ln(370/292)*.75] = 3.38
[Assumptions: 0.6C warming, starting CO2 292 ppm, ending CO2 370 ppm, IPCC (false) assumption that 1W/m2 radiative forcing causes 0.75C surface warming]
based on observations 1850-2000, instead of 5.35, an exaggeration of 1.58 times.
‘Scientists Licking Wounds After Contentious Climate Report Negotiations’
“A strikingly large amount of scientific material [was] stripped out,” says David Victor, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego.
‘Top climate expert’s sensational claim of government meddling in crucial UN report’
David Rose
A top US academic has dramatically revealed how government officials forced him to change a hugely influential scientific report on climate change to suit their own interests.
Harvard professor Robert Stavins electrified the worldwide debate on climate change on Friday by sensationally publishing a letter online in which he spelled out the astonishing interference.
He said the officials, representing ‘all the main countries and regions of the world’ insisted on the changes in a late-night meeting at a Berlin conference centre two weeks ago.
Three quarters of the original version of the document ended up being deleted.
English Version of Communique Demanding a Review of Belgian Government Support for the position of Prof. van Ypersele for the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
‘A Korean Economist is Elected to Lead the U.N. Climate Change Panel’
By Andrew C. Revkin October 6, 2015
[…] And, at least in his recent video interview with Carbon Brief, it seems Lee, like many economists who came of age at the peak of the traditional environmental movement, has a very locked-in view that raising the cost of polluting is the critical way to shift global economies away from cheap fossil fuels.
Just price that externality and all will be well. That’s true in a rational system. But the real world hasn’t proved very rational in this arena, leading other analysts in this arena to focus as much on spurring innovation to make clean energy cheap as they do on finding ways to regulate or tax polluters [See video]
Here’s Lee on carbon pricing:
Climate change is a typical example of externalities and the way to correct the externality problem is to have a price on certain activities that cause those externalities. In our case, that is a price on carbon emissions – what you may call a carbon tax. Now, I think if you ask me to choose the most important work in climate change issues, then I’ll choose carbon price. That’s because it is the driver to put us into the right track. I would like to pursue, as much as possible, to increase our knowledge of carbon price and future emissions, and our knowledge on reducing the institutional barriers to adopting a carbon price system.
If the barriers were only institutional, I’d cheer him on. India’s barriers are existential for politicians in a country where 300 million people can’t turn on a light. Un-inventing suburbia is about infrastructure and culture as much as institutions.
So apparently, for this non-science economist, the man-made climate change hypothesis is instant dogma. And carbon dioxide is, entirely dogmatically, a “pollutant” irrespective of the benefits of it (SCOTUS concurs of course – the “endangerment finding”).
Odd then to read today at Climate Etc, this pointer and link:
‘New paper finds CO2 fertilization has greened warm, arid environments by 11%’
Impact of CO2 fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe’s warm, arid environments
Authors Randall J. Donohue, Michael L. Roderick, Tim R. McVicar, Graham D. Farquhar
First published: 19 June 2013
Cited by: 28 articles http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50563/full
I’m assuming then, that this is not “a typical example of” the “externalities” that Lee is referring to. Or that “the way to correct the externality problem is to have a price on certain activities that cause [this externality]” does not apply to this particular externality unless greening the planet is a problem (difficult to sell to the Greens I would have thought).
“Now, I think if you ask me [Hoesung Lee] to choose the most important work in climate change issues, then I’ll choose carbon price.”
I’d choose the IPCC’s TOA climate change criteria that the IPCC neglected in their last report but hey, who am I to introduce a scientific climate change issue to an ex-Exxon economist heading the UN IPCC?
Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball / 1 day ago June 26, 2016
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) wrote,
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
There were several actions required to create the tangled web of deception relating to the claim that human-produced CO2 caused global warming. It involved creating smaller deceptions to control the narrative that instead of creating well-woven cloth became the tangled web. The weavers needed control of the political, scientific, economic inputs, as well as the final message to the politicians to turn total attention on CO2.
Their problem was the overarching need for scientific justification, because science, if practiced properly, inherently precludes control. Properly, you go where the science takes you, by disproving the hypothesis. However, before the planners could get to the science, they had to establish the political framework.
The framework was built around the need to prove the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (AGW), which held that global warming was inevitable. The assumptions, required of any hypothesis, were that;
· CO2 was a greenhouse gas that slowed the rate of heat escape from the atmosphere.
· An increase in CO2 would cause a global temperature increase,
· Atmospheric CO2 would increase because of human activity,
· Industrial development achieved by burning fossil fuels was the major source of human CO2, production
· Industrial development would increase,
· Temperature increase was inevitable in a ‘business as usual’ world.
Politics
Maurice Strong orchestrated most of the early action because he knew how to set up the bureaucratic structure necessary to control the politics and science. Neil Hrab wrote in 2001 that Strong achieved this by:
Mainly using his prodigious skills as a networker. Over a lifetime of mixing private sector career success with stints in government and international groups…
He began with the 1977 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Stockholm Conference. As Hrab explained:
The three specific goals set out by the Secretary General of the Conference, Maurice F. Strong, at its first plenary session—a Declaration on the human environment, an Action Plan, and an organizational structure supported by a World Environment Fund—were all adopted by the Conference.
From there Strong created the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) with two main streams that provided the Political faction and the Scientific faction (Figure 1).
[See UNFCCC and IPCC in Figure 1]
[…]
Final Reporting
The final control that keeps the focus almost exclusively on CO2 is the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), a shorter version for media and politicians of the Synthesis Report.
The SPM is written by a separate group of a few carefully selected ‘experts’ to produce a narrative that is not substantiated by the scientific analysis in WGI. Again the Wegman report warned of the part of the problem.
“Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.”
This includes those who wrote the academic papers but also produced the final report including the SPM. As David Wojick wrote,
“Glaring omissions are only glaring to experts, so the “policymakers”—including the press and the public—who read the SPM will not realize they are being told only one side of a story. But the scientists who drafted the SPM know the truth, as revealed by the sometimes artful way they conceal it.”
What is systematically omitted from the SPM are precisely the uncertainties and positive counter evidence that might negate the human interference theory. Instead of assessing these objections, the Summary confidently asserts just those findings that support its case. In short, this is advocacy, not assessment.
Some good sites on IPCC politics:
No frakking consensus
Shub Niggurath
The next one, EURef is not strictly a climate blog, but Richard North has covered a lot of stuff (including the Amazongate issue)
<A HREF = "http://eureferendum.blogspot.com"EUReferendum
fixing up the html
EUReferendum
Tip Andy, use JoNova http://joannenova.com.au/2010/10/away-til-monday/ for fancy formatting , unless you want to keep up to speed on html. (Cut n Paste so much easier)
The Non-Stop IPCC Spin Machine
October 18, 2010
Author worked on IPCC reports a decade prior to earning her PhD
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) press release issued last week talks about transparency and openness. But don’t be fooled. Preparation of the 5th assessment report – known internally as AR5 – isn’t even fully underway, yet the organization is up to its old tricks.
Take a look at the Notes to Editors on the second page of the press release. This is supposed to be the non-controversial stuff, the basic nuts and bolts. Instead, it’s spin, spin, spin. Here’s a sentence for you:
Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the IPCC reports.
Back in June, the IPCC released the list of people who’ve been selected to work on AR5. It said that list contained 831 names – not thousands. But the situation is really worse than that, since only those individuals assigned to Working Group 1 deal with hard science. (Working Group 2 speculates on how climate change might effect our world. Working Group 3 discusses what might be done in response.)
‘High Priestess of Global Warming’ No More! Former Warmist Judith Curry Admits To Being ‘Duped Into Supporting IPCC’
Judith Curry
Climate etc
Oct 26, 2010
I’m having another “Alice down the rabbit hole” moment, in response to the Scientific American article, the explication of the article by its author Michael Lemonick, Scientific American’s survey on whether I am a dupe or a peacemaker, and the numerous discussions in blogosphere. My first such moment was in 2005 in response to the media attention associated with the hurricane wars, which was described in a Q&A with Keith Kloor at collide-a-scape. While I really want to make this blog about the science and not about personalities (and especially not about me), this article deserves a response.
The title of the article itself is rather astonishing. The Wikipedia defines heresy as: “Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma.” The definition of dogma is “Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from.” Use of the word “heretic” by Lemonick implies general acceptance by the “insiders” of the IPCC as dogma. If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic. The story should not be about me, but about how and why the IPCC became dogma.
Great post from Judith Curry
Reversing the direction of the positive feedback loop
(The positive feedback here is the political one)
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/03/reversing-the-direction-of-the-positive-feedback-loop/
Must read
Yes – must read.
Judith Curry’s epiphany is really reverberating now. That post will not go down well in some quarters internationally and lookout for damage control from Brian Walker and Gareth Renowden here in NZ.
Judith is now telling it like it is, pulling no punches, and catching the flack. Welcome to the world outside the “consensus”.
The tend toward power in the hands of economists is now the big battlefront, especially the climate-economic coupled models that will be in vogue for AR5.
BREAKING: UN IPCC Official Admits ‘We Redistribute World’s Wealth By Climate Policy’
November 18, 2010
If you needed any more evidence that the entire theory of manmade global warming was a scheme to redistribute wealth you got it Sunday when a leading member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told a German news outlet, “[W]e redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
Such was originally published by Germany’s NZZ Online Sunday, and reprinted in English by the Global Warming Policy Foundation moments ago:
I am wondering whose “wealth” they are planning to redistribute. Aren’t we all in debt up to our eyeballs?
Or is this a Dr Evil master plan to destroy the west?
Mwa ha ha ha ha …
The electrical analogy is apparent wealth as in apparent power.
I think Schwartzenegger would gladly redistribute some of California’s “wealth”.
Next climate warming report will be dramatically worse: UN
(AFP) – 1 day ago
UNITED NATIONS — United Nations leaders will demand “concrete results” from the looming Cancun climate summit as global warming is accelerating, a top UN organizer of the event said Monday.
Robert Orr, UN under secretary general for planning, said the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on global warming will be much worse than the last one.
Representatives from 194 countries are to meet in the Mexican resort city of Cancun from November 29 to December 10 for a new attempt to strike a deal to curb greenhouse gases after 2012.
Orr told reporters that negotiators heading for the Cancun conference “need to remind themselves, the longer we delay, the more we will pay both in terms of lives and in terms of money.”
He said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would make it clear to world leaders in Cancun “that we should not take any comfort in the climate deniers’ siren call.”
“The evidence shows us quite the opposite– that we can’t rest easy at all” as scientists agree that climate change “is happening in an accelerated way.”
“As preparations are underway for the next IPCC report, just about everything that you will see in the next report will be more dramatic than the last report, because that is where all the data is pointing.”
The fourth IPCC assessment released in 2007 said that global warming is “unequivocal” and mainly caused by human activity.
Its next report, involving contributions from thousands of scientists around the world, is due in 2014.
With many countries fearful of a repeat of last year’s bitter Copenhagen summit failure, Orr said that progress is possible in Cancun.
If governments “understand the peril that their populations are in, it is much easier to get over the political hurdles to do what you have to do,” he said.
