IPCC review: friend or foe?

From the BBC

By Richard Black.Rajendra_Pachauri

This is a fine opportunity for WUWT readers to make comments to the committee reviewing the IPCC. My suggestion: be polite; be constructive.

“Now that we’re in the kitchen, we have to take the heat,” said Rajendra Pachauri.

“And we have to recognize that the stakes are very high. So we have to prepare ourselves for criticism, and this is not something we have done in the past.”

Indeed not. The worlds of climate science and politics were very different in 1988 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the organization that Dr Pachauri now chairs, came into being.

Concern there was about the potential of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions to produce a net warming of the planet’s biosphere, which was why the organization came into existence.

But computers on which scientists ran models were mere calculators beside today’s petaflop behemoths;

and many of the observation systems that now provide valued data, such as the global flotilla ofArgo floats, were barely at the stage of conception, never mind in their infancy.

As a result, the risk of warming might have been perceived as real, but it also went unquantified.

And as a result of that, there was barely a prospect of painful greenhouse gas emission cuts, never mind the wholesale decarbonisation of economies within a few decades that many now advocate.

Fossil fuel lobbyists had barely begun to organize, and a webless world did not facilitate the instant fractious exchanges of angry words and equations – the game, sometimes played on astroturf, that now makes the climate blogosphere as relentless as Shinjuku station in rush hour.

Read the rest of the story here

Comments to the IPCC review here

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Henry chance
June 10, 2010 5:16 am

It is time to bring out real auditors. See what data has been assisted. Then to see why they would need to change the data.

Stacey
June 10, 2010 5:22 am

There is a common thread to all of this.
We will have a review and what happens? Well the review will find that the organisation is completely exonerated and is working to best practice and giving value for money. However there is a problem with communication and the organisation needs to get its message across.

David Hagen
June 10, 2010 5:38 am

See: InterAcademy Council Review of IPCC
Note particularly:

Public Comments
A critical element of the InterAcademy Council committee’s analysis is the opinions of knowledgeable experts and thoughtful observers regarding IPCC’s processes and procedures for producing assessments.
Please note that although anonymous responses will not be accepted, all names and affiliations will be separated from the responses and will not be made publicly available.
The aggregated written responses to the questions will be made available to the public.
Your responses will be given careful consideration as the committee proceeds with its task.
The deadline for submitting comments is July 1

See: Questionnaire on IPCC Processes and Procedures:

1. What role(s), if any, have you played in any of the IPCC assessment processes?
2. What are your views on the strengths and weaknesses of the following steps in the IPCC assessment process? Do you have any recommendations for improvement?
1. Scoping and identification of policy questions
2. Election of bureau including working group chairs
3. Selection of lead authors
4. Writing of working group reports
5. Review processes
6. Preparation of the Synthesis report, including the Summary for Policy Makers
7. Adoption of report by the IPCC plenary
8. Preparation of any special reports
3. What is your opinion on the way in which the full range of scientific views is handled?
4. Given the intergovernmental nature of IPCC, what are your views on the role of governments in the entire process?
5. Given that IPCC assessments consider a vast amount of literature, what are your views and suggestions for improvement on the sources of data and the comprehensiveness of the literature used, including non-peer-reviewed literature?
6. What are your views and suggestions regarding the characterization and handling of uncertainty in each of the working group reports and the synthesis report?
7. What is your view of how IPCC handles data quality assurance and quality control and identification and rectification of errors, including those discovered after publication?
8. What is your view of how IPCC communicates with the media and general public, and suggestions for improving it?
9. Comment on the sustainability of the IPCC assessment model. Do you have any suggestions for an alternative process?
10. Do you have any suggestions for improvements in the IPCC management, secretariat, and/or funding structure to support an assessment of this scale?
11. Any other comments

They asked for it. Let them have it – BY JULY 1.
All your comments will be published – without names.

Gary
June 10, 2010 5:42 am

The IPCC was created to address the perceived problem of detrimental climate change. This isn’t the same thing as a comprehensive baseline descriptive analysis of the variability of climate. The first is motivated by a political agenda; the second by scientific curiosity. The two were conflated by the participants and they should be separated if we are to have an honest representation of any risks that need to be addressed. The very first thing any review must do is set out the agenda, the mission, the guiding philosophy, and the criteria for analysis and decision making that both advocates and critics of AWG can agree on. As we have seen with the IPCC reports, a shaky foundation inevitably leads to an unstable house.

