(via Tom Nelson) Ken Caldeira resigns as IPCC lead author, saying:
“…it is not clear how much additional benefit there is to having a huge bureaucratic scientific review effort under UN auspices…”
New Directions for the Intergovernmental Climate Panel – NYTimes.com
Clearly, at the outset, the early IPCC reports played an important role showing that there was a high degree of consensus around the reality and basic science of human-induced climate change. It was important to show that, despite a few climate-science deniers, the fundamental science was well-accepted by the mainstream scientific community.
But can anybody point to any important positive outcomes resulting from the IPCC AR4 process? [AR4 is shorthand for the panel’s fourth assessment, which was published in 2007.] Is there reason to expect a greater positive impact from the IPCC AR5 process? [This is the forthcoming fifth assessment of climate science and policies, coming in 2013 and 2014]
I am all for scientific reviews and assessments, and I think the multi-model comparisons reviewed by the IPCC have been especially useful. However, it is not clear how much additional benefit there is to having a huge bureaucratic scientific review effort under UN auspices…
(As an aside, I recently resigned as a lead author of an IPCC AR5 chapter simply because I felt I had more effective ways of using the limited amount of time that I have to engage in scientific activities. My resignation was made possible because I believe that the chapter team that I was part of was on the right track and doing an excellent job without my contribution. Had I had a scientific criticism of my chapter team, you can be assured that I would have stayed involved. So, my resignation was a vote of confidence in my scientific peers, not a critique. It is just not clear to me that, at this point, working on IPCC chapters is the most effective use of my time.
His bio page says:
Ken Caldeira is a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution, where his job is “to make important scientific discoveries.” He also serves as a professor (by courtesy) in the Stanford University Department of Environmental Earth System Science. Caldeira is a lead author for the upcoming IPCC AR5 report and was coordinating lead author of the oceans chapter for the 2005 IPCC report on Carbon Capture and Storage. He was a co-author of the 2010 US National Academy America’s Climate Choices report. He participated in the UK Royal Society geoengineering panel in 2009 and ocean acidification panel in 2005. He was a lead author of the 2007 U.S. “State of the Carbon Cycle Report. Caldeira was invited by the National Academy of Sciences Ocean Studies Board to deliver the 2007 Roger Revelle Lecture, “What Coral Reefs Are Dying to Tell Us About CO2 and Ocean Acidification.” In 2010, Caldeira was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
When ships start sinking, every living thing on board tries to jump off to save themselves…
“Had I had a scientific criticism of my chapter team, you can be assured that I would have stayed involved. So, my resignation was a vote of confidence in my scientific peers, not a critique. It is just not clear to me that, at this point, working on IPCC chapters is the most effective use of my time.”
Bwaa ha ha ha!
What he said amounts to: “I have no criticism of the science or the scientists but I quit because the work is not worth doing.”
Nothing more need be said.
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I wonder whether the IPCC has considered the possibility that some of the scientists may, slowly over time, develop …. ethics.
It is worth hoping for and would devastate the ranks.
“Ken Caldeira is a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution, where his job is “to make important scientific discoveries.” ”
Can one important scientific discovery be attributed to Ken Caldeira?
Spoken like a true politician. …or was he supposed to be a scientist ? I forget ..remember, there was never supposed to be a blend of the 2, but this is what happens when you try and mix science with politics. The most trusted group of individuals in industry are scientists, and the least trusted are politicians ..Now we see how things turn out when you blend the two. When science has an agenda, politicians begin lying…and lie and lie and lie and lie..
luckily science can be replicated and the truth came out, and will all come out. Like I said when Climate-gate 1 broke, this will take 5 years to go through the system, so far, its only 2 years. The dust has yet to settle. Stay tuned for many more chapters…
Ian
My reply would be: if the work being done by others is so wonderful, why leave? I think that Ken has come to the conclusion that Richard Lindzen came to, that the IPCC is a tremendous waste of time for able scientists.
Rats also scurry to escape a sinking ship.