The United Nations wants breakthroughs on verifying deforestation and financing to combat the lost of tropical forests.
Efforts to speed up technology transfers to combat global warming and financing projects to slow the phenomenon could also be advanced, Orr said.
Thirty billion dollars of emergency funding over three years was agreed at Copenhagen and a UN panel on how to raise 100 billion dollars a year from 2020 has already delivered its report.
The panel recommended taxes on carbon emissions and international transport, including air tickets.
Orr said no one should expect “the final deal” in Cancun.
But he said: “The time has come for some decisions on issues and therefore we do want some concrete results.”
“The evidence shows us quite the opposite– that we can’t rest easy at all” as scientists agree that climate change “is happening in an accelerated way.”
Yes scientists agree – but the climate most certainly does not.
UN scientists plan for failure at global climate change talks
December 1, 2010 – smh (UK Telegraph)
CANCUN: United Nations scientists are to consider putting mirrors in space and sprinkling iron filings in the sea to cut global warming, the climate change summit in Cancun has heard.
The announcement is a signal that the world’s leading climate scientists are losing faith in the prospects of a global deal to stop temperature rise by limiting emissions.
Speaking at the summit, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the panel’s next report on global warming would not only look at the threat of rising temperatures but also consider ”geo-engineering” options that could reverse warming.
There are already low expectations for the summit, being held at this beach resort on Mexico’s east coast.
Representatives from more than 190 countries are meeting at the Moon Palace Hotel to try to find a way to limit emissions so that temperature rises stay below 2 degrees.
The IPCC is responsible for setting out the scientific basis for the talks.
Addressing the opening conference, Dr Pachauri said if humanity continued to produce greenhouse gases at the current rate the world could experience catastrophic warming within 50 years.
He said the threat was so great that the fifth assessment report (AR5), due to be presented to the United Nations in 2014, would look at ”geo-engineering options”.
Later this year IPCC ”expert groups” will meet in Peru to discuss geo-engineering. Options include putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or covering Greenland in a massive ”blanket” so it does not melt.
Sprinkling iron filings in the ocean ”fertilises” algae, which absorbs CO2 and ”seeding clouds” means that sunlight is blocked. Other options include artificial ”trees” that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, and human-made volcanoes that spray sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun’s rays back into space.
Critics have argued that the process could make climate change worse through unintended consequences.
Continues……..
——————————————————————————————————————–
Almost every mitigation measure these idiots impose results in unintended consequences;-
REDD rorts in Indonesia
HFC reduction gaming in China
Carbon credit VAT tax fraud in Europe
Geo-engineering just has to be a fools invention by the dumbest “experts” in the universe, guaranteed to join the list of unintended consequences.
Ban Ki-moon ends hands-on involvement in climate change talks
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 January 2011
UN secretary general will redirect efforts to making more immediate gains in clean energy and sustainable development
In a strategic shift, Ban will redirect his efforts from trying to encourage movement in the international climate change negotiations to a broader agenda of promoting clean energy and sustainable development, senior UN officials said.
Obama’s State of the Union speech was along similar lines.
I think “Climate Change” has become a politically toxic subject.
Donna Laframboise has an interesting post on the political nature of the IPCC
The Sneaky, Not-So-Secret Purpose of the IPCC
…
But if one persists all the way through to the fifth and final paragraph on that page, matters get a bit more complicated:
By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content.
This sentence makes it clear that, despite the lofty rhetoric about knowledge and science, the IPCC actually serves a political purpose. It is a means to an end. It is the process by which the nearly 200 governments who belong to the United Nations agree on a single, official climate science perspective.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/the-sneaky-not-so-secret-purpose-of-the-ipcc/
I guess this puts Nick Smith’s statement “We accept the science” in context.
Accept, or shut up.
A couple of blog posts on IPCC Vice Chair Jean-Pascal van Ypersele’s antics:-
IPCC Vice Chair van Ypersele Suppresses Open Scientific Inquiry – Shuts Down SEII Skeptic Forum
http://notrickszone.com/2011/08/30/ipcc-vice-chai-van-ypersele-suppresses-open-scientific-inquiry-disallows-critical-debate/
IPCC chief tries to silence opposing view.
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com/2011/08/ipcc-chief-silences-opposing-view.html
SCORE:
IPCC :1
Scientific Progress: 0
This is Dr Roy Spencer’s response to the resignation of Wolfgang Wagner, editor of Remote Sensing journal. See:-
Editor-in-Chief of Remote Sensing Resigns from Fallout Over Our Paper
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/09/editor-in-chief-of-remote-sensing-resigns-from-fallout-over-our-paper/
And
Journal editor resigns over ‘problematic’ climate paper
Richard Black By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14768574
Note that the paper has NOT been retracted.
————————————————————————————————————————–
As an aside, I see Spencer has taken to adding a little interest to the UAH Global Temperature Update for August, 2011, saying:-
“Note that this month I have taken the liberty of adding a 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel). This is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/09/uah-global-temperature-update-for-august-2011-0-33-deg-c/
Comment On The Resignation of Wolfgang Wagner As Editor-In-Chief Of The Journal “Remote Sensing” In Response To The Publication Of Spencer And Braswell (2011)
Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/comment-on-the-resignation-of-wolfgang-wagner-as-editor-in-chief-of-the-journal-remote-sensing-in-response-to-the-publication-of-spencer-and-braswell-2011/
Quoting:-
“I have read the Spencer and Braswell paper in detail, and while I agree that some of the media exposure has been exaggerated and misplaced, the science in their paper appears robust. I certainly can be wrong, but I do not see a fatal flaw in what they did (i.e. an error such that the paper should have been rejected).