David Hagen
June 10, 2010 5:49 am

See the context: Review Committee Statement of Task

1.1 The InterAcademy Council is requested to conduct an independent review of the IPCC processes and the procedures by which it prepares its assessments of climate change. IAC is asked to establish a Committee of experts from relevant fields to conduct the review and to present recommendations on possible revisions of IPCC processes and procedures. In particular the IAC Committee of experts is asked to recommend measures and actions to strengthen the IPCC’s processes and procedures so as to be better able to respond to future challenges and ensure the ongoing quality of its reports
CHARGE TO REVIEW COMMITTEE
2. A Review Committee is appointed by the IAC Co-Chairs to undertake a review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IAC Review Committee will take into account the following IPCC official documents: “Principles Governing IPCC Work”, including their Appendices: Appendix A “Procedures for the preparation, review, acceptance, adoption, approval and publication of the IPCC reports” and its Annexes (hereinafter referred to as “IPCC Procedures”), Appendix B “Financial Procedures for the IPCC”, and Appendix C “Rules of Procedures for the Election of the IPCC Bureau and Any Task Force Bureau”. The Review Committee is requested to perform the following tasks:
2.1. Review the IPCC procedures for preparing assessment reports including, but not restricted to:
1. Data quality assurance and data quality control;
2. Guidelines for the types of literature appropriate for inclusion in IPCC assessments, with special attention to the use of non peer-reviewed literature;
3. Procedures for expert and governmental review of IPCC materials;
4. Handling of the full range of scientific views; and
5. Procedures for correcting errors identified after approval, adoption and acceptance of a report.
2.2. Analyze the overall IPCC process, including the management and administrative functions within IPCC, and the role of UNEP and WMO, the United Nations system and other relevant stakeholders, with a view to strengthen and improve the efficiency of the assessment work and effectively ensure the consistent application of the IPCC Procedures.
2.3. Analyze appropriate communication strategies and the interaction of IPCC with the media to ensure that the public is kept apprised of its work.
2.4. Prepare a report on the outcome of the activities referred to above, including:
1. Methodology of the report preparation and measures taken to ensure high quality of the report findings;
2. Recommendations for amendments to the IPCC procedures;
3. Recommendations concerning strengthening the IPCC process, institutions and management functions;
4. Any other related recommendations; and
5. Outline of a plan for the implementation of recommendations.

899
June 10, 2010 5:53 am

Comment for Richard Black: Rose colored glasses much?

899
June 10, 2010 5:56 am

Stacey says:
June 10, 2010 at 5:22 am
There is a common thread to all of this.
We will have a review and what happens? Well the review will find that the organisation is completely exonerated and is working to best practice and giving value for money. However there is a problem with communication and the organisation needs to get its message across.

When was the last time a ‘self-policed’ agency of government actually arrested itself?

Enneagram
June 10, 2010 6:16 am

Dear professor Pachauri:
Why does the United Nations has two divergent opinions on future temperatures?
Paper by FAO:
Klyashtorin, L.B.
Climate change and long-term fluctuations of commercial catches: the possibility of
forecasting.
FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 410. Rome, FAO. 2001. 86p.
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e00.pdf
Specially see graphs on page 50th, where it says we currently are in a DOWWARD temperatures curve, which will reach its lowest level in the year 2020:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
And, how do you explain that CO2 goes AFTER not before increase in temperatures?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/09/a-study-the-temperature-rise-has-caused-the-co2-increase-not-the-other-way-around/
That you can personally check by holding a CO2 containing beverage in your hand, the hotter it gets the more CO2 will go out when you open it.
How do you explain, to the people of the world, that the following it is not true?:
CO2 follows temperature, not the other way. Open a coke and you´ll see it: The more you have it in your warm hand the more gas will go out when you open it.
CO2 is the transparent gas we all exhale (SOOT is black=Carbon dust) and plants breath with delight, to give us back what they exhale instead= Oxygen we breath in.
CO2 is a TRACE GAS in the atmosphere, it is the 0.038% of it.
There is no such a thing as “greenhouse effect”, “greenhouse gases are gases IN a greenhouse”, where heated gases are trapped and relatively isolated not to lose its heat so rapidly. If greenhouse effect were to be true, as Svante Arrhenius figured it out: CO2 “like the window panes in a greenhouse”, but…the trouble is that those panes would be only 3.8 panes out of 10000, there would be 9996.2 HOLES.
See:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28018819/Greenhouse-Niels-Bohr
CO2 is a gas essential to life. All carbohydrates are made of it. The sugar you eat, the bread you have eaten in your breakfast this morning, even the jeans you wear (these are made from 100% cotton, a polymer of glucose, made of CO2…you didn´t know it, did you?)
You and I, we are made of CARBON and WATER.
CO2 is heavier than Air, so it can not go up, up and away to cover the earth.
The atmosphere, the air can not hold heat, its volumetric heat capacity, per cubic cemtimeter is 0.00192 joules, while water is 4.186, i.e., 3227 times.
This is the reason why people used hot water bottles to warm their feet and not hot air bottles.
Global Warmers models (a la Hansen) expected a kind of heated CO2 piggy bank to form in the tropical atmosphere, it never happened simply because it can not.
If global warmers were to succeed in achieving their SUPPOSED goal of lowering CO2 level to nothing, life would disappear from the face of the earth.
So, if no CO2 NO YOU!