The writing is on the wall: HMS IPCC is sinking faster than the titanic. thanks in part to Donna Laframboise and her new book, as well as WUWT, Lord Monckton and many other skeptic bloggers… finally the lies of the unelected bureaucrats, unelected government institutions and unelected NGO’s are starting to backfire.
Soon Nobody with any sense will want to be associated with fraudulent CAGW
The credibility of anyone who uses the term “climate-science deniers” instantly drops to zero in my book. Caldiera’s just hit zero. Oh well!
The IPCC activity of comparing climate models is not scientific activity. Simply not science. So, it is a meaningless activity except for the illegitimate idea they have that climate models define global warming in combination with their two false hockeystick graphs for temperature and CO2.
There is no other area of science which has a political body tasked to survey it. As a political body, it is impossible for the IPCC not to politicize the findings, particularly as their mission is not to survey climate science but to specifically show the effects of global warming and its impacts—the constant assumption is and has to be that global warming is happening, regardless of the real world. To do otherwise would be to fail their mission. There is no other conclusion that the reports can report, it is their raison d’etre.
Look at them run for cover! They cannot recant what they have said and written about in the IPCC without admitting to academic fraud, they wanna keep their jobs, right? So they back away slowly…’Nothing to see here folks, everybody move along’….
One by one the dominoes topple…..
I particularly like how I assures everyone that the science is still settled and the IPCC is doing a great job, he just has more important things to do… like anything else.
I meant how HE assures everyone, Not me.
It makes sense. As Donna has shown the IPCC is for people without a PhD. Once one becomes a scientist there are better things to do than waste time writing useless chapters.
I believe that there is a strong possibility that the Cooling Signal evident in the last 10 to 15 years is likely cause for (Quiet) concern among the scientific community trying to convince us that AGW is a fact. It therefore seems likely that Mr Caldiera’s resignation is likely due to what could be viewed as His own “Concerns” that the cooling will continue and the next report IPCC AR5 will still indicate that the Models show Catastrophic Warming if Man doesn’t act to mitigate it. He likely doesn’t wish to have his name associated with just such a report.
Could you blame him???
“Clearly, at the outset, the early IPCC reports played an important role showing that there was a high degree of consensus around the reality and basic science of human-induced climate change.”
The basic science (I assume the radiative physics part) was never enough to understand the climate system and justify decisions for pre-emptive trillion dollar committments.
Generally not raccoons that desert a sinking ship!
Wow – so who’s he trying to convince here, us or himself?
I first came to believe Ken Caldeira was having doubts about some of the IPCC positions when I saw this video of him entitled “Does increased evaporation lead to global cooling?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUWsZJq_LQA
In the video he states that yes it does, putting him in opposition to the view of the IPCC.
This resignation statement was a bit like a sandwich.
A bit of a dig at the UN and the bureaucracy
A slap on the back for his colleagues
Another dig at the the ipcc
something for everyone, even a bit of ocean acidification
A case of cold feet …
Wow! The wheels are truly falling off.
It seems that alot of interesting things happen just after the last climate conference ends in failure.
I’m sure there is more to come.
Now if the news media would just pickup the stories involving the UNs REDD program. REDD has got to go.
“It is just not clear to me that, at this point, working on IPCC chapters is the most effective use of my time.”
Really? What could be more important than to save the planet from pending disaster? (Sarc)
“The danger posed by war to all of humanity – and to our planet – is at least matched by the climate crisis and global warming. I believe that t he world has reached a critical stage in its efforts to exercise responsible environmental stewardship.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
“I want to testify today about what I believe is a planetary emergency – a crisis that threatens the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth.”
Al Gore
AR4,5,6,7,8,9,10 … me thinks revisions are not good for those seeking consensus-building. They should’ve just stuck with the first version and learned from the fundamentalists in other religions. Never change a thing when you claim what is written is written by the Almighty!
While I remain confident that the ship is sound and robust and on the correct track, I just felt a need to go for a swim. Because of the unrelenting AGW heat of course.
As my statement confirms, I am still a worthy Team member and will be happy to accept contract work from the ship owners from my new island.