If their analysis is robust (even if minor technical errors exist), it is going to make Wolfgang Wagner look very biased. The ultimate arbitrator of the Spencer and Braswell analysis and conclusions will be in the peer-reviewed literature not on weblogs, or whether or not the Chief Editor of a journal decides to resign over a paper.
Having served as a Chief Editors for the Journal of Atmospheric Science and the Monthly Weather Review this very unusual behavior. The place to refute a published paper is in peer-reviewed papers, not in blogs (or the media). If the paper is not robust, it appropriately should be responded to by paper, not by the resignation of the Editor. In my view, he made a poor decision which has further damaged the scientific process of vetting new research results.”
Hatchet Job On John Christy and Roy Spencer By Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham and Peter Gleick
Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/hatchet-job-on-john-christy-and-roy-spencer-by-kevin-trenberth-john-abraham-and-peter-gleick/
This will really get interesting when Dessler’s paper comes out that “undermines Spencer’s arguments about the role of clouds in the Earth’s energy budget” (as Trenberth, Abraham and Gleick put it).
A Primer on Our Claim that Clouds Cause Temperature Change
September 3rd, 2011 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
…and Why Dessler, Trenberth, and the IPCC are Wrong
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/09/a-primer-on-our-claim-that-clouds-cause-temperature-change/
Snippets:-
What it All Means
This cloud issue has become very contentious because, if we (or those working on the cosmic ray effect on clouds) are correct, it means Mother Nature is perfectly capable of causing her own climate change.
And this possibility cannot be permitted by the IPCC, because it then begs the question of whether climate change — both past and future — is more natural than anthropogenic. What is particularly discouraging is that the vast majority of scientists contacted by reporters to comment on our paper clearly had not even read the paper. They just repeated what other scientists had said. And I doubt even those original scientists read it. All they know is that it dissed the climate models, and so it must be wrong.
[We have even had papers rejected by peer reviewers who we KNOW didn’t read the paper. They objected to “claims” we never even made in our paper. This is the sad state of peer review when a scientific discipline is so politicized.]
And:-
At the end of the day, the dirty little secret is that there is still no way to test the IPCC climate models for their feedback behavior, which means there is no way to know which (if any of them) is even close to being correct in its predictions for the future.
The very fact that the 20+ climate models the IPCC tracks still span just as wide a range of feedbacks as climate models did 20 years ago is evidence by itself that the climate community still can’t demonstrate what the real cloud feedbacks in the climate system are. Otherwise, they would tune their models accordingly.
The disconcerting conclusion is that global warming-related policy decisions are being guided by models which still have no way to be tested in their long-term predictions.
Hot off the press: Dessler’s record turnaround time GRL rebuttal paper to Spencer and Braswell
Posted on September 6, 2011 by Anthony Watts
I’ve been given an advance copy, for which I’ve posted excerpts below. This paper appears to have been made ready in record time, with a turnaround from submission to acceptance and publication of about six weeks based on the July 26th publication date of the original Spencer and Braswell paper. We should all be so lucky to have expedited peer review service. PeerEx maybe, something like FedEx? Compare that to the two years it took to get Lindzen and Choi out the door. Or how about the WUWT story: “Science has been sitting on his [Spencer’s] critique of Dessler’s paper for months”.
If anyone needs a clear, concise, and irrefutable example of how peer review in climate science is biased for the consensus and against skeptics, this is it.
I’m sure some thorough examination will determine if the maxim “haste makes waste” applies here for Dessler’s turbo treatise.
Cloud variations and the Earth’s energy budget
A.E. Dessler
Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/06/hot-off-the-press-desslers-record-turnaround-time-grl-rebuttal-paper-to-spencer-and-braswell/
Another broadside from RealClimate:-
Resignations, retractions and the process of science
— gavin @ 6 September 2011
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/09/resignations-retractions-and-the-process-of-science/
Dessler 2011 linked here:-
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2011.pdf
Delingpole has written up (among other things) some sleuthing found in WUWT:-
Obscure editor resigns from minor journal: why you should care
By James Delingpole
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100103350/obscure-editor-resigns-from-minor-journal-why-you-should-care/
Dessler’s views from Bryan Walker’s “Jolting Contrasts” Hot Topic article:-
“can’t specifically say with accuracy”
“can say pretty clearly”
Team cheerleader Bryan of course (complete with pom poms), doesn’t see the non-scientific subtlety because according to him Dessler is one of “a couple of intelligent and knowledgeable American scientists which regular Hot Topic commenter Bill had recommended”.
Neither does he see the inversion of science, or as Anthony Watts puts it in relation to a climate prediction paper:-
Or – As Dessler thinks, Walker thinks.
Dessler:-
Walker obliges accordingly:-
Proving Joseph Goebbels correct in the process:-
“Climate worsens weather”
Interesting idea. I can accept (from a basic Physics point of view) that the presence of humans in a closed system will affect that system. Of course, we can’t know what that effect is unless we remove the humans.
However, does the idea of “worsens” actually exist in the scientific literature?
if I magically make a day warmer, does it make the day worse?
If I magically make more rain come through my super powers, does it make it worse or better? The farmers might like it, the shoppers not so.
I’m still struggling with how a 30 year average of all the worst weather events makes the next weather event worse.
You regard the atm as a closed system Andy?
TOA is free to expand and contract.
Scientific developments and background re: Dessler 2011, Spencer – Braswell 2011, Lindzen and Choi 2011 now at “IPCC Science” here.