Last but not the Least:
If YOU and YOUR BOSSES succeed, and YOU FORCEFULLY WILL, YOU will reach your goal: A few companies, a few people, will own all the means of production of the world. But let us think: What then?, What for?, Will they become inmortal?, for to look for such a power, for to wish for such an inexhaustible wealth and endless resources one should have to be inmortal.
Then, inmortality should be the supreme goal for any living being, to overcome entropy by reaching every time a higher energy level, a higher frequency and a corresponding lower density as to “vibrate” for ever, almost like light itself. Then alchemical transmutation of inner energies should be our supreme goal and not that mounstrous want for acquiring power and money; that´s crazy and it leads only to degeneration of the succesive generations. It is frankly incomprehensible, so, instead of fighting against them, let us encourage them to attain their walhalah, their golden garden of eden, full of cancer, drugaddiction, of bleeding and wormful ulcers. That is what they are after:The ultra-maximum entropy. Hurray for YOU professor!

Henry chance
June 10, 2010 6:26 am

The IPCC will take unsupported assertions from Mann, his gcooked data and the WWF. Here is the University of Virginia famous student run honor code.
Mann laughs at it. He is above investigation.
“Students at the University have pledged themselves not to lie, cheat, or steal. This personal commitment to ethical, responsible behavior is the foundation for our student-run Honor System.”
http://www.virginia.edu/honor/
Where is Pachauri’s honor code? Will take kickbacks for influence?
I suspect he is running for a cover up.

June 10, 2010 6:42 am

IPCC capacity for logical consideration and understanding the climate change issues is well demonstrated in FAQ 1.2 (WG1-2007, p. 96: ‘What is the Relationship between Climate Change and Weather?’ expressed by the sentence:
____“A common confusion between weather and climate arises when scientists are asked how they can predict climate 50 years from now when they cannot predict the weather a few weeks from now.”
Although the FAQ 1.2 starts with the sentence that
___”Climate is generally defined as average weather, and as such, climate change and weather are intertwined”, whereon the explanation continues by saying::
____“As an analogy, while it is impossible to predict the age at which any particular man will die, we can say with high confidence that the average age of death for men in industrialized countries is about 75. “
In contrast to the life expectation of the human beings, the life-span of “climate” is, according IPCC, WMO, and others:
___”Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years”.
Is it reasonable to ask IPCC whether climate can die, or is the analogy silly? About the unscientific term “climate” see : http://www.whatisclimate.com/
The Glossary of the American Meteorological Society shows what goes wrong when claiming that weather and climate are different issues when saying about “weather”:
· The “present weather” table consists of 100 possible conditions,
· with 10 possibilities for “past weather”, while
· popularly, weather is thought of in terms of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility, and wind.
Interesting, that there seems – scientifically speaking – big, or small weather around. Take 99 items from the present weather, and you may regard that any future weather which consistent of one weather item as: CLIMATE;
hoping that this consideration falls in the category: polite and constructive.

Owen
June 10, 2010 6:42 am

Enneagram says: ” If greenhouse effect were to be true, as Svante Arrhenius figured it out: CO2 “like the window panes in a greenhouse”, but…the trouble is that those panes would be only 3.8 panes out of 10000, there would be 9996.2 HOLES.”
You can’t be serious. The absorption of radiation depends on the absorptivity coefficient of each particular type of molecule. Trace gases like CO2 or CH4 or N2O can and do absorb significant amounts of outgoing thermal radiation.
Please read up on basic chemistry, starting with the Beer-Lambert Law

June 10, 2010 6:46 am

Concern there was about the potential of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions to produce a net warming of the planet’s biosphere
Like Yoda he writes.

June 10, 2010 6:46 am

I have posted my reassessment of CET data 1700-1990
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GWDa.htm
(the world’s longest temperature record available, which shows a negligible temperature trend increase).

June 10, 2010 6:53 am

Fossil fuel lobbyists had barely begun to organize,
What? I would bet they are outnumbered 100:1 in both funding and personnel by the climate change lobby.

