While Oxburgh writes a 5 page book report that most college professors would likely reject due to incompleteness, we have this report from Donna Laframboise of Toronto and a team of citizen auditors. The mission? Determine how much of AR4 met IPCC’s own standards for peer review by reviewing every reference in the report to determine if it comes from peer reviewed literature, grey literature, or if they “simply made stuff up”, like glacier melt dates.
21 of 44 chapters in the United Nations’ Nobel-winning climate bible earned an F on a report card we are releasing today. Forty citizen auditors from 12 countries examined 18,531 sources cited in the report – finding 5,587 to be not peer-reviewed.
Contrary to statements by the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the celebrated 2007 report does not rely solely on research published in reputable scientific journals. It also cites press releases, newspaper and magazine clippings, working papers, student theses, discussion papers, and literature published by green advocacy groups. Such material is often called “grey literature.”
We’ve been told this report is the gold standard. We’ve been told it’s 100 percent peer-reviewed science. But thousands of sources cited by this report have not come within a mile of a scientific journal.
Based on the grading system used in US schools, 21 chapters in the IPCC report receive an F (they cite peer-reviewed sources less than 60% of the time), 4 chapters get a D, and 6 get a C. There are also 5 Bs and 8 As.
In November, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri disparaged non-peer-reviewed research in an interview with the Times of India (see the end of the article):
IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin.
Between Oxburgh’s failure to write a credible report and this obvious failure of IPCC to follow their own rules, is it any wonder why people are beginning to laugh at the “robustness” oft touted in climate science?
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Well done to everyone for revealing the flimsy nature of the IPCC AR4.
You could send a link to the secretary of the Inter-Academy Council who are reviewing (supposedly) IPCC reports.
Brilliant research – well found! We need to keep raising awareness of the pseudo-mystical guff that the IPCC continues to recucle and pass of as science. How about the formation of a Campaign for Real Science?
I couldn’t find a location on Donna Laframboise’s web page to congratulate her on a job well done. May I do it here? Another Great Canadian 🙂
Leaks just keep popping every where.
The IPCC AR4 is an advocacy work that uses cherry-picked science to drive an agenda, while completely ignoring a huge scientific body that is not in agreement. They failed, or even refused, to discern scientific literature from fantasy.
So a total of 30% of the citations were of non-peer reviewed writings. That’s actually far worse than I expected. It also would be interesting to know how many of the 70% peer reviewed citations were actually referenced correctly (i.e. supported the relevent IPCC text), but that would be a monumental undertaking.
Would be nice if the listing mentioned, generally, what was in each of the failing chapters…
Here is the link to http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/
The IPCC really are a bunch of shysters. And the response will be….
“Nothing to see here. Move along now”
I’ll echo Calum – well done to everyone involved. Copy of this going to my MP (once the election is over and to Cameron).
Perhaps we should report on all the major players and give them a grading…?
Al Gore – for inaccurate, misleading and totally unscientific pronouncements, oh, and for making a truck load of money by scaring people… F
John Kerry – for being in a position of power and influence, but for being so DUMB (I’ve never seen a peer reviewed paper that refutes global warming)… F
George Monbiot – For years of rampant alarmism, but then finally having the balls to admit that Climategate was both damming and a blow to the AGW cause… C+
James Hansen – for.. um, where do you start? For some of the most outrageous pronouncements on global warming every to dribble from a person’s lips… G (only because it’s below an F!)
Steve McIntyre – For vigilance and determination in the face of almost overwhelming odds… A++
There’s plenty more to choose from!
Well done Donna LaFramboise and the citizen volunteer auditors! I agree with MattE. It would be interesting to see a semi-detailed analysis of the chapters that are the worst offenders.
The breakdown of the grading by chapters is interesting – Group one, describing ‘Climate Science’ appears to have been put together somewhat professionally. The part where they start ‘making things up’ comes in with the work from Groups two and three, Impacts and Mitigations, respectively.
So, basically, they may be able to claim to talk about ‘something’ happening, but as far as what that means, and what should be done about it, they don’t seem to have a the first frakkin clue other than their hairshirt agenda.
To be fair, AR4 (70%) is an improvement over TAR (62%).
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/ipccs-scientific-assessment-reports/
At this rate the IPCC will be using only 100% peer-reviewed literature by 2030. But by then we might be in a little ice age (but at least AGW will be proven!).
OUTSTANDING !!!!
Will anyone pay attention ???
Great job guys. Eventually the masses will catch on to the entirely political nature of the IPCC and many of its lead authors.
A tipping point will be reached, hopefully soon.(note the number of hits on this blog alone, steadily rising).
An excellent idea, but the auditors have not followed it up with the necessary analysis. Were the references to news articles, etc. *appropriate*? If the cited publication was accurate authority for the proposition footnoted, then it is correct, regardless of whether it is peer-reviewed.
For example, if you are referring to the Kyoto Protocol, you may want to cite to the text of the treaty (not peer reviewed) rather than to a peer-reviewed article about the treaty.
Any bets whether Al Gore will now follow through on his promise to get with Fox News for an interview?
What would be the odds?
Unfortunately for Framboise she bases her report card (much like many of her past criticisms) on the wrong information. Regardless of what Pachauri has said publicly, the IPCC guidelines do not state that it will only use peer reviewed literature. See for yourself: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm
“[The IPCC will reference] Peer reviewed and internationally available scientific technical and socio-economic literature, manuscripts made available for IPCC review and selected non-peer reviewed literature produced by other relevant institutions including industry.”
[snip]
REPLY: That’s a point of consideration, but consider this: warmists will never again be able to say “but it’s not peer reviewed, and therefore irrelevant without looking like complete fools in the context of citing the IPCC -A
@Jennifer Hubbard and all
If you click through you’ll find all the raw data on each chapter
Hi, Riku Mellin, one of the auditors from the project.
I noticed that few people requested more details.
http://www.noconsensus.org/ipcc-audit/findings-detailed.php
You can find the list of the individual workgroup and under the chapter number you can find “A”, “B” and “C” options, wich all of them have the individual audit.
MattE and vigilantfish, click on the link to the report on Donna’s page above, then click on detailed findings. Under each chapter listing is an a, b and c. Those link to the individual audits and also link to the text of the chapter and the reference list. That should be enough to get you started. Cheers,
GregF
How many of these grey literature citations stood in isolation *without* a partner peer reviewed citation. My (incomplete) reading of the IPCC is that most often the grey literature citation was a complement to a peer reviewed citation. Unless that distinction is made in this sort of analysis, this posting has little meaning.
edit… yo???
professors would likely reject due yo incompleteness, we have
This is extremely useful. Its becoming harder and harder for the global warming movement. Now they cant even get away with “It must be peer reviewed” anymore. Poor AGW crowd.
Regardless of what Pachauri is quoted as saying, the IPCC guidelines clearly state that they use non-peer reviewed literature at times. Looks like everyone gets an A after all….except Laframboise and her in-depth research team.
Someone posted here recently that there was a clause somewhere in AR4 allowing grey literature. Don’t know myself. But is a fluff piece by WWF even considered “grey”?