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/un/ipcc-science/#comment-67021
More background here:-
“More Thoughts on the War Being Waged Against Us” by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/09/more-thoughts-on-the-war-being-waged-against-us/
How the WWF Infiltrated the IPCC – Part 2
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/09/26/how-the-wwf-infiltrated-the-ipcc-part-2/
I believe Donna’s book on the IPCC will be available soon (on Kindle, initially)
It should make for interesting reading, and I expect no stones to be left unturned, even NZ ones.
UN Seeks New Powers to Remake World at Rio Sustainability Summit
http://www.infowars.com/un-seeks-new-powers-to-remake-world-at-rio-sustainability-summit/
Claptrap science shrouds dark anti-growth agenda
Rodney Hide NBR
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/claptrap-science-shrouds-dark-anti-growth-agenda-ck-125622
Pachauri declares, “Whatever we do is available for scrutiny at every stage.” The all-important IPCC Summary for Policy Makers is rewritten line-by-line by politicians behind closed doors over days.
And get this: the actual report is released weeks after the Summary is released. Pachauri explains that’s because “we necessarily have to ensure that the underlying report conforms to the refinements [made by the politicians in the Summary]”.
That’s right: the scientific report is “refined” to fit the Summary written by politicians and is then later released. No scrutiny of the process or the changes is allowed.
When convenient, Pachauri puts himself above the political fray, “We in the IPCC do not prescribe any specific action, but action is a must.”
However, he has declared “a radical value shift” is needed and a “new value system” required. “I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible forum the need to bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development. That’s the real issue. Climate change is just a part of it”.
There you have it. A pretend mantle of scientific rigour shrouding a deep and dark social, economic and political agenda.
New, improved “gold standard” IPCC: Business as (conflicted as) usual
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/new-improved-gold-standard-ipcc-business-as-conflicted-as-usual/
IPCC AR5 co-ordinating lead author blames global warming for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis:-
“There is wide scientific consensus that the increased number and intensity of climate change induced natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tsunamis and hurricanes, is of alarming concern,” said Ruppel, though adding that not all climate events lead to disasters.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/ipcc-ar5-co-ordinating-lead-author-is.html
Professor Oliver C Ruppel is professor of Law at Stellenbosch University, specialising in Public International Law and Diplomacy, World Trade Law, Regional Integration Policy, Sustainable Development Law and International Environmental Law. He serves as AR5 co-ordinating lead author for the Chapter on Africa of the UN IPCC, Working Group II.
WGII is where the BS really gets going at the IPCC.
Leaving aside the tsumanis, asteroids, etc caused by global warming, Pielke Jr reminds us that:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-case-for-playing-it-straight.html
IPCC Invites In the Activists
When Greenpeace personnel are participating, a political process is underway – not a scientific one.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/03/06/ipcc-invites-in-the-activists/
Donna –
The IPCC is comprised of three working groups. Working Group 3 is led by Ottmar Edenhofer, an economist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Three days ago that institute posted an announcement on its website calling for “expert reviewers” to provide feedback to Working Group 3′s draft report. The first paragraph of that announcement includes the following:
“The scientists who are organizing this process ask for voluntary contributions from experts across all sectors, from scholars to business people or NGO representatives”
We will have AR5 “explained” to us:
AR5 is also likely to underpin efforts to create a global emissions deal in 2015, making its findings particularly relevant with the next major UN climate summit just four months away.
The IPCC has already run a series of seminars for journalists in an attempt to clarify what it sees as important issues, while PR firm Havas is advising the UN Foundation on how best to explain the report’s findings.
AR5 release schedule:
Working Group I: 23-26 September 2013
Working Group II: 25-29 March 2014
Working Group III: 7-11 April 2014
http://www.rtcc.org/un-climate-science-body-ipcc-condemns-ar5-report-leak/
Don’t know why but I’ve been thinking Sept 2014. I’m assuming Havas’ PR advice will not be in the style of Accentuate PR:
Accentuate – what’s in a name.
Our inspiration was simple and comes from one of our favourite songs which, to us, sums up Public Relations – ‘Accentuate the Positive’.
http://accentuatepr.co.nz/
‘Greenpeace in the IPCC: Part II’
Shub Niggurath Climate
[…] In Nature magazine, IPCC’s Ottmar Edenhofer claimed, that despite Greenpeace presence there was no ‘bias’ or ‘conflict’. Though press releases sold the Greenpeace scenario the report looked at large ‘bodies of literature’, Greenpeace’s material was but 1 of ‘over 160′ scenarios analysed, was published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the ‘decision’ to make Greenpeace ‘one of the four’ scenarios made by ‘a team’.
At the time, none of these could be verified. Draft reports and reviewer comments were nowhere to be found. Everyone was left holding just the press releases and the excuses. It was months before drafts were released.
The draft reports
Examining the drafts shows a different picture. The Greenpeace/Teske work was in the IPCC report even before it was published and right from the first order draft (FOD). In the FOD Chapter 10, the IPCC did not compare several different scenarios as was claimed. There were just two. One of them was Greenpeace’s, straight from the pressure group pamphlet.
>>>>>>>
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/greenpeace-in-the-ipcc-part-ii-2/
‘IPCC models getting mushy’
In the next five years, the global warming paradigm may fall apart if the models prove worthless
Ross McKitrick, Special to Financial Post |
[…]
There are five key points to take away from this situation.
First, something big is about to happen. Models predict one thing and the data show another. The various attempts in recent years to patch over the difference are disintegrating. Over the next few years, either there is going to be a sudden, rapid warming that shoots temperatures up to where the models say they should be, or the mainstream climate modeling paradigm is going to fall apart.
Second, since we are on the verge of seeing the emergence of data that could rock the foundations of mainstream climatology, this is obviously no time for entering into costly and permanent climate policy commitments based on failed model forecasts. The real message of the science is: Hold on a bit longer, information is coming soon that could radically change our understanding of this issue.