Andrew30
June 10, 2010 6:56 am

O/T
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/09/nasa-arctic-mission.html
“NASA is launching a mission from Alaska next month, but it won’t be into space.
The agency will take to the sea June 15 from Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians on its first dedicated oceanographic field campaign.
The voyage is billed as an up close look at how conditions in the Arctic are affecting ocean chemistry and ecosystems that play a critical role in global climate change.
More than 40 scientists will spend five weeks on board the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, the most technologically advanced polar icebreaker in the U.S. The Seattle-based Healy provides more than 390 square metres of scientific laboratory space.”
I expect that they will chop up the ice as needed to allow the wind and the currents to carry it out to warmer water.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/09/nasa-arctic-mission.html#ixzz0qSTLBqlx

Jay Cech
June 10, 2010 6:58 am

Here is what I sent them on their website asking for input last week.
“People have lost all trust in the IPCC process.
The temperature records have been manipulated (GISS for example) adding adjustments to old data to make the past look cooler, and to recent data to make new data look warmer. This falsely creates a trend.
Climate gate e-mails showed how a small group of IPCC contributors kept articles out of journals and tried to manipulate the peer review process.
The errors in the IPCC 4 report were relatively minor, but what are the chances that they all are to the warming side. If these errors were random one would expect some toward warming, some towards cooling. But all were to the warming side. This indicates a bias.
The only way to restore credibility is to have the review include the notable skeptics such as Dr. Richard Lindzen, Dr. Timothy Ball, Dr. Roy Spencer, Dr. Pielke Sr., Dr. Bob Carter, Dr. Christopher Landsea, Dr. Axel Morner from Sweden, Anthony Watts, and Steve McIntyre. There are others, I am sure you know their names, the ones excluded in the past, or that have quit the IPCC in disgust with the process.
Without a thorough examination by critics, the “review” will be a joke like the whitewash Oxburgh Inquiry in the UK.
Include the skeptics (NO, the science is not settled, there is NO consensus) and the critics or the review will be without merit.”
reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net

David Holland
June 10, 2010 7:02 am

The IAC Committee have announced a public hearing in Montreal on 15 June and are flying in Bob Watson and Hans von Storch, but have not invited Steve McIntyre or Ross McKitrick. I have suggested they should.
I sent a submission to the IAC after listening to the last public hearing and have just sent a copy of the submission which I had sent to the Russell Review (ICCER) at the UEA. Russell has declined to publish it on the Review website on legal advice and has also decided not consider IPCC procedures – even thought that is largely what Climategate is about. If anyone wishes to have a confidential copy of either or both submissions and will agree not to publish either, you can email me at crusub(the biggest uk supermarket).net. For those that can’t figure it – tesco.
It may not do much good but the more, that press the ICA to listen to a few critics, the better.

June 10, 2010 7:05 am

When will people realise that the only purpose of “Quality Management” and “Quality Reviewing” is to ensure that if cr*p is the end product, then it is consistent cr*p and nothing more. I have yet to see a QA system that actually improves the end product in any system – and I have been on Quality Audits and even been a Quality Auditor. The systems simply are not designed to improve anything, only to keep it always the same.

June 10, 2010 7:25 am

Why not just ask a simple question … Does Al Gore’s warm CO2 blanket exist? If yes, can you prove it?
It would probably be too much to ask why they think Stefan-Boltzmann theory doesn’t apply?

Enneagram
June 10, 2010 7:26 am

Owen says:
June 10, 2010 at 6:42 am
The air (the atmosphere with all its compounds taken together) has a volumetric heat capacity, per cubic cemtimeter is 0.00192 joules. How in the world, the earth not being a “closed system” and then not a closed pot, will ever “save” all that heat you are dreaming of.?

June 10, 2010 7:31 am

It should be made clear that many people believe the policy is well in advance of the science, and as a result there is a sincere desire to ensure that policy is both effective and cost-effective.

Enneagram
June 10, 2010 7:33 am

vukcevic says:
June 10, 2010 at 6:46 am
In your graphs are clearly shown the two peaks which correspond to the 1925 and 1999 big El Ninos. (Both were devastating for the northern west peruvian provinces-where precisely this phenomenon was named as such by local fishermen-).

Enneagram
June 10, 2010 7:34 am

Typo: it should read 1998 instead of 1999.

Jimbo
June 10, 2010 7:37 am

Reading the comments on Richard Black’s BBC blog I am surprised by the number of critical comments of the IPCC. They seem to be in the majority. Maybe I need to scroll down more.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/05/ipcc_review_friend_or_foe.html

James Sexton
June 10, 2010 7:38 am

What fossil fuel lobbyists? Who are they and where are they? Why and how does this myth persist? If they do exist, in what way have they contributed or altered the CAGW discussion?

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