Third, what is commonly called the “mainstream” view of climate science is contained in the spread of results from computer models. What is commonly dismissed as the “skeptical” or “denier” view coincides with the real-world observations. Now you know how to interpret those terms when you hear them.
Fourth, we often hear (from no less an authority than Obama himself, among many others) slogans to the effect that 97% of climate experts, 97% of published climate science papers, and all the world’s leading scientific societies agree with the mainstream science as encoded in climate models. But the models don’t match reality. The climate science community has picked a terrible time to brag about the uniformity of groupthink in its ranks.
Finally, the IPCC has proven, yet again, that it is incapable of being objective. Canadian journalist Donna LaFramboise has meticulously documented the extent to which the IPCC has been colonized by environmental activists over the years, and we now see the result. As the model-versus-reality discrepancy plays out, the last place you will learn about it will be in IPCC reports.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/09/16/ipcc-models-getting-mushy/
“The IPCC must take everybody for fools”
‘Peer-reviewed or Not, the IPCC Accepts Our Conclusion’
By Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger
[…]
Among many interesting statements in the draft SPM, this one particularly caught our eye:
“[Climate] Models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10–15 years. There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by unpredictable climate variability, with possible contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic, and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from too strong a response to increasing greenhouse-gas forcing. [italics in original, bold added by us]”
We found this interesting because back in 2010, we, along with several co-authors, wrote a paper titled “Assessing the consistency between short-term global temperature trends in observations and climate model projections.” In that paper, we demonstrated that climate models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10-15 years. We also wrote that this was the result of some combination of inadequacies in the evolution of anthropogenic forcing (including aerosols), natural variability (both that which is captured and that which is insufficiently handled by climate models), as well as the strong possibility that climate models were producing too much warming for a given amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
[…]
Notably, at the time of our paper, we were the only ones who were suggesting that the responsibility for the mismatch between observations and projections laid with the climate models. The two extant papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature at the time (Easterling and Wehner, 2009; Knight et al., 2009) both concluded that the climate models (and their take on natural variability) could explain the observed slowdown (or in some cases, complete stoppage) in the rise of the earth’s average surface temperature during this recent period.
Our results arguing for climate model deficiencies forwarded the existing science in a way that the IPCC ultimately accepted.
In the time since we wrote our paper, several others have reached similar conclusions, most notably, the just-published paper in the prestigious journal Nature Climate Change by John Fyfe and colleagues (2013) titled “Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years” which concluded:
“Recent observed global warming is significantly less than that simulated by climate models. This difference might be explained by some combination of errors in external forcing, model response and internal climate variability.”
Now for the rest of the story.
Our paper was repeatedly rejected by the scientific journals and consequently was never published in the form of a peer-reviewed article.
The reviewers were horrified that we characterized the mismatch between the observations and the model projections as being a “cause for concern” regarding climate model performance.
Now, three years later, the possibility that the models are to blame is so well accepted that it is included in the Summary for Policymakers (or at least the leaked draft) of the new IPCC report.
It is our hunch (see Section VIII) that the reason our paper was rejected was not (as we can now see) that it was wrong, but instead was because of who we are.
http://www.cato.org/blog/peer-reviewed-or-not-ipcc-accepts-our-conclusion
‘Peer review: the skeptic filter’
by Judith Curry
As the IPCC struggles with its inconvenient truth – the pause and the growing discrepancy between models and observations – the obvious question is: why is the IPCC just starting to grapple with this issue now, essentially two minutes before midnite of the release of the AR5?
[…]
My blog post on the Fyfe et al. paper triggered an email from Pat Michaels, who sent me a paper that he submitted in 2010 to Geophysical Research Letters, that did essentially the same analysis as Fyfe et al., albeit with the CMIP3 models.
[…]
Drum roll . . . the paper was rejected. I read the paper (read it yourself), and I couldn’t see why it was rejected, particularly since it seems to be a pretty straightforward analysis that has been corroborated in subsequent published papers.
The rejection of this paper raised my watchdog hackles, and I asked to see the reviews. I suspected gatekeeping by the editor and bias against the skeptical authors by the editor and reviewers.
[…]
Three years later, it seems pretty obvious and widely acknowledged that climate models have been unable to correctly capture the earth’s surface temperature evolution over the past several decades. Lucia continues to do good work on this subject; head over to her blog for a technical discussion on this topic and the Michaels et al. paper.
And we see where ‘pause denial’ has led the IPCC, potentially to a crisis point in the AR5. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out in Stockholm next week.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/19/peer-review-the-skeptic-filter/#more-13016
jbenton2013 | September 19, 2013 at 12:41 pm |
Your last point is extremely valid. I work with engineering models and recently the suspicion in some customers minds caused by the failure of climate models has begun to rub off on engineering applications where models, which have been verified and used in applications over long periods, are used.
We are increasingly having to justify the validity of our engineering models as a result failure of the pseudo scientific climate models which have received so much publicity in the press recently.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/19/peer-review-the-skeptic-filter/#comment-382643
Booker on the IPCC as a political pressure group
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84378
“IPCC In A Stew: How They Cooked Their Latest Climate Books”
An interview with Wellington NZ’s Dr Vincent Gray
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/10/13/ipcc-in-a-stew-how-they-cooked-their-latest-climate-books/
‘Conflict-of-Interest in the IPCC’s New Chapter 7’
Donna Laframboise, March 21, 2014
[…] Andrew Challinor is one of eight lead authors for Chapter 7. (There are also two chapter heads, 10 contributing authors, and two Review Editors.) According to the headline on a University of Leeds media release issued this week, Challinor’s latest, hot-off-the-press research paper demonstrates that Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than we thought.
The media release tells us that this new research
“feeds directly into the Working Group II report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, which is due to be published at the end of March 2014.”
It’s unclear what is meant by the “feeds directly into” claim. IPCC personnel aren’t supposed to be promoting their own careers or advancing pet hypotheses. Their job is to objectively examine the scientific literature already in existence.
But here’s where the conflict-of-interest comes in……………
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/03/21/conflict-of-interest-in-the-ipccs-new-chapter-7/
‘UN Employees as IPCC Authors’
Donna Laframboise, March 23, 2014
Chapter 7 [WGII] has eight lead authors, two coordinating lead authors (chapter heads), and 10 contributing authors. That makes 20 authors altogether. So why are three of these individuals United Nations employees?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/03/23/un-employees-as-ipcc-authors/
‘IPCC dispute simmers over economic costs of climate change’
Peter Hannam, SMH, March 27, 2014
[…]
Andy Pittman, director of the University of NSW’s Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, said that while climate science “is scaffolded on phenomenally sound foundations”, economists dealt with competing assumptions of human behaviour .
Economics “does not have the luxury of those projections being anchored in something that is immutable like the laws of physics”, Professor Pittman said.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/ipcc-dispute-simmers-over-economic-costs-of-climate-change-20140327-35jho.html
“scaffolded on phenomenally sound foundations” ???
scaf·fold (skăf′əld, -ōld′)
n.
1. A temporary platform, either supported from below or suspended from above, on which workers sit or stand when performing tasks at heights above the ground.
2. A raised wooden framework or platform.
3. A platform used in the execution of condemned prisoners, as by hanging or beheading.
tr.v. scaf·fold·ed, scaf·fold·ing, scaf·folds
1. To provide or support with a raised framework or platform.
2. To place on a raised framework or platform.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scaffold
Climate science: sound foundation – but merely a “scaffold” above.
Maybe when Pittman says climate science “is scaffolded on phenomenally sound foundations” he means the financial backing behind it, because the actual science behind AGW is very shaky indeed as evidenced by the fact that all of the IPCC predictions have failed to eventuate. Or perhaps he’s just lying his ass off to cover up the fact that he’s fighting an increasingly losing battle.
>”Climate science: sound foundation – but merely a “scaffold” above”
Or:
Climate science: sound foundation – structure’s a “scaffold”.
For beheading..
According to the “Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science”.
>”AGW is very shaky indeed”
That’s the “scaffold” they built Magoo.
Now they’re hanging themselves on it – after they’ve beheaded national economies with it.
[Andy Pittman] >”those projections being anchored in something that is immutable like the laws of physics”
I don’t think the IPCC’s forcing expression, dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co), has quite reached immutable law status just yet Andy.
>”I don’t think the IPCC’s forcing expression, dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co), has quite reached immutable law status just yet Andy.”
From The Hockey Schtick:
‘Dana’s unremarkable global warming predictions debunked’
Paid CAGW propagandist Dana Nuccitelli has an article today in the Guardian and at the SS site gushing about a paper published in 1972 he claims made “a remarkably accurate global warming prediction” “of the next 30 years.” However, examination of the paper reveals complete ignorance of the logarithmically declining “radiative forcing” of CO2, and in fact demonstrates that “radiative forcing” from CO2 is less than half that currently claimed by the IPCC.
[…]
3. The paper should have used a logarithmic equation, such as the IPCC/Myhre equation for CO2 forcing with alleged water vapor amplification:
5.35*ln[CO2ending/CO2starting]
which has a huge erroneous fudge factor of 5.35 that assumes increased water vapor will cause a positive feedback and increase total radiative forcing from CO2 & water vapor by a factor of 3.8 times. In reality, increased water vapor has a negative feedback cooling effect that more than exceeds any warming effect of CO2. The wet adiabatic lapse rate is only one-half of the dry rate, proving that water vapor has a net cooling effect. Satellite observations also prove the net climate feedbacks are negative, not positive as this paper and the IPCC assumes.
4. Even if one falsely assumes 100% of the global warming from 1850-2000 was due to increased CO2, the fudge factor in the IPCC/Myhre formula should be
x = 0.6/[ln(370/292)*.75] = 3.38
[Assumptions: 0.6C warming, starting CO2 292 ppm, ending CO2 370 ppm, IPCC (false) assumption that 1W/m2 radiative forcing causes 0.75C surface warming]
based on observations 1850-2000, instead of 5.35, an exaggeration of 1.58 times.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/danas-unremarkable-global-warming.html
# # #
>”Assumptions: 0.6C warming”
But if there’s some cooling in the future i.e. 0.6C warming assumption is premature – what then for the “immutable law”?
‘Scientists Licking Wounds After Contentious Climate Report Negotiations’
“A strikingly large amount of scientific material [was] stripped out,” says David Victor, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego.
http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2014/04/scientists-licking-wounds-after-contentious-climate-report-negotiations
‘Top climate expert’s sensational claim of government meddling in crucial UN report’
David Rose
A top US academic has dramatically revealed how government officials forced him to change a hugely influential scientific report on climate change to suit their own interests.
Harvard professor Robert Stavins electrified the worldwide debate on climate change on Friday by sensationally publishing a letter online in which he spelled out the astonishing interference.
He said the officials, representing ‘all the main countries and regions of the world’ insisted on the changes in a late-night meeting at a Berlin conference centre two weeks ago.
Three quarters of the original version of the document ended up being deleted.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614097/Top-climate-experts-sensational-claim-government-meddling-crucial-UN-report.html#ixzz309HLICtM
‘IPCC vice chair under fire’
English Version of Communique Demanding a Review of Belgian Government Support for the position of Prof. van Ypersele for the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
http://www.ockhams-scheermes.be/349104237
‘A Korean Economist is Elected to Lead the U.N. Climate Change Panel’
By Andrew C. Revkin October 6, 2015
[…] And, at least in his recent video interview with Carbon Brief, it seems Lee, like many economists who came of age at the peak of the traditional environmental movement, has a very locked-in view that raising the cost of polluting is the critical way to shift global economies away from cheap fossil fuels.
Just price that externality and all will be well. That’s true in a rational system. But the real world hasn’t proved very rational in this arena, leading other analysts in this arena to focus as much on spurring innovation to make clean energy cheap as they do on finding ways to regulate or tax polluters [See video]
Here’s Lee on carbon pricing:
If the barriers were only institutional, I’d cheer him on. India’s barriers are existential for politicians in a country where 300 million people can’t turn on a light. Un-inventing suburbia is about infrastructure and culture as much as institutions.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/a-korean-economist-is-elected-to-lead-the-u-n-climate-change-panel/?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0
# # #
So apparently, for this non-science economist, the man-made climate change hypothesis is instant dogma. And carbon dioxide is, entirely dogmatically, a “pollutant” irrespective of the benefits of it (SCOTUS concurs of course – the “endangerment finding”).
Odd then to read today at Climate Etc, this pointer and link:
‘New paper finds CO2 fertilization has greened warm, arid environments by 11%’
Impact of CO2 fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe’s warm, arid environments
Authors Randall J. Donohue, Michael L. Roderick, Tim R. McVicar, Graham D. Farquhar
First published: 19 June 2013
Cited by: 28 articles
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50563/full
I’m assuming then, that this is not “a typical example of” the “externalities” that Lee is referring to. Or that “the way to correct the externality problem is to have a price on certain activities that cause [this externality]” does not apply to this particular externality unless greening the planet is a problem (difficult to sell to the Greens I would have thought).
I’d choose the IPCC’s TOA climate change criteria that the IPCC neglected in their last report but hey, who am I to introduce a scientific climate change issue to an ex-Exxon economist heading the UN IPCC?
‘Abusing Semantics is the First and Last Refuge of Climatism
by Ari Halperin / April 5, 2016
IPCC TAR (2001): redefining climate change from ‘anthropogenic’ to ‘any’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/05/abusing-semantics-is-the-first-and-last-refuge-of-climatism/
‘The Tangled Web of Global Warming Activism’
Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball / 1 day ago June 26, 2016
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) wrote,
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
There were several actions required to create the tangled web of deception relating to the claim that human-produced CO2 caused global warming. It involved creating smaller deceptions to control the narrative that instead of creating well-woven cloth became the tangled web. The weavers needed control of the political, scientific, economic inputs, as well as the final message to the politicians to turn total attention on CO2.
Their problem was the overarching need for scientific justification, because science, if practiced properly, inherently precludes control. Properly, you go where the science takes you, by disproving the hypothesis. However, before the planners could get to the science, they had to establish the political framework.
The framework was built around the need to prove the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (AGW), which held that global warming was inevitable. The assumptions, required of any hypothesis, were that;
· CO2 was a greenhouse gas that slowed the rate of heat escape from the atmosphere.
· An increase in CO2 would cause a global temperature increase,
· Atmospheric CO2 would increase because of human activity,
· Industrial development achieved by burning fossil fuels was the major source of human CO2, production
· Industrial development would increase,
· Temperature increase was inevitable in a ‘business as usual’ world.
Politics
Maurice Strong orchestrated most of the early action because he knew how to set up the bureaucratic structure necessary to control the politics and science. Neil Hrab wrote in 2001 that Strong achieved this by:
Mainly using his prodigious skills as a networker. Over a lifetime of mixing private sector career success with stints in government and international groups…
He began with the 1977 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Stockholm Conference. As Hrab explained:
The three specific goals set out by the Secretary General of the Conference, Maurice F. Strong, at its first plenary session—a Declaration on the human environment, an Action Plan, and an organizational structure supported by a World Environment Fund—were all adopted by the Conference.
From there Strong created the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) with two main streams that provided the Political faction and the Scientific faction (Figure 1).
[See UNFCCC and IPCC in Figure 1]
[…]
Final Reporting
The final control that keeps the focus almost exclusively on CO2 is the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), a shorter version for media and politicians of the Synthesis Report.
The SPM is written by a separate group of a few carefully selected ‘experts’ to produce a narrative that is not substantiated by the scientific analysis in WGI. Again the Wegman report warned of the part of the problem.
“Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.”
This includes those who wrote the academic papers but also produced the final report including the SPM. As David Wojick wrote,
“Glaring omissions are only glaring to experts, so the “policymakers”—including the press and the public—who read the SPM will not realize they are being told only one side of a story. But the scientists who drafted the SPM know the truth, as revealed by the sometimes artful way they conceal it.”
What is systematically omitted from the SPM are precisely the uncertainties and positive counter evidence that might negate the human interference theory. Instead of assessing these objections, the Summary confidently asserts just those findings that support its case. In short, this is advocacy, not assessment.
Continues>>>>>
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/26/the-tangled-web-of-global-warming-activism/
# # #
>”Glaring omissions are only glaring to experts”
One major “glaring omission” from the IPCC AR5 WG1 report is detailed here:
‘IPCC Ignores IPCC Climate Change Criteria’
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52688456/IPCCIgnoresIPCCClimateChangeCriteria.pdf
Posted in the WUWT ‘Tangled Web’ thread here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/26/the-tangled-web-of-global-warming-activism/comment-page-1/#comment-